Sibel Edmonds’ case comes to a halt

November 28, 2005

It’s a shame Sibel Edmonds’ concerns never really generated the national attention they deserved, but it’s an even bigger shame that her lawsuit won’t be considered.

As a quick refresher, Edmonds is a former FBI translator who was fired because she complained about inadequate translation procedures at the agency, which she believes contributed to the government being unprepared on 9/11. Edmonds has repeatedly explained that the attacks could have been prevented, were it not for agency incompetence and foot-dragging.

Sifting through old classified materials in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, FBI translator Sibel Edmonds said, she made an alarming discovery: Intercepts relevant to the terrorist plot, including references to skyscrapers, had been overlooked because they were badly translated into English.

Edmonds, 34, who is fluent in Turkish and Farsi, said she quickly reported the mistake to an FBI superior. Five months later, after flagging what she said were several other security lapses in her division, she was fired.

Edmonds sued and John Ashcroft and the Justice Department responded by doing everything possible to keep her claims hidden from public view, including retroactively classifying everything that has to do with her case, even basic facts that have been posted on websites and discussed openly in meetings with members of Congress.

In court, Ashcroft invoked the rarely used “state secrets privilege” to say that Edmonds’ lawsuit shouldn’t even be heard, arguing that her suit could undermine national security. A U.S. appeals court, in a three-paragraph judgment, upheld the dismissal. And today, the U.S. Supreme Court let the case die.

The U.S. Supreme Court let stand on Monday the dismissal of a lawsuit by a former FBI linguist who said she had been fired in 2002 for speaking out about possible security breaches, misconduct and incompetent translation work.

Without any comment, the justices rejected an appeal by Sibel Edmonds, who worked as a contract linguist at the FBI’s Washington field office from shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks until her dismissal the following March. […]

In appealing to the Supreme Court, attorneys for Edmonds described her as a whistle blower. They said the justices should clarify the proper scope and application of the state secrets privilege.

They also argued that the appeals court violated the First Amendment when it excluded the press and the public from the arguments in the case in April, without any specific findings that secrecy was necessary.

It’s a shame; Edmonds deserved to be heard.

I know we’re no longer supposed to craft analogies with Hitler’s or Stalin’s government, but when we trash the separation of powers the way we’ve been doing, there’s not much else to go on. Too few know anything about the Star Chamber; victims of the Inquisition, unlike those of the Bush Crime Family, actually did have a number of rights. It is a shame. A crying shame.

  • It is always impossible to tell from a distance, thru the filter of journalistic narrative, whether a person like Sibel Edmonds is a nut.

    I would like to think that a careful, judicious examination of evidence would allow a judge to make such a determination in short order, but I know that that is not always the case. I wish Ashcroft was not an authoritarian jerk, and that secrecy was not such a potent political and, now, judicial weapon.

  • CB, do you know whether Edmonds was interviewed by the staff of the 911 Commission, or maybe even testified before it? If so, what was the Commission’s take on her accusations? If not, it would seem it is time for her to “go public” with op-eds, with Sen. Carl Levin and Rep. Conyers, and with the (now) ad-hoc members of the 911 Commission that have been damning the failures of BushCo to adequately apply the lessons of the incompetence and wrong-headed foreign policy debacles that permitted 911 to even occur in the first place.

    Specifically with reference to this lawsuit, it’s just one more example of BushCo being allowed to operate in secret by merely invoking some magic words regarding the “procedure” of a case rather than on the “merits” and “substance” of the underlying cause. Seems the same strategy has effectively been used by Bush on a whole host of fronts, all reducing and/or eliminating our basic constitutional liberties while continuing to allow the government to operate in secret. And this SCOTUS, after having enthroned this modern-day King George, seems only too happy to let his continue his imperious and serious diminution of any effective oversight or limitation on his consolidation in himself of almost all the power of all three branches of government…all in the so-called “Globsl War on Terror.”

    I’m reminded again (an almost daily experience) of Ben Franklin’s admonition that those who would give up liberty for security deserve neither. That seems to be where we are today, with even fewer lberties taht we think we have (have you been the subject of a National Security Letter issued by the FBI? How would you know?) Democracy dies when it operates in secret; we have instead a form of tyranny, which looks more and more like what Putan is doing in the former member states of the old Soviet Union, especially Russia and Chechnya.

    And you’re right, CB, Edmonds’ case deserved a whole lot more coverage by our CCCP, but then so did Bunnatine Greenhouse and all of the other honest and ethical and competent government employees that have been fired, demoted, held back, or otherwise scapegoated for telling the ugly but important-for-the-public-to-know outrages committed daily by the BFEE (Bush Family Evil Empire).

  • Can she write a book?

    I’d like to know if it’s possible to pinpoint the exact moment that the Bush Administration converted to facism. No dissent, no criticism, secret meetings, withholding documents from Congress and the public, electronic spying on U.S. citizens, prisoners held without charges or contact with the outside world, torture… and the beat goes on. Is this the “Enduring Freedom” we’re so proud of spreading across the globe? Doesn’t sound much different than Saddam’s Iraq to me.

    In honor of AL’s return to this site: Lying.Fucking.Bastards.

  • “I’d like to know if it’s possible to pinpoint the exact moment that the Bush Administration converted to facism.”

    That would be January 19, 2001.

  • Just another example of the quashing of vital information by this administration. What are they trying to hide? Incompetence? Complicity? Worse?

  • Yes, Ms. Edmonds did testify before the 9/11 Commission.
    There is a fabulous article about her in the October Issue of Vanity Fair that tells her story (as much as it can without her being gagged). I highly recommend you check it out.

    Ms. Edmonds is not crazy, she comes from a family with a history of standing up as you’ll read if you check out the VF article.

    Why in the world would we gag someone who is only trying to keep us safe? Ask yourselves that.

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