Sibel Edmonds suit thrown out by Bush minion

CBS News/ July 7, 2004

A federal judge threw out a lawsuit Tuesday by a whistle-blower who

alleged security lapses in the FBI's translator program, ruling that her

claims might expose government secrets that could damage national

security.

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said he was satisfied with claims

by Attorney General John Ashcroft and a senior FBI official that the

civil lawsuit by Sibel Edmonds could expose intelligence-gathering

methods and disrupt diplomatic relations with foreign governments.

The judge said he couldn't explain further because his explanation

itself would expose sensitive secrets.

Walton concluded that the case "must be dismissed, albeit with great

consternation, in the interests of national security," reports CBS News'

Kathy Mountcastle.

Edmonds, a former contract linguist for the FBI, said she will appeal

the ruling. She alleged in her lawsuit that she was fired in March 2002

after she complained to FBI managers about shoddy wiretap translations

and told them an interpreter with a relative at a foreign embassy might

have compromised national security.

Edmonds said the judge dismissed her lawsuit without hearing evidence

from her lawyers, although the government's lawyers met with Walton at

least twice privately. She noted that Walton, the judge, was appointed

by President Bush.

"This shows how the separation of power has basically disappeared,"

Edmonds said in a telephone interview. "The judge ruled on this case

without actually this ever being a case."

In his decision, Walton acknowledged that dismissing a lawsuit before

the facts of the case can be heard is "Draconian."

"Mindful of the need for virtual unfettered access to the judicial

process in a governmental system integrally linked to the rule of law,

the court nonetheless concludes that the government has properly invoked

the state secrets privilege," Walton ruled.

Edmonds' lawyer, Mark S. Zaid, called the decision "another example of

the executive branch's abuse of secrecy to prevent accountability."

"The judiciary seems to be unwilling to do anything but capitulate to

assertions of national security," Zaid said.

The Justice Department's inspector general is investigating whether the

FBI retaliated against Edmonds, who was subjected to a security review

after she raised allegations of security lapses. The bureau said

problems with Edmonds' performance were behind the dismissal.

The FBI translator program has played a significant role in interpreting

interviews and intercepts of Osama bin Laden's network since Sept. 11.

The bureau's translation work came under criticism in a staff report of

the Sept. 11 commission, which found that prior to the 2001 attacks,

"the FBI did not dedicate sufficient resources to the surveillance or

translation needs of counterterrorism agents."

"The FBI did not have a sufficient number of translators proficient in

Arabic and other languages useful in counterterrorism investigations,

resulting in a significant backlog of untranslated" wiretap information

"by early 2001."

Last month, a watchdog group sued Ashcroft for classifying previously

public documents pertaining to Edmond's case.

The lawsuit charged that reclassifying materials that had previously

been in the public domain is illegal and unconstitutional.

The suit was filed in federal court by the Washington-based Project on

Government Oversight, a nonprofit group that has been following the case.

Ashcroft told Senate Judiciary Committee members at a hearing earlier in

June that he took responsibility for the decision to classify the

Edmonds' information.

"The national interests of the United States would be seriously impaired

if information provided in one briefing to the Congress were to be made

generally available," he said.

The lawsuit said that Edmonds' case was discussed by the FBI during

unclassified Senate Judiciary Committee briefings in 2002. It said

letters urging the FBI to investigate her claims were posted on the Web

sites of Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.

Those letters have since been removed from the Web sites.

"This is an extraordinary and dangerous abuse of power by Ashcroft to

improperly use the classification system to hide information that the

Justice Department finds embarrassing," said Danielle Brian, executive

director of the project.

The group has been investigating Edmonds' allegations and wants to post

its findings on its Web site, but is barred from doing so now because of

the reclassification, Brian said.

Edmonds spoke with 60 Minutes Correspondent Ed Bradley in October 2002.

She claimed that from the day she began her job shortly after Sept. 11,

she was told repeatedly by one of her supervisors that there was no

urgency — that she should take longer to translate documents so that the

department would appear overworked and understaffed. That way, it would

receive a larger budget for the next year.

She also claimed that a Turkish translator at the FBI, Jan Dickerson,

tried to recruit Edmonds into an organization being investigated by the

FBI's own counter-intelligence unit, and threatened Edmonds when Edmonds

sought to translate wiretaps of a Turkish official.

Edmonds claims Dickerson left important information out of her

translations. Edmonds claims that when she brought this to her

supervisor's attention, the supervisor threatened to investigate Edmonds.

Edmonds was subsequently fired. Dickerson moved to Belgium and did not

speak to 60 Minutes.

The FBI has admitted that when Dickerson was hired the bureau didn't

know that she had worked for the Turkish organization under scrutiny.

They also didn't know she'd had a relationship with the Turkish

intelligence officer stationed in Washington who was the target of that

investigation and the wiretaps.

The FBI conceded has also that on at least two occasions, Dickerson had,

in fact, left out significant information from her translations. They

say it was due to a lack of experience and was not malicious.