"Edmonds, a Turkish-American who is not a practicing Muslim, made the allegations last month in a 9-page letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee."
The FBI not only didn't discipline, but PROMOTED the offender, who should be called a saboteur -- he actually deleted people's work to slow them down. From the Sperry article (see link in my post 1):
"Despite the backlog, Feghali told Edmonds and other translators to just let the work pile higher, according to Edmonds. Why? Money. She says Feghali, who has recruited family and friends to work with him at the high-paying language unit, argued that Congress would approve an even bigger budget for it if they could continue to show big backlogs.
"We were told to take long breaks, to slow down translations, and to simply say 'no' to those field agents calling us to beg for speedy translations so that they could go on with their investigations and interrogations of those they had detained," said Edmonds, who was fired without specified cause by the FBI after she reported breaches in security, mistranslations and potential espionage by Middle Eastern colleagues.
She claims Feghali actually tampered with her work to slow her down.
"My supervisor went as far as getting into my work computer and deleting almost completed work so that I had to go back and start all over again," she said.
Edmonds, a Turkish-American who is not a practicing Muslim, made the allegations last month in a 9-page letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
She also claims that Feghali threatened to sue the bureau for racial discrimination, but dropped the suit once the bureau promoted him, says Edmonds and other sources. The FBI, which like the army suffers from a severe shortage of Arabic translators, instated a bureau-wide Muslim-sensitivity training program after 9-11."
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2002 WWW.USDOJ.GOV |
AG (202) 616-2777 TDD (202) 514-1888 |
STATEMENT OF BARBARA COMSTOCK, DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGARDING TODAYS FILING IN SIBEL EDMONDS V. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE:
To prevent disclosure of certain classified and sensitive national security information, Attorney General Ashcroft today asserted the state secrets privilege in Sibel Edmonds v. Department of Justice. This assertion was made at the request of FBI Director Robert Mueller in papers filed today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The Department of Justice also filed a motion to dismiss the case, because the litigation creates substantial risks of disclosing classified and sensitive national security information that could cause serious damage to our countrys security.
The state secrets privilege is well-established in federal law. It has been recognized by U.S. courts as far back as the 19th century, and allows the Executive Branch to safeguard vital information regarding the nations security or diplomatic relations. In the past, this privilege has been applied many times to protect our nations secrets from disclosure, and to require dismissal of cases when other litigation mechanisms would be inadequate. It is an absolute privilege that renders the information unavailable in litigation.
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