Classified Woman (20 page)
Authors: Sibel Edmonds
D
espite all the back-to-back blows that my case and I had suffered, I was more than ever resolved to continue on. If government orders were intended to keep me gagged and classified, Walton’s ruling had quite the opposite effect on me. I must have appeared like one of those boxers who kept being knocked down and bloodied in the ring, yet each time grabbing the ropes, forcing himself to his feet and continuing to throw little punches in the air. I refused to stay down, I refused to go away. I rejected the acceptance of defeat.
On July 23, 2004, the widely anticipated 9/11 Commission Report came out. The commission decided to release it first in DC before making it available in bookstores nationwide. So I went downtown and stood in line for an hour, then spent the rest of that day and night devouring its contents. First, however, I checked the index for my testimony as well as the testimonies of national security experts and whistleblowers such as Sarshar, Dick Stoltz and Gil Graham.
The commission had reduced my entire testimony to a short footnote, number 25 in chapter three. It read only, “refer to the Justice Department Inspector General Report.” How convenient is that? The entire IG report was classified. There was no mention whatsoever of Sarshar’s report; so, according to this Commission Report, there was no Iranian informant, since he never appears anywhere its findings. (Interestingly, though, the
Chicago Tribune
had just run an article on Sarshar’s case: when the Tribune reporter contacted the FBI director’s office for confirmation, he was told, “Director Mueller was surprised that the commission never raised this particular issue with him during the hearing”! The FBI confirmed Sarshar’s report and the Tribune ran the article as substantiated.)
According to the commission chairman, they had seen “every single document” and interviewed “every single relevant witness and authority.” Thus to its members, this report was a resounding success: almost nothing had been redacted, classified or glossed over. Given the administration’s renown for secrecy, this was puzzling if not downright suspect, and more than a little curious.
I know what I testified to in my three-plus-hour briefing, which was taped. The Commission Report mentions nothing, for instance, about “intentionally blocked translations by certain Middle Eastern translators, who also breached FBI security, as confirmed by the Senate Judiciary”; nothing regarding “adamant resistance to investigations of certain terrorist and criminal activities, refusing to transfer them to Counterterrorism from existing Counterintelligence investigations, solely based on the vague notion of protecting certain foreign relations”; nothing about “continued efforts to cover up certain highly specific information received prior to September 11, even now, years after nine eleven”; nothing about “knowingly allowing certain individuals—directly or indirectly related to terrorist activities—to leave the United States months after nine eleven without any interrogation and per the State Department’s request.” Why not? Didn’t the commissioners consider any of that testimony “relevant”?
Nevertheless, all parties and all agencies readily accepted this report. Apparently, the president himself considered it “rosy”; the previous administration sighed with relief (having scored a minus 4, compared to this administration’s minus 6 in the blame game); and the notorious attorney general, Ashcroft, left his state secrets guns in their holsters. All very puzzling and curious indeed, to see such a report, blessed by all those entrusted with our nation’s security, so violently breached on their watch.
The whole point of the 9/11 Commission was to get all the facts, establish accountability for those who failed us due to their intentional or unintentional acts, and provide recommendations for real fixes and meaningful remedies. The commission had fulfilled none of those objectives. Entrusted by the 9/11 family members and their public supporters to report all the facts, the commissioners either refused to interview all relevant experts and witnesses or they censored the reports provided them by those with direct and firsthand information. Any way you look at it, both these acts are selective and intentional. Contrary to their pledge to establish accountability, the 9/11 commissioners refused to hold anyone accountable and lamely justified that by saying, “We don’t want to point a finger at anyone.” All those responsible remained in their positions or were promoted. As far as meaningful remedies and real reforms are concerned, the commission threw in senseless—and in some cases, detrimental—cosmetic and bureaucratic “solutions” that ended up making our government even more cumbersome and unable to respond to threats to national security. In the name of solutions and reforms, they forced down our throats exactly what led to the failure to protect our nation on 9/11: a highly bureaucratic, inefficient behemoth of malfunction—a dangerous machine.
So. I decided to write a comprehensive letter, to go on record with specific facts contradicting the 9/11 Commission Report’s claims. The few people I spoke with warned me against doing that. This included my interim attorney and the directors of several government watchdog organizations. Their reasoning goes as follows. “The American media is in love with the commission and the report; everyone is praising it as the best thing since sliced bread. You will be the only person in the country to come out and criticize the widely adored commissioners and their report. They will lynch you with counterattacks.” Not a single person was willing to support my stand. Ironically, in private, they said they agreed with me and that they found the commissioners’ conclusions and recommendations a joke, but no one wanted to stick his or her neck out and express this in public. They were afraid.
I contacted the Jersey Moms. They were not happy with the report and felt terribly let down. Yet they were exhausted and discouraged, and they too didn’t want to be the first ones out against the popular commissioners.
Nobody wanted to be the first vocal critic, to go against the popular tide. This was a major dilemma. I wrestled with the decision: Do what I strongly believe to be right, or go with the flow and stay away from controversy? I decided on the former. On July 31, I sat down and composed a nine-page letter to the commission’s chairman, Thomas Kean. Once finished, I faxed and e-mailed the letter to each commissioner. Afterwards, I sent the letter out to every media, forum and blog I could think of. I disseminated the letter as widely as I could, then sat, buckled up, and waited for the attacks to begin. Here I was again—blowing the whistle in the line of fire!
In less than twenty-four hours, many major blogs, online publications and forums, nationally and internationally, picked up and published my nine-page letter to the 9/11 Commission. One major publication,
Asia Times
, published the entire letter. Though the mainstream media here in the States chose to completely ignore the letter and its galvanizing effect on grassroots activists, online media and forums, my telephone rang nonstop for weeks. Alternative radio and international publications were calling for interviews to discuss the letter.
Contrary to what I was told by so-called experts prior to releasing it, almost all coverage and every response to my letter was positive and supportive. Within days, I began to get e-mails from dozens of veteran experts from government intelligence, aviation and law enforcement communities. These patriots too had tried to provide the commission with evidence and reports related to the 9/11 attacks and had met with similar results: their testimonies had been refused or completely censored and omitted. Unlike me, whose tenure with the bureau was brief, these individuals each had served (or were still serving) these agencies for years—and many of them held high-level positions. They included several FBI counterterrorism agents, as well as experts from the former Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), all of whom had incredible stories to tell. The commissioners weren’t interested; they hadn’t the time or the resources, they said.
Within a week after sending out my letter to the 9/11 Commission, I had gathered a group of about twenty national security experts who had come forward to report security-related incompetence, wrongdoing, cover-ups or even, in some cases, criminal conduct. I created a separate e-mail list for our group and added to the list the other FBI veterans I had met the previous year, such as Gilbert Graham, Dr. Frederic White-hurst (the first FBI whistleblower I’d ever met, who warned me my case would take years), and Manny Johnson. This list, this group, became what people began to refer to as Sibel’s National Security Whistleblowers Coalition.
At the time I had no idea what this group could accomplish with their unity, solid reputations, expertise and, most importantly, their desire to bring about real and meaningful reforms within their diverse communities. I didn’t yet know how to best utilize the power coming from the numbers, but I felt comradeship, and deep inside I knew these people would become an inseparable part of my future fight and activities. This was the first of several steps that brought about the formation of my organization, the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC). This group became the frontier for a coalition that grew to exceed one hundred members, all national security veterans: experts.
I spent all of August reviewing boxes of material, reports and files sent to me by these national security professionals. I’d spend hours on the phone with them. Some became very good friends with whom Matthew and I associated regularly. Bit by bit, the hole in me was being filled, by people whose stories and experience I shared, and whose lives and hearts touched mine.
One evening toward the end of August, sitting at my computer, I stopped at an unopened e-mail sent by one Cole J. M. Could this be John M. Cole, the FBI whistleblower for whom I’d been searching these past two years?
I clicked on the e-mail and there he was, asking me to call him.
I was ecstatic. For over two years I had been hoping, praying, for more people in the FBI familiar with my case to step forward, to join me in my quest to expose the crimes and cover-ups. I had not given up hope, and here was a man who could support my report: one of the FBI’s top experts in espionage, in charge of counterintelligence operations for Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. His case was cited next to mine in the first exposé by the
Washington Post
, two months after I was fired. Thus far I had two credible witnesses: Gilbert Graham, the FBI agent in charge of FBI-WFO counterintelligence operations on Turkey; and, of course, Behrooz Sarshar, the FBI-WFO Farsi translator. Now, possibly, John M. Cole would add his name to the list.
That evening I spoke with Cole, who was very glad to hear from me. We spent nearly three hours discussing both our cases and strategies on where to go next.
Cole told me what went on in the FBI HQ during the summer of 2002, when my case became public. According to him, most people at headquarters were cheering for me. Everyone had known about Dickerson; it was well understood both at headquarters and the Washington field office that husband and wife were on the payroll of the target foreign entities active in the United States. This was an established fact.
Cole went even further by letting me know that he had firsthand knowledge of the Turkish networks involved in the nuclear black market and their penetration of several U.S. nuclear facilities and weapons labs. His unit had spent the entire mid-to-late 1990s monitoring this Turkish group and their Israeli counterparts. He was aware of their far-reaching influence and connection to high-level State Department and Pentagon officials. He and I knew precisely which front companies and organizations in New Jersey, Chicago and DC were utilized for these illegal activities and other related operations involving narcotics and money laundering.
In addition, Cole explained, he had found out more on Major Douglas Dickerson. He said that although Dickerson had used his air force title as a cover, he was not listed in the U.S. Air Force personnel directory nationally or internationally. One of Cole’s contacts, who worked with the U.S. Air Force Office of Inspector General, had told Cole that in the mid-1990s, while in Turkey working for Marc Grossman, then the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, Major Dickerson had come under investigation by the IG for possible espionage. According to this man, they found out that Dickerson had been receiving lavish gifts from foreign entities while in Turkey.
I was thunderstruck. I wanted to know if this air force man was willing to come forward and report this to Congress and DOJ-IG. Through my other sources I had already established that Douglas Dickerson was actually operating under some joint State Department and Pentagon operations. With this new piece of information from Cole, my sources had been proved right. Cole and I agreed that a high-level group within the Pentagon and State Department was working with and protecting Dickerson. I told him I already knew two of them: Douglas Feith and Marc Grossman. He agreed, and further, he confirmed.
After discussing the Dickersons and my case, Cole began to tell me about his experiences. It was incredible to listen to his accounts of all the other FBI translator cases involving espionage activities. I had thought Dickerson a rare and extraordinary instance, but after speaking with Cole for several hours, I heard tell of at least twelve established espionage cases involving FBI translators since the infamous Hanssen case.
When Cole had finished telling me one such story (with eerie parallels to mine, including a “kill the messenger” denouement), I asked him about his pursuing the Congress and Justice Department IG. He had sent letters and reports to both, and had called them many times to no avail. Not only that, he had contacted the IG office regarding my case—as a witness with direct information relevant to my case and other similar espionage cases within the bureau—also without result. I didn’t find that surprising.
I inquired about other colleagues and friends from the FBI who might also come forward and join us. I believed that with Sarshar, the Iranian informant, me, Agent Gilbert Graham, and now John Cole, we had a good chance of pushing for an open public congressional hearing with all these witnesses on the stand to testify.
I told him about the 9/11 Commission Report—more of an Omission Report—and my now very public letter. (He had read it and agreed with my position.) Had he too approached them? To my surprise, he had. Cole had written to the commission and asked to be interviewed: he had documented evidence showing certain aspects of the 9/11 attacks involving the Pakistani military intelligence (ISI) and cases of FBI penetration by terrorist-related elements. Despite letters and numerous calls, the commission never responded or acknowledged him.
This last got my blood boiling. Writing a well-publicized letter was no longer enough. With Cole on board, along with a dozen or more others with similar experiences related to 9/11 and the Commission Report, it was time to take this to the next level.
I shared these thoughts with Cole. He wholeheartedly agreed. I suggested we organize an event, a press conference, to bring all these veteran national security experts, including Cole, together on one stage. We would argue against and denounce this fraudulent report being forced upon us as gospel. Cole said, “Count me in.”
That evening, after talking with Cole, I began planning the logistics. We—the members on my list, my coalition—would stage our first national security whistleblowers press conference.
September 11 fell that year on a weekend, so I decided to schedule our event for the following Monday, September 13, 2004. I then issued an action alert to all the list members, urging them to join the conference and voice their position loudly and publicly. They were ecstatic, fired up and ready to go. All signed on to the petition, a two-page statement ending with a demand for congressional investigation of facts and cases omitted from the 9/11 Commission Report. I had less than three weeks to prepare.
Having secured a conference room (in the Steward Mott House, owned and operated by a nonprofit foundation), I found rooms and hosts for whistleblowers who had far to travel. I prepared a formal press advisory and called members of the press in advance. Without office or staff or any real experience—and with little-to-no money—I would nevertheless give it my best shot. Now, with these venerable experts joining the fight, I wouldn’t let anything stop me.
The day had arrived and here we were, gathered together for the very first time. It was a sight that filled me with optimism and determination. Some I had never met in person; now I could put a face to those names, those cases. The feeling in the room was electric. Something would happen here today. Contrary to what I was told to expect, the room began to fill up with reporters from print media and TV networks. Toward the end, they couldn’t even squeeze into the room; they were bending through the doorway.
I spoke first, making a few introductory remarks about what brought us all here; then, I read our joint petition.
Our statement began with a clarion call to address serious shortcomings in the report and its recommendations, urging Congress to “apply brakes” in their race to implement those recommendations. “It is not too late,” the statement continued, “for Congress to break with the practice of limiting testimony to that from politicians and top-layer career bureaucrats—many with personal reputations to defend and institutional equities to protect.” Instead, we implored, “use this unique opportunity to introduce salutary reform, an opportunity that must not be squandered by politically driven haste.”
We believed that chief among the report’s major flaws was omission. “We are aware of significant issues and cases that were duly reported to the commission by those of us with direct knowledge, but somehow escaped attention. Serious problems and shortcomings within government agencies likewise were reported to the commission but were not included in the report. The report simply does not get at key problems within the intelligence, aviation security, and law enforcement communities. The omission of such serious and applicable issues and information … casts doubt on the validity of many of its recommendations.”
Moreover, we held, the commission in its report holds
no one accountable
, and thereby fails in its primary purpose. When calling for accountability, the statement continued, “we refer to intentional actions or inaction by individuals responsible for our national security, actions or inaction dictated by motives other than the security of the people of the United States.” The report, we pointed out, deliberately ignored what all of the petition’s signatories knew so well to be the case: that officials and civil servants were and still are negligent or derelict in their duties to the nation; and that if they are protected rather than held accountable, “the mind-set that enabled 9/11 will persist, no matter how many layers of bureaucracy are added, and no matter how much money is poured into the agencies. Character counts.”
The statement described the whistleblowers’ experience, of coming forward under duress and being retaliated against by government agencies. The commission, we explained, neither acknowledged what they, whistleblowers, had done nor faced up to the need to protect them against such forces.
While the commission
did
emphasize barriers to the flow of information as a primary cause for wasting opportunities to prevent 9/11, “it skipped a basic truth. Secrecy enforced by repression threatens national security as much as bureaucratic turf fights. It sustains vulnerability to terrorism caused by government breakdowns.” Reforms, we insisted, “will be paper tigers without a safe channel for whistleblowers to keep them honest in practice. It is unrealistic to expect that government workers will defend the public, if they can’t defend themselves.” What the general public didn’t or couldn’t know, unfortunately, was that current whistleblower rights are a cruel trap. “The Whistleblower Protection Act has turned into an efficient way to finish whistleblowers off by endorsing termination.” Legislative reform was needed to allow government workers access to jury trials, as Congress had done for corporate whistleblowers. The 9/11 Commission Report failed to address this flaw.
We argued against some of their fixes—for instance, an “intelligence czar” or haphazard increases in intelligence budgets, as needlessly adding layers of bureaucracy to an already overburdened, complex system.
Finally, we maintained that Congress “has not included the voices of the people working within the intelligence and broader national security communities who deal with the real issues and problems day after day and who possess the needed expertise and experience—in short, those who not only do the job but are conscientious enough to stick their necks out in pointing to the impediments they experience in trying to do it effectively.”
“We the undersigned,” I concluded, “who have worked within various government agencies (FBI, CIA, FAA, DIA, Customs) responsible for national security and public safety, call upon you in Congress to include the voices of those with firsthand knowledge and expertise in the important issues at hand. We stand ready to do our part.”
Despite the large crowd, except for the clicking of cameras you could hear a pin drop. As soon as I finished reading, coalition members and a few 9/11 family members stood up and gave a lengthy ovation. I glanced at the reporters intently taking notes and knew this was a success—though short-lived, never translating into victory. Again, I had defied the timid experts. Others spoke, veteran agents and analysts; even the mainstream media couldn’t help but be impressed. I was so proud of them, these courageous people, who now had been labeled whistleblowers.
At the end of the conference, each of us carried our personal copy of the 9/11 Commission Report over to the corner and ceremoniously dumped it in the trash where it belonged.
The seeds of our movement, our future organization, were solidly planted that day. When word of the conference got out, our membership doubled in less than six months. Even more whistleblowers were out there, and we had no intention of going away.
I spent the next three months, from August until November, getting the message out and trying to educate the public on the need for congressional oversight and accountability; though it’s never an easy sell—broken systems that fail to protect, never-ending assaults on civil liberties, State Secrets Privileges and classification, which no one ever wants to hear about—I was doing all I could, utilizing all available channels. I was speaking before all sorts of different groups and people willing to listen.
In September, the National Organization for Women (NOW) invited me to New York to speak before an audience of members gathered for an annual rally in Central Park. I gladly accepted. I thought it would be a small event with an intimate group. When I got there, thousands were gathered in the park waiting for the speakers, who in turn began to speak about abortion, gay rights and equality. Suddenly I dreaded the prospect. I wanted to turn around and run. I looked down at my two-page speech: it was all about Ashcroft, gag orders, Congress, and lack of oversight and accountability. I felt totally out of place, a misfit; I regretted not doing my homework.
When they called my name, I almost dragged myself to the podium. They had to lower the microphone all the way down, which only added to my sense of smallness. Here I was this tiny person, self-conscious and inexperienced; however silly it may seem now, at the time I was filled with terror.
I started my speech, voice barely audible, lacking all confidence with badly strained nerves. The audience, in the thousands, began to scream “Louder!” and “Speak up! We can’t hear you!” I coughed and started over, forcing myself to project—it felt like I was yelling at the top of my lungs. Somehow with every sentence, every point on how I had been gagged, my fury at the government and passion to fight back grew to a point where I could no longer contain it, which in turn gave conviction to my voice and expression. Soon the crowd joined in with cheers, forcing me to pause for their heartfelt ovations. Their warmth and support gave me courage.
By the time I had finished, with the crowd in wild applause, my anxieties had totally disappeared. Far from disaster, this speech had become one of the most successful public endeavors I had ever taken on. I had connected with them, inflamed their passion. I never experienced that before. I loved it.
The NOW event was followed by several others in September. I was invited by the New England Translators Association to go to Boston and speak before a group of professional career translators and interpreters. For two hours after the speech they asked me question after question. Many had thought about joining the CIA or FBI as translators; now they realized that those agencies might not be the best place to work. Some worked with courts on criminal cases as live interpreters, and understood very well the implication of blocking translations or intentional mistranslation. My message was getting through. Whatever doubts I may have had, time and again my audience proved me wrong: they were very informed and interested. Their questions were entirely relevant and well thought out; furthermore, I ended up asking them a great deal of questions, and learning more from their answers.
Also in September a coalition of veteran intelligence officers, the Sam Adams Foundation, presented me with their 2004 Sam Adams Courage Award. I had spent days preparing my speech. I decided to focus on endangered civil liberties, those rights guaranteed under our Constitution. I spoke of growing up in Turkey and Iran, where such rights never existed. For the first time in public, I spoke about the torture of my father for reading certain books and talking about equality and workers’ rights. I told them about the censorship I had experienced firsthand for writing an essay about the lack of freedom of the press. I warned the audience about the alarming situations we were now living under and so readily accepting in the name of national security—the price we were paying for some abstract war against the concept of terrorism. I explained about the classification imposed on me and my case, and how all three branches of government had failed in preventing these unconstitutional assaults on our rights.
At the end of my speech, noting their enthusiastic applause, I came to another realization. What I was doing here was preaching to the choir. These people were already informed; all were active in the fight. The question I was struggling to find an answer to was, how do I reach others who are not informed? How do we get through to those who readily have accepted the despotism being marketed to them as security? How?
I would spend a lot of time during this period and in the years to come trying to find an answer to those questions—unsuccessfully. With the complete failure of the mainstream media to cover these vital issues, I would not find a way to reach out to the rest. The uninformed remain in the dark.
The time spent on activism and other national security whistleblower cases was therapeutic. It took my mind off my miseries. As October arrived, I needed to focus on my case. The deadline to appeal the Walton ruling was fast approaching and couldn’t wait. I had less than three months to file a comprehensive appeal with the appellate court.
I knew that Mark Zaid, my attorney, was not keen on fighting this case. He had not won many—if any—cases dealing with national security whistleblowers or the State Secrets Privilege. To strategically prepare and present this case well before the appellate court would take time, resources and dedication. My interim attorney didn’t seem to have any of those, and I could not afford new high-priced attorneys.
During the Sam Adams Award conference, a dark-haired petite woman in her thirties had walked over and introduced herself: Ann Beeson, with the ACLU New York Legal division. She congratulated me on all my efforts and in gathering others to form a coalition. Ann wanted to know if I were planning to appeal the case, because if so, the ACLU would be interested in helping. This made me snap at her, rather rudely. I told her all about my past experience begging for their help—how they had made me wait for months for an answer, only to turn me down. None of their attorneys were interested. Then I pointed my finger and said, “I’m disgusted with all these organizations who preach one thing then do another—who only approach people and help them if those people are surrounded by publicity.”
Ann kept her cool. She apologized for my hardship and for not providing the needed support, adding that “This time you will be dealing with the New York office, our headquarters, and me.”
I ignored her attempts to mend fences and walked. Later that day she even tried again, to which I nastily replied, “These whistleblowers all need legal help, and they won’t welcome an organization that has not extended help to them. In fact, if I see anyone from your organization, I’ll have them removed.” Again, Ann didn’t lose her calm. Deep inside, I admired her strength and control. She appeared to be a very strong woman, self-assured and articulate.
About three weeks after my first fiery interaction with Ann, a good friend and supporter called to inform me that the director of the ACLU Legal division, Anthony Romero, wanted to talk with me about my case. My response was nearly the same I’d given Ann. “If he wants to talk with me, he’ll call me.”
Within minutes, I received a call directly from Romero. He patiently listened, apologized for the ACLU, and then got down to it. Now, he said, they were set and determined to represent me, the State Secrets Privilege case, with all they had and without sparing any resources. He said he knew how dangerous this privilege was and the implications of its effect on all of us, not just me. He sounded sincere, genuine.
After he told me that the ACLU was creating a division for national security whistleblower cases, he had me convinced. I agreed to be represented by the ACLU in the appellate court, and from there to the Supreme Court, if it came to that.
The lead attorney, he said, who would be handling my case with her team was Ann Beeson.
I couldn’t have been more startled and surprised. Romero explained how passionate she was about my case, about the abuse of the State Secrets doctrine. It sounded promising.
Ann and I exchanged e-mails and discussed, among other things, my interim attorneys Mark Zaid and Eric Seiff, a friend and one of the best criminal attorneys in New York, who would be given the courtesy of opting to leave or remain on the case. We arranged a time to meet in DC, where I also met her assistant, Melissa Goodman. Eric came along to make sure things went smoothly. At the end of our meeting, both Eric and Ann seemed pleased, and the ACLU had taken my case officially. All were ready to fight. During the next few months, I made several trips to New York to meet with Ann and her team. I was introduced to Ann’s other assistant attorney, Ben Wizner, a capable, competent, intelligent attorney with an equally great personality. They too made regular trips to DC for meetings, events and preparations for the appeal.
It didn’t take long for me to realize how fortunate indeed I was to have the ACLU, particularly this team, representing me. Without a doubt they believed in the cause; they felt genuinely passionate. I had the best team possible, the best attorneys a person could hope for.
When your basic rights are attacked and destroyed, it changes your perspective. The world never looks the same after that. In the past, before my case began, I was among those who dismissed the ACLU as liberal ideologues with certain extreme views. They often appeared to be on the wrong side of protected speech, as with child pornography and other troubling cases. Yet, after what I went through during this dark period in America following the 9/11 attacks—to say nothing of such widespread abuses as torture, undeclared detainees in secret CIA prisons, extraordinary rendition, NSA eavesdropping, and more and more invocations of the State Secrets Privilege that precious few even know about—the ACLU showed up to fight, not only for me but for everyone whose rights are guaranteed by our Constitution.
We—my new team and I—spent all of November and December 2004 preparing to file with the appellate court. The ACLU decided to gather amicus briefs from relevant government watchdog organizations and associations: that is, have them sign up as supporters with stakes in my case to be brought before the court. We were successful in recruiting such organizations as Project on Government Oversight (POGO), the American Library Association and their various chapters, several anti-secrecy organizations and others to join our appeal. All had a dog in this fight.
We also planned to hold a major press conference on the day of our filing in DC that would include other national security whistleblowers who suffered or continued to suffer similar abuses by the government: my coalition members.
On Friday, January 14, 2005, I received a call from a New York Times reporter, who wanted to know my response to the newly released Inspector General’s report. This was news to me. Had they declassified it? When had it been released? Apparently, the report had been issued only hours earlier, that day. I immediately called Ann.
I couldn’t find anything on the IG’s website; they hadn’t posted it. Ann called back to tell me the IG had not declassified the report: instead, they had rewritten it and issued their “unclassified” version. Most of their findings remained classified. Ann would get a copy and send it to me ASAP.
I waited next to my fax machine for over two hours without moving. In fact I had been waiting two years. Congress, after all, had promised me a public hearing on release of this report. So I continued to count the seconds with no small anxiety. Had they whitewashed the case? Did they issue lies and slander? Would it be a solid report, vindicating me and my case? Meanwhile, the phone wouldn’t stop ringing. Every reporter I knew, every TV network, called for my response. They invited me on their shows. I was unable to comment or give them a quote until I’d read the entire report several times.
That afternoon around three, Ann sent me the IG report. She sounded overjoyed: while the report was short on information, it did in fact vindicate me one hundred percent, finding that “my claims were supported by other witnesses, documents and evidence.”
At first I was relieved; then I immediately began to wonder how much information they had omitted. I printed out the thirty-page report and sat with my pink Hi-Liter, reading through it at least three times.
The DOJ Inspector General’s report concluded that I was fired for reporting serious security breaches and misconduct in the FBI’s translation program.
Their investigation found that “many of Edmonds’ claims were supported, that the FBI did not take them seriously enough, and that her allegations were, in fact, the most significant factor in the FBI’s decision to terminate her services.”
The report’s summary criticized the agency for not investigating my allegations more thoroughly, comparing the FBI’s mishandling of my allegations to the mishandling of the case involving former FBI counterintelligence agent Robert Hanssen, who pled guilty to spying for the Soviet Union. The summary states, “Edmonds’ claims raised serious concerns that, if true, could potentially have extremely damaging consequences for the FBI.”
Furthermore, the Inspector General stated, “By terminating Edmonds’ services, in large [part] because of her allegations of misconduct, the FBI’s actions also may have the effect of discouraging others from raising concerns.”
Highlights from the long-awaited IG report include:
“Finally rather than investigate Edmonds’ allegations vigorously and thoroughly, the FBI concluded that she was a disruption and terminated her contract” (p. 11);
“In sum, we believe the FBI’s initial inquiries in response to Edmonds’ allegations were seriously deficient” (p. 24);
“The FBI should not discourage employees or contractors from raising good-faith allegations of misconduct or mismanagement” (p. 31);
“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” (p. 34).
Their findings surprised me. In almost all such cases, IG reports do one of two things: slander the whistleblower unjustly, or whitewash the case by characterizing their findings as “inconclusive.” I guessed with all the prior investigations made public by the Senate Judiciary Committee, the IG had a difficult time doing either.
I thought this called for celebration. I believed that now, with a report like this, my appeal would be a slam dunk. All the judges had to do was read it. How indeed could the FBI counter this in court? With the Senate letters and this IG report, as well as witnesses I had gathered—Cole, Graham and Sarshar—I considered my court case won. Furthermore, Congress could now hold public hearings; it had what it needed to proceed with my case. Little I knew.
Upon release of the IG report, my attorneys Ann Beeson and Mark Zaid issued strong statements to the press condemning the government’s actions, specifically, the attorney general for hiding behind the State Secrets Privilege and the FBI for my unlawful firing, calling the denial of my rights to a day in court “a mockery of national security and the Constitution.”
Following release of the report, I rode another media wave, or rather, an interview roller coaster. From CNN to MSNBC, the Washington Post to the Boston Globe, everyone seemed interested. Yet, the media still refused to ask the real questions: Why was the State Secrets Privilege invoked in the first place? Who were the targets involved in espionage, including high-level government insiders? Who were the Dickersons, and who did they work for? The media—that is, the mainstream media in the United States—never asked these questions, never sought an answer through investigative work. Never.
I followed up with the Senate Judiciary the week after release of the IG’s report. To my dismay, no one returned my calls. I made another round of calls—again, to no avail. Were they scared? Were they warned to stay away from my case? What was the reason for silence?
I refused to be discouraged. If Congress wouldn’t act, I had to find a way to change their position, by force, if necessary. I created a website and an online petition to garner public support: the public had the right to know. This was about congressional oversight and accountability for the executive branch. I launched my petition, and my online supporters joined the campaign to gather signatures.
On January 26, 2005, about two weeks after the report, the ACLU held its press conference. It was well attended by the coalition and received decent media coverage. The speakers discussed the unprecedented level of secrecy imposed by the Bush administration to quash dissent and gag truth tellers. Ann Beeson gave an overview of the State Secrets Privilege, its justified and unjustified uses. I talked for five minutes or so, urging other present and perhaps future whistleblowers to join our movement, and emphasized the Congress’s abdication of its responsibility and all that implies; the consequences.
By the end of January I had hit a wall. I was worn out, exhausted. I couldn’t really sleep, didn’t really eat, and neglected every other aspect of my life. Still, I couldn’t pause, I couldn’t stop. I had to keep pushing forward.
I remember one interview in particular. Sheila Weller (who became a good friend) from Glamour asked me, “When do you let off steam? When do you ever cry? You seem to be always in control. Nobody has seen you sad or crying. Do you ever get depressed? Do you cry?”
“Let me give you this analogy,” I explained. “You know when you’re driving and this tiny piece of gravel flies from a big truck and hits your windshield? That little tiny piece can create a small crack; a tiny one that’s hard to see. Yet, it’s enough to eventually crack the entire windshield. It won’t remain a tiny crack; it will expand and destroy the entire windshield.” I paused to see if she was getting it. “I feel if I stop, even if it is for a short while—if I let myself pour out, cry—I’ll go crashing down. It will work just like that small gravel. I can’t let myself stop or get depressed or cry. I’m afraid if I did, I would never be able to recover. Maybe, maybe one day, when everything is over, I’ll go somewhere, maybe on top of a high mountain where no one is around, and scream my lungs out; sob and cry my eyes out. But not now; I can’t do it now. Do you understand?”
That’s how I felt. I couldn’t let myself pause or stop; I had to keep on fighting.
Our hearing before three appellate court judges was scheduled for the morning of April 21, 2005. We had the names of the assigned judges, and according to my attorneys, we couldn’t have hit a worse panel if we tried. Judges Douglas H. Ginsburg, David B. Sentelle and Karen L. Henderson all were Reagan appointees and almost always sided with classification and government secrecy.
Yet, my attorneys felt positive. More than enough organizations joined the amicus brief in support of our case. Media coverage, though not a lot, all had been positive. In addition to our legal team, we had other supportive civil liberties attorneys providing us with advice and assistance. Overall, things seemed to be going well.
On April 20, one day before our hearing in the appellate court, the ACLU organized a small press conference and roundtable discussion on my case and the abuse of the state secrets doctrine. The panel included well-known scholars and legal experts from such organizations as the Center for Constitutional Rights and the First Amendment Center. The U.S. media, to some degree (though not a lot), had started to pay attention to this arcane, common law–based privilege being used as a tool to quash legitimate cases and to cover up executive branch wrongdoings and, in certain cases, criminal activities. Interestingly, though, the majority of reporters and camera crews present were foreign: the room was filled primarily with German, French, British and Russian journalists. The mainstream U.S. media was conspicuously absent. I found this sad.
After we wrapped up the conference, on the way out I was stopped by two documentary filmmakers from France who had been pestering me about their new project, a film about me and the State Secrets Privilege. They were persistent about wanting to interview me and all the relevant witnesses pertaining to my case, and I had repeatedly refused to accept. I simply hadn’t the time or energy and kept brushing them off. The older of the two, Mathieu, wouldn’t take no for an answer. (The younger one, Jean, who handled the camera, seemed to be the quiet type.) He began to bargain.
“How about only two hours?”
I declined and held up my hand for him to stop. “No, I don’t have any desire to be in a film, period. I’ve got to go.”
As I walked away, he followed me out and brilliantly pushed my button. “But think about it, you’ll do a service to all these other whistleblowers. You are the leader of this pack, national security whistleblowers. If your case is publicized, it would be good for all these other whistleblowers who have been abused like you …”
That last stopped me in my tracks. He had a point; this could be a great opportunity to shine a spotlight on the saga of national security whistleblowers. This guy was good—really good. I turned around and walked back. “All right then, let’s make a deal.”
He smiled. He knew he was very close. “I like deals, let’s make one.”
I couldn’t help but smile back. “Here is the deal: for this project of yours, you’ll cover my coalition’s various events and congressional rallies. You will also interview several of my coalition members—at least five or six national security whistleblowers. In return, I will spend time with you; I’ll let you interview me, not for two hours but for thirty minutes, and I’ll ask my attorneys and other relevant witnesses to speak with you. Deal?”
“Deal, but as far as that thirty-minute rule goes, we’ll see. I think I’ll change your mind on that, but I’ll take the thirty minutes.”
This happened to be a very good decision. Not only did they interview many of my initial members, but Mathieu, with a background in investigative journalism, spent nearly two years uncovering facts and more witnesses relevant to my state secrets case. The pair made several trips to the States and were always there filming during my expanding coalition’s congressional testimonies, rallies and media events. They came to follow me everywhere; and what’s more, Mathieu and Jean became trusted friends.