Review of FBI's Actions in Connection With Allegations by Sibel Edmonds

[seemslikeadream]

A Review of the FBI's Actions in Connection With Allegations Raised By Contract Linguist Sibel Edmonds
U.S. Department of Justice
Office of the Inspector General
UNCLASSIFIED SUMMARY

Office of the Inspector General
Office of Oversight and Review

January 2005

I. INTRODUCTION
This report describes the Office of the Inspector General's (OIG) investigation of allegations raised by Sibel Edmonds, a former Contract Linguist (CL) for the Federal Bureau ofInvestigation (FBI). Edmonds worked for the FBI from September 20, 2001, until March 2002, when her services as a CL for the FBI were terminated. Before that termination, she had raised a series of allegations regarding the FBI's CL program, including security concerns about actions by a co-worker related to potential espionage.

...

IX. CONCLUSION
The majority of the allegations raised by Edmonds related to the actions of a co-worker. The allegations raised serious concerns that, if true, could potentially have extremely damaging consequences for the FBI. These allegations warranted a thorough and careful review by the FBI.

Our investigation concluded that the FBI did not, and still has not, adequately investigated these allegations. Our review also found that many - although not all - of Edmonds' allegations about the co-worker had some basis in fact. This evidence does not prove, and we are not suggesting, that there is sufficient evidence to conclude that espionage or any improper disclosures of FBI information occurred. However, we believe the FBI should have taken Edmonds' allegations more seriously and investigated them more thoroughly. As discussed in this report, the FBI's investigation of the information regarding the co-worker was significantly flawed. Had the FBI investigated the claims thoroughly, it would have found that many of Edmonds' allegations regarding the co-worker were supported by documentary evidence or other witnesses. Instead, the FBI seems to have discounted Edmonds' allegations, believing she was a disruptive influence and not credible, and eventually terminated her services. Even now, the FBI has not carefully investigated the allegations about the co-worker to determine if the co-worker compromised any FBI information. In light of the need for FBI vigilance about security issues, as demonstrated by the Hanssen case, we believe the FBI should have investigated these serious allegations more thoroughly.

Edmonds also alleged that the FBI retaliated against her by terminating her services as a CL. We concluded that Edmonds' allegations were at least a contributing factor in why the FBI terminated her services. We recognize that the FBI Whistle blower regulations do not apply to Edmonds because she was a contractor rather than an FBI employee. We also recognize that her varied and insistent allegations of misconduct may have been frustrating, and that not all of her allegations were true. However, many of her allegations had a basis in fact, and the way the FBI responded to her allegations contributed to her persistent claims. Moreover, we believe the FBI should not discourage employees or contractors from raising good-faith allegations of misconduct or mismanagement and the FBI's termination of Edmonds' services may discourage others from raising such concerns.

more
http://www.allamericanpatriots.com/m-news+article+storyid-4742.html

Statement By The FBI Regarding The Office Of Inspector General’s Report, “A Review Of The FBI’s Actions In Connection With Allegations Raised By Contract Linguist Sibel Edmonds”
http://www.allamericanpatriots.com/m-news+article+storyid-4741-PHPSESSID-55e06578bb01d1cf3e0f9aa835c6bc58.html

[seemslikeadream]

1. Sibel Edmonds

Michael Chertoff and the sabotage of the Ptech investigation

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2951935


Indira Singh/PTech deep moles in FAA help accomplish 9/11! WTF??

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2203166

State Dept. Quashed 9/11 Links To Global Drug Trade

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=610235&mesg_id=610235

Explosive new Sibel Edmonds interview

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=1555133&mesg_id=1555133

DOJ Asked FBI Translator To Change Pre 9-11 Intercepts

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=442067&mesg_id=442067

[Octafish]

2. Isn't this, like, important? Treason or somethin'?

New Vindication for FBI Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds

WASHINGTON -- January 14 -- The Department of Justice Inspector General has released an unclassified version of its report on allegations made by FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds. The report confirms that Ms. Edmonds' allegations had merit and deserved further investigation. It also lends weight to the argument made by open government groups that Attorney General John Ashcroft invoked the rarely-used state secrets privilege to hide FBI failures rather than protect national security secrets. The report can be viewed here: http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/igspecr1.htm

Later this month, the Project On Government Oversight, the National Security Archive, the Government Accountability Project, and organizations representing familities of survivors of the 9/11 attacks will submit an amicus brief with the District Court of Appeals asking that the state secrets priviliege be lifted over Ms. Edmonds' case. Representatives of these groups will be available for interview at a noon news conference at the National Press Club on Wednesday, January 26.

American Civil Liberties Union filed a legal brief on behalf of Ms. Edmonds on January 12. To learn more, view their release here: http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=17301&c=206

Associated Press filed this story earlier today: http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-attacks-fbi-translators,0,4976697.
story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines

POGO investigates, exposes, and seeks to remedy systemic abuses of power, mismanagement, and subservience by the federal government to powerful special interests. Founded in 1981, POGO is a politically-independent, nonprofit watchdog that strives to promote a government that is accountable to the citizenry.

SOURCE: http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/0114-11.htm

[seemslikeadream]

4. or somethin'?

[Octafish]

6. I wanna go to the inaugural ball, too.

Ain't the Internet grand?



I've got some big news for them. Really big.

Remember Edmonds said she found evidence of "big names" being involved in drug trafficking, money laundering and other nefarious activities, like, say, terrorism against Americans. So, for whom does the FBI work?

THE PEOPLE vs. GEORGE BUSH

The Bush Machine And The Drug Cartel

George Bush's Drugging Of America: How It Was Accomplished

George Bush's Phone Number Found In Drug Smuggler's Trunk

Affidavit of Sam Dalton

Affidavit of Gene Tatum

Justice Department Memorandum
Identifies George Bush As Drug Trafficker

Cover Page   Page  One     Page Two Page Three  Page Four

KingPin Indictment Of George Bush

Conclusion

SOURCE w/ niiice links:

http://www.wethepeople.la/ciadrugs.htm

[gandalf]

8. Hi Octafish, you know, only rich people can come... really rich...

The 40 millions $ have to be gathered somehow.

The taxpayers will pay for the security of the coronation.

I'm glad we still don't have a king in Germany (unless you say we are a US overseas province anyway).

[Octafish]

16. Wie geht's, gandalf?

Aren't we lucky? The Chimperror is not cheap.

In addition to taxpayers financing security, we pay for all the military brass that used on-duty time to pack the grandstands behind the crazy monkey. And the parade and the stage show cost a huge amount of money.

Then there are the corporations, ultra-rich folk, and TV preaching nutjobs who paid big bucks for access and hosting all the parties. Of course, that cost is passed on to the consumers.

PS: I'd love for Deutschland to be the 51st state. Many from my wife's side of the family come from your wonderful country.

[seemslikeadream]

13. Shred the Constitution, Win a Promotion

Shred the Constitution, Win a Promotion
On Michael Chertoff, the new Bush nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security

by Geov Parrish

Argh! Another one. The Bush Administration has done it again.
It has nominated to yet another high position a key player in the War On Terror whose actions are described, in a conspiracy of media buzzwords across the land, as "controversial."

What, in the case of Michael Chertoff, new nominee to oversee the Homeland Security Department after the meltdown of Bernard Kerik's nomination, does "controversial" mean?

It means that as a senior Justice Department official in the weeks after 9/11, Chertoff was responsible for the dubious practice of rounding up several hundred non-citizens on minor immigration violations, holding them in prison incommunicado for an average of three months. It meant that these people were plunged into the American gulag pending a policy, initiated by Chertoff, of "hold until clear" – meaning, basically, that the presumption of innocent until proven guilty was stood on its head, and detainees imprisoned until they were proven innocent. It means that Chertoff, as an aggressive proponent of the USA PATRIOT Act, helped set up the newly authorized surveillance networks that need not rely on a targeted individual being suspected of any crime.

"Controversial," in the Bush lexicon, means that the person in question has done their best to shred the constitution and its protection of civil liberties. That, and unquestioned fealty to the president, seem to be the two main qualifications for promotion in Bush's second term.

Virtually every "controversial" aspect of the War On Terror now features someone who's been promoted for their misdeeds. Previous to Chertoff, the poster child for this has been Alberto Gonzales, promoted from White House counsel to the nation's highest law enforcement post, U.S. Attorney General. Gonzales is almost certain to be confirmed by the Senate despite his role in defining "torture" so narrowly, in legal terms, as to allow torture at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and almost every other prison associated with military intelligence gathering around the world. At least five and up to 28 confirmed deaths of detainees are believed by the Pentagon to have been caused by aggressive policies Gonzales did not define as torture. Remember this when you hear Gonzales', and Bush's, ringing denunciations of torture.
more
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0115-22.htm

[Minstrel Boy]

3. Coincidentalists like to pretend Sibel Edmonds doesn't exist.

Because if she exists, then 9/11 is no coincidence.

They have nothing to say about her, nor the DOJ's extraordinary State Secrets Privilege gag order on her classified testimony. They might wave the Kean Report as the "final word," but it doesn't have one word to say about Sibel Edmonds.


Groups support FBI whistleblower's appeal

Jan 19

A coalition of nonprofit groups asked a federal appeals court Wednesday to give FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds her day in court.

The coalition filed an amicus brief supporting Edmonds' appeal of a federal district court's ruling last July that dismissed her lawsuit.

The brief was filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. It comes less than a week after the Justice Department's inspector general issued a summary report concluding that the FBI failed to properly investigate charges made by Edmonds that there were security breaches, mismanagement and possible espionage within the FBI's translation unit in late 2001 and early 2002. The report also concluded that the FBI fired Edmonds mainly for bringing forth the accusations.

...

Edmonds was fired in March 2002 for "disruptive" behavior. Attorney General John Ashcroft asserted "state secrets privilege" over Edmonds, saying that information about her case would cause serious damage to the security and foreign policy interests of the United States if publicly disclosed. The gag order on Edmonds remains in effect.

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0105/011905c1.htm

[seemslikeadream]

7. "clusters of coincidences'' 9/11 pure coincidences

WTC targetted on four FEMA book covers - 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/coincidences.html

[RBHam]

5. You'll be surprised by the depths of denial...

About Ms. Edmonds...

Her testimony blows apart the "Incompetence Theory"...

They have no answer...

So they don't even try to address it...

Complicity through silence...

on edit: sp.

[G_j]

9. thanks

a very important development. It would be nice to see this eventually lead to prosecutions, especially for Ashcroft, but I know better than to be optimistic about such things.

[G_j]

10. Public Citizen Joins Other Open Government Groups in Filing Amicus Brief

Public Citizen Press Releases
Providing the latest information about Public Citizen activities
-------------------------------------------

Jan. 19, 2005

Court Should Lift Shroud of Secrecy Over Documents, Reinstate Case of
Fired FBI Agent

Public Citizen Joins Other Open Government Groups in Filing Amicus
Brief; Government Classified Documents to Hide FBI Failures Rather Than
Protect National Security Secrets, Groups Say

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Public Citizen today filed a "friend of the court"
brief urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
Circuit to reinstate the case of former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds,
who was fired after reporting to superiors numerous instances of
wrongdoing in her unit.

Edmonds challenged her retaliatory dismissal by filing suit in federal
court. However, her case was dismissed in July 2004 when Attorney
General John Ashcroft invoked the "state secrets privilege" to halt the
litigation - a common law evidentiary privilege that allows the
government to withhold information on the grounds that it could
compromise national security.

Edmonds appealed the dismissal of her case. The American Civil
Liberties Union is representing Edmonds in the appeal, with the Project
on Government Oversight, the National Security Archive, the Government
Accountability Project, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and
9/11 family organizations among those joining Public Citizen in filing
the amicus brief.

In their brief, the groups said that the U.S. Department of Justice
(DOJ) overreached in claiming that the entire case had to be dismissed.
They also say that the district court erred by failing to scrutinize the
basis of the government's privilege claim and determine whether an
accommodation was possible that would have permitted Edmonds to prove
her case without compromising national security information.

Further, the timing and breadth of the government's privilege claim
suggest that it was used as a litigation tactic to deprive Edmonds of
her day in court, rather than to protect legitimate secrets, the public
interest groups also assert. The privilege was also used to stop Edmonds
from testifying in a case brought by the families of those killed on
Sept. 11, 2001, against Saudi individuals and others who allegedly
financed al Qaeda.

The groups point out that much of the information that the government
claims is secret was released to Congress and the public before the
government asserted the state secrets privilege, a fact the district
court brushed aside.

"Courts must vigilantly police privilege claims to ensure that the
executive branch is not overreaching," said Michael Kirkpatrick, a
lawyer with Public Citizen who wrote the amicus brief. "Not only does
the misuse of the state secrets privilege unfairly deprive Ms. Edmonds
of her day in court, but it also sets off a wave of unnecessary secrecy
that denies the public access to information about the events of 9/11."

Oral argument in Edmonds' case is set for April 21, 2005. A recently
released DOJ Inspector General report confirms that Edmonds' allegations
had merit and deserve further investigation. It also lends weight to the
argument that Ashcroft invoked the rarely used state secrets privilege
to hide FBI failures rather than protect national security secrets.

To read the amicus brief, visit
http://www.citizen.org/documents/edmondsamicus.pdf.

[seemslikeadream]

11. Thanks G_j 9/11 relatives sue bank in terror attacks - Riggs

Islander joins action accusing Washington's Riggs National Bank of aiding al-Qaida backers
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
By TERENCE J. KIVLAN

WASHINGTON -- Lawyers for Sept. 11 families suing the Saudis have filed a related class-action legal action accusing a major bank here of aiding financial backers of the al-Qaida terrorist group through negligence.

The bank, Riggs National Bank, was fined $25 million in May for failing to properly monitor millions of dollars in Saudi financial transactions, including withdrawals now being investigated for possible connections to terrorism.

The suit charged that Riggs officials "impeded the battle against terrorism and substantially contributed to the terrorists being permitted to evade detection."

Riggs has been under investigation since regulators reportedly traced the "charitable contributions" to the hijackers two years ago. Since then investigators have discovered tens of millions of dollars in questionable transactions at Riggs by Saudi diplomats.

more
http://www.silive.com/news/advance/index.ssf?/base/news...

[gandalf]

12. Here is a more "neutral" link to the report

http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/oig/sedmonds.htmt, the site of the Federation of American Scientists.

[spanone]

18. Link does not work.

[Minstrel Boy]

14. Good to see this back on the front page.

It should stay here until all the posters on the "Jenna is hot" thread get a chance to digest it.

[G_j]

15. LOL, agreed n/t

[seemslikeadream]

17. PTECH, 9/11, and USA-SAUDI TERROR - Part I

PROMIS Connections to Cheney Control of
9/11 Attacks Confirmed

by

Jamey Hecht

With research assistance by Michael Kane
and editorial comment by Michael C. Ruppert

© Copyright 2005, From The Wilderness Publications, www.fromthewilderness.com. All Rights Reserved. This story may NOT be posted on any Internet web site without express written permission. Contact [e-mail]. May be circulated, distributed or transmitted for non-profit purposes only.


In the long ordeal to secure a publisher for Crossing the Rubicon, my agent and I went through a number of publishers who expressed keen interest in the book. The problem was that almost every one we dealt with came back to us and said, "We'd like to publish the book but we need for you to remove certain things." By a great margin, it was our chapter on PROMIS and my many subsequent references to it that appeared to be public enemy number one for mainstream publishers (most owned by multi-national corporations).

By definition, PROMIS progeny are the backbone of a current DoD plan to develop a "Godlike" view of all human (or battlefield) activity from space. They are also inherently a part of the data processing being envisioned for advanced space weapons requiring machines to think as they share data in virtual real time. MIT in a recent scientific publication titled "Space Weapons: Crossing the US Rubicon"(a possible tip of the hat to my book) described a number of capabilities to which FTW referred in our October 2000 story on PROMIS, including a statement that space is "the ultimate high ground."

The MIT article also contains a reference to one of the greatest fears expressed by all who wonder what hidden technologies might be making the Neocons so brazen in their attempts at bullying the world into submission: "On the other hand, the prospect of weapons in orbit-poised to strike anywhere on the globe at any time-has elicited vigorous opposition, both in the United States and abroad."45 The Neocons have placed their faith in technologies we have only begun to evaluate and discuss, and this is an area needing much additional research by authentic journalists.

Iran is a much more industrialized and automated nation than the ruin and rubble of Iraq. What if Donald Rumsfeld believed that he could use computers through the Internet to turn off all of the power generating stations supplying Tehran? What if Dick Cheney could shut down all of the computerized pumping, pipeline, refining and chemical technology used to keep Iran's oil flowing to the rest of the world? This is how the American, British and Israeli elites (including corporations) think and how they plan.

All three countries have long, deep and continuous links to PROMIS software. As time passes it is beginning to appear that PROMIS is literally what made possible not only 9/11, but everything that has followed since and what is being planned.

Recently the New York Times published a story about how the US military was envisioning a costly new "Internet" in space to control all military operations worldwide, calling it a "God's-eye view" of battle. Called Global Information Grid or GIG, this new platform performs the exact functions we described in an FTW article more than four years ago. Then we were called delusional conspiracy theorists. Four years later we are shown to have been right on the money.

Giant, expensive technology programs like SDI and GIG are sometimes neither wasteful porkbarrels nor the actual instruments that are presented to the public; instead, they are some third thing nobody knows about. This is the way large black projects are funded.

Total Information Awareness or TIA, an Orwellian nightmare of data mining that uses PROMIS-evolved technologies and artificial intelligence, is now operating and able to incorporate vastly divergent data bases of personal information on private citizens from computer systems using different languages in near-real-time. Every bit of personal information from grocery shopping habits to driving records, credit reports, credit card transactions and medical records is now almost instantly accessible. Access will be expedited and broadened to local law enforcement agencies when what will become a national ID card comes into being. That will happen as driver's licenses are standardized nationwide (following the recent intelligence reform act) to include a simple UPC-like code that will allow approved agencies to get all of our data. The surveillance and intervention capabilities of PROMIS progeny can now be used to prohibit a credit card purchase or (soon) prevent someone from boarding a commercial aircraft. These capabilities could also be used to empty a private bank account or - when coupled with biometric face recognition technology - prevent you from making a withdrawal from your bank or even buying food.

In every one of these software applications there are two themes: machines that "talk" to each other and artificial intelligence. (Please see Crossing the Rubicon.) As you will see below these capabilities are now known to exist.

TIA has been renamed several times. We know that the first software was delivered to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in 2003. Its latest nom de guerre is TIE or Trusted Information Environment. According to the San Francisco Chronicle last October TIE now allows the government to access private databases without a warrant. I go one step further to assert that TIE allows access to private databases without the knowledge of the database owners, provided only one condition exists: the database can be accessed through the internet.

And although the public face of TIA pretends that these technologies have not yet been applied, we are certain with the publication of this story that the same software the government needs is already in use by private corporations - the big ones - and we remind the reader that FTW's map of the world states that the government has been turned into a franchise operation of these corporations anyway. So where's the seam?

What the courageous and brilliant Indira Singh has to tell us is a matter of monumental importance. Based upon these new revelations which confirm what I suggested in Crossing the Rubicon every American and quite likely every citizen of an industrialized nation should assume that all of these technologies are operational today. A bit of breathing room is left as I conclude that they have not been sufficiently deployed yet to monitor all citizens in real time. My best assumption is that right now perhaps a million or so high-interest Americans are under constant surveillance; all by computer technology which has proven so accurate that it can detect suspicious movements just by correlating gasoline and food purchases with bank withdrawals and utility consumption. <--MCR>

FTW readers are aware that on the morning of 9/11 NORAD was engaged in multiple war games which drew fighter jets away from the doomed airliners, and polluted air traffic control screens with false information from the exercises. One of those injected blips was the so-called "phantom Flight 11," which appeared and persisted on control screens after the war games had been aborted.1 That would require exactly the kind of technology that Ptech (with whom Singh did business) and its partner Mitre had been providing to each of the three agencies involved: the FAA, NORAD, and - most significantly for Dick Cheney that morning - the Secret Service. In other words, one of the most central arguments in the Rubicon's case has just been independently validated. (See Part II)

In this electrifying timeline-driven report, Wall Street whistleblower Indira Singh lays out the connections between the providers of this advanced software (derived from the PROMIS software stolen from the Inslaw corporation in the 1980s by the US Justice Department and others) and the network of terrorist financing (sustained with US blessing) that has pervaded U.S covert operations for years. That deep-political relationship is at its strongest in the Bush administration, whose Saudi and Pakistani ties go back decades.

Dick Cheney, James Baker, GHWB, Dubya, and the people in and around the once and future American ruling junta have financially live links to the Muslim Brotherhood milieu that formed part of BCCI and, more recently, al Qaeda (this is also the context of a fascinatingly influential relationship among Kermit Roosevelt, GHWB, and Adnan Khashoggi). Nazis and their admirers are the third piece in the triangle, connected to Islamists since the Muslim Brotherhood's creation in 1928 by Hitler ally Hasam al-Banna, and connected to the Bush clan through decades of interdependence with American oil and intelligence elites - including the Rockefellers (Standard Oil) and the Harrimans (Brown Bros. Harriman / Kellogg Brown and Root / Halliburton).2

Viewed in this context, the Ptech story is a chilling reminder that this network is still in charge; that it facilitated the 9/11 attacks that murdered thousands and destroyed the health of thousands more; and that "our" American defenses against sabotage are woefully dependent upon the goodwill of saboteurs (both foreign and domestic). - JAH]
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/012005_ptech_pt1_summary.shtml