Classified Woman (22 page)
Authors: Sibel Edmonds
M
ay through October 2005 was consumed with intense activity. I now spent nearly every waking hour in four different channels of work.
I continued to collect signatures, via my website, on my petition to Congress. So far I had over ten thousand people signed on. Additionally, I had gathered pledges of support from more than two dozen organizations and public policy groups. I posted all pertinent articles and updates, and spent time every evening responding to supporters or anyone requesting more information on my case.
I continued my public speaking and media campaign on whistleblower issues and relevant civil liberties cases. In any given week I would have four or five radio interviews, most of them local and/or alternative stations. I tried to write regularly and publish short op-ed pieces.
I spent much of this time working with the coalition. The NSWBC had doubled in size and now had nearly fifty national security whistleblower members. We had been taking on the Congress and were trying to make our voice in the media louder and more often heard. During the previous March, I had come in contact with a man who would become a catalyst in raising our coalition’s profile and taking it to the next level. William (Bill) Weaver was an associate professor of political science and an associate in the Center for Law and Border Studies at the University of Texas at El Paso. He specialized in executive branch secrecy policy, governmental abuse, and law and bureaucracy.
I had stumbled on a paper Bill had written, the best and most comprehensive piece ever on the State Secrets Privilege, and decided to contact him. He was happy to hear from me (he had cited my case in his paper), and when I told him about others in the coalition and our activities targeting the Congress, he seemed interested. He joined us in our congressional briefing and rallies, and spent time helping me research and investigate potential members. Bill encouraged me to take the next step and structure the coalition, to define its objectives and mission, create a web presence, turn it into an organization and even draft model legislation for meaningful whistleblower protection. His expertise, advice and overall support were indispensable. He became a mentor and best friend. Unlike many, Bill is all about action, he gets things done.
Finally, there was the upcoming Supreme Court filing that capped my attention and energy. My attorneys planned to file the petition with the Court by the end of summer, and a lot of work had to be done. I knew this was my last stop as far as the courts were concerned. My FOIA case was lost, to secrecy and classification. This, my primary case, had already lost in the hands of Judge Walton and was thrown out on appeal by a kangaroo court.
The IG’s report had neither brought accountability nor needed reforms in the FBI. From what I heard, things continued as usual, and the translation unit remained a mess. Feghali had even been promoted to now supervise the Arabic department. Bryan too was promoted, to a high-level position in HQ. Frields and Watson are happily retired and secured cushy positions at Booz Allen Hamilton, a private firm. No one in Congress was willing or brave enough to take up my case and hold public hearings. I had not totally given up, however, and continued to collect more public support to petition them; yet the prospects seemed slim to none. Clearly, mine was not the only case that lacked congressional oversight. I had by now become well aware of many other critical cases in which responsibility on the part of Congress was nowhere to be found. Their reluctance is legendary.
The spectacular failure of the executive branch and its investigative bodies, along with the notorious absence of congressional vigilance, left me with one last channel.
Beeson and her team were hard at work through all of June and July 2005. Filing a claim with the Supreme Court is so very different from any other court filings, and the rules of argument unlike anything before the lower courts. Prior to my case, Ann had argued twice before the Supreme Court—and one of those cases she won. I had no doubt I was in most capable hands.
Just as in my appeal, my legal team decided to gather other parties to join our case through filing amicus briefs. This time around, we also had the support of organizations and groups filing briefs on their exclusion from my earlier hearing before the appellate court—that included the media.
We were presenting the Supreme Court with two questions: (1) whether the court of appeals erred in affirming dismissal of a retaliatory termination case by an FBI whistleblower based on the State Secrets Privilege prior to any discovery or consideration of nonprivileged evidence; and (2) whether, consistent with the First and Fifth Amendments, the court of appeals erred in excluding the press and public, sua sponte (“of one’s own will”), from an appellate proceeding without case-specific findings demonstrating the necessity of closure.
My attorneys were preparing a well-articulated argument on the misuse of the State Secrets Privilege in my case and on the confusion of the lower courts in dealing with this arcane tool. How could the courts dismiss without granting discovery—without a single witness testifying, a single document entered into evidence, or a single oral argument? Where in our Constitution did our founding fathers give the federal government the right to take away a citizen’s right to petition the courts and receive a fair trial?
The government’s case was simple: due to national security–related reasons, I had no First Amendment rights. Moreover, due to certain state secrets with effects on so-called national security, I had to be stripped of my Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights. I was not their only victim; more and more American citizens were being gagged and stripped of their rights.
I couldn’t help asking myself, where had we gone wrong to get to this point? Had we—meaning
we the people
—forsaken checks and balances in one fell swoop, through fear? This was all being done in the name of national security. Our guaranteed rights were no longer guaranteed, but conditional. How could the other two branches, our courts and Congress, allow the executive branch such sway, to go unchecked, unchallenged? Saddest of all, what had become of our fourth branch, the media? Why were they all lying down?
The facts were grim: our government had begun to torture and sodomize its detainees in the name of national security; our executive branch was engaged in kidnapping people from all over the world and imprisoning them in secret locations—this too in the name of national security; our intelligence agencies had turned against its own citizens by utilizing technology to illegally spy on them—again, for reasons of national security.
These were some of many reasons I had to pursue the Supreme Court as tenaciously as I could. My case was one way to protect other Americans from going through similar injustices and abuses. Too many others have suffered at the hands of a government whose power is absolute; once wielded, there’s no end to invoking state secrets.
I had lost so much already. Gone were my family ties and heritage, my house in Turkey, my privacy … and more. The Supreme Court was my last chance. I put everything I had, all my hope and expectations, into this one last battle.
In the middle of June 2005, I received a call from
Vanity Fair
reporter David Rose, who called to let me know that his feature article on my case was scheduled to come out in the first week of August, less than two months.
I had met Rose the previous fall. He had called me from England to introduce himself and to let me know that he had taken an interest in my case and battle against the “odd privilege.” He was a respected independent reporter, a seasoned and savvy investigative journalist with impeccable credentials.
David spent over six months investigating and interviewing relevant witnesses, including several high-level people inside the FBI, Congress and the Justice Department with firsthand knowledge of my case. Further, he had uncovered certain facts and reasons as to why, in my case, state secrets had been invoked. I expected a groundbreaking article.
After speaking with him, I immediately called my ACLU attorneys to notify them: the piece in
Vanity Fair
would hit the stands the first week of August. We decided to time our Supreme Court filing accordingly.
The ten-page feature, titled “An Inconvenient Patriot,” was revelatory and explosive. David had beautifully woven together many of the facts, revelations, history and emotional aspects of my case. He had succeeded in unearthing one major case that my own case and one of the FBI counterintelligence projects involved. In so doing, it was revealed that one of the most powerful men in the United States, the Speaker of the House, the heavyweight representative from Chicago, Dennis Hastert, had been receiving large sums in bribes from certain Turkish people and organizations in the United States who happened to be the targets of FBI wiretap investigations.
Rose connected the dots, quoting one FBI counterintelligence official who confirmed Chicago as the hub of an international criminal network with direct ties to Congress. The bribery scandal, it turned out, involved elected officials in both parties. Initially, there had been internal pressure from the bureau to appoint a special prosecutor to take on the case; but as soon as word got out, colleagues were steered away from investigating elected politicians and turned their focus instead on appointed officials. My wiretap translations threatened to expose them. Ashcroft and the Department of Justice reacted as they did to ensure that none of this came out.
As Rose reports in the article,
Some of the calls reportedly contained what sounded like references to large-scale drug shipments and other crimes. To a person who knew nothing about their context, the details were confusing and it wasn’t always clear what might be significant. One name, however, apparently stood out—a man the Turkish callers often referred to by the nickname “Denny boy.” It was the Republican congressman from Illinois and Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert. According to some of the wiretaps, the F.B.I.’s targets had arranged for tens of thousands of dollars to be paid to Hastert’s campaign funds in small checks. Under Federal Election Commission rules, donations of less than $200 are not required to be itemized in public filings.
An examination of Hastert’s federal filings shows that the level of un-itemized payments his campaigns received over many years was relatively high. Between April 1996 and December 2002, un-itemized personal donations to the Hastert for Congress Committee amounted to $483,000. In contrast, un-itemized contributions in the same period to the committee run on behalf of the House majority leader, Tom Delay, Republican of Texas, were only $99,000.
The lengthy and comprehensive article went on to provide a more detailed account of Hastert’s campaign donations and his flip-flop voting record in Congress on issues involving Turkey. Rose quoted current and former FBI officials and senior congressional staff familiar with my case, testimonies, and even the classified IG report.
The reaction in the mainstream press was not just muted, it was stunningly silent. Even though the Justice Department, the FBI and Hastert’s office did not and would not return reporters’ calls seeking comments, none issued a single denial. Puzzlingly—and disturbingly—that didn’t seem to matter, because the mainstream media apparently wasn’t interested. They hadn’t covered the article. In contrast, the online communities and international press treated the story like a bombshell. The piece was picked up by thousands of websites and forums within a week of its release.
My attorneys filed the Cert Petition with the Supreme Court a day after the Rose piece came out, on August 4, 2005. From this point on, we would sit and wait.
In the first half of fall 2005, as I waited for the Supreme Court’s decision, I focused all my energy and attention on various activities and events dealing with our now formalized coalition, the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition. We had successfully launched the organization’s website. We now had over a dozen partner organizations, more than fifty whistleblower members, and one of the top experts on relevant legislative and legal issues as senior advisor and on our board of directors.
This anxiety-filled period of waiting to hear from the Court was filled with frenetic activity. Rallies, briefings and the first-ever national security whistleblowers conference all helped to reduce ongoing stress and grief.
Thus occupied almost 24/7 with whistleblower issues and meeting after meeting with congressional staff, the clock, in the meantime, kept ticking on my case. The anxiously awaited news reached me on Monday, November 28, with a phone call. As soon as I picked up, I could hear it in her voice. It was Ann.
“Sibel … I am so sorry …” A pain shot up from my guts to my throat. All I could do was blink and try to swallow. “We just found out. The Supreme Court decided not to take our case. This nonsense State Secrets Privilege won another round …”
When I regained my voice, I asked her almost in a whisper, “Did they say why? Did they give any reason?”
Ann sighed. “No, not a single word. I know how painful this must be for you; I am so sorry, Sibel. I am so sorry for our country.”
I began to shake and couldn’t stop my voice from trembling. “What can we do about this? Is there anything that can be done? Is it all over, one hundred percent?”
Another deep sigh. “As far as the courts are concerned, yes. It is all over, this was the last stop. It’s such nonsense—with all the congressional confirmation and the amazing IG report confirming your reports and vindicating you. But as far as the Congress goes, now it is even more urgent that they address your case …”
Tears had already started rolling down my face, salty drops on my lips; I needed air. “I have to go, Ann. You did your best; I know I had the best legal team … you were great …” and I just hung up. I began to sob; a loud, guttural sob. I hunched on the floor and sobbed nonstop, my body a bundle of pain, as though everything were pouring out at once: the longing for my dad, the hole and the loneliness that was the absence of my family, the shocks endured from relentless, cruel government attacks for the past four years, the exhaustion of never-ending defeat …
I sobbed on the floor for hours until I was numb. Then I just sat staring at nothing, in a timeless void, exhausted. It was over. I recalled the reporter who asked me how I managed in the face of all the blows and pain. I remembered my small stone, hitting the glass and forming a crack that would grow until the object shattered. I said I could never let that happen.
Well, the stone hit my shield. The fatal crack had formed, and it was expanding.
The months following the Supreme Court’s rejection of my case remain a blur. I had experienced my first depression that came with the death of my father and gone through its stages; yet this one was manifestly different. I would lie days in a row in bed under the covers, not sobbing or crying or thinking of anything in particular, just numb and totally blank. Then I would suddenly go into a manic phase, combing through boxes and shoving into garbage bags every document, letter and file I could get my hands on having anything to do with my case: there were thousands of them, seemingly everywhere. Then I would set these overstuffed bags out front, to be taken out with the trash. I wanted everything to be erased, every scrap of my four-year battle. I wanted them gone from my life. My husband, without my knowledge, rescued those bags and tucked them in our attic.
I kept my home phones unplugged and did not return any calls. I only attended to a few previous NSWBC commitments without knowing or even caring why.
In December, during Christmas, I attempted to go back to Turkey for a visit: face the threat of arrest, even death, and get it over with. Was this an unconscious suicide attempt? I plotted it secretly, which might well be an answer; I didn’t want Matthew to find out and talk sense into me. In the end, I couldn’t do it; I packed my suitcase, left a note for my husband and departed to the airport, only to park a mile away and watch my plane take off without me.
I refused to talk about my case—with Matthew, with anyone, period. Matthew tried very hard. Anytime he mentioned a new piece of news, dealing with civil liberties, for example, or a whistleblower case, I’d stop him. “I don’t give a damn,” I’d tell him, “no point.”
Purging my life of every reminder was not enough to alter the atmosphere of my bleak house and the depressing air that filled it. I wanted it gone as well. My feelings were non-negotiable; I put it to Matthew in absolute terms. “I want to sell this house and move. I don’t want to live in this house.” He had no say—for the first time in our thirteen-year partnership. I still wonder how he put up with it all, my determined attempt to eradicate our past; how he patiently bowed to my cold steel resolve. Together we had built so much.
By February, I had contacted a real estate agent and put our furnished house on the market. The only thing I wanted were the photo albums, along with a few essential items. I donated every one of my suits, every stitch of clothing worn to the court events and congressional testimonies. No matter how many times they went to the cleaners, I’d never be able to remove the smell of defeat and disillusionment.
My mother’s bitter statements rang in my ears; they kept on playing in my head.
Do you think this country is any different from Turkey or Iran when it comes to the government? Haven’t you learned from your father’s experience?
And perhaps most damning of all, her wretched analogy—
you are swimming against Niagara Falls!
Experience proved her right. I was naïve, a Pollyanna, ignoring clear defeat, outmatched by my foes and pretending I could ever beat them. I swallowed the bitter pill. How could anyone bring justice to such protected criminals, backed as they are by such interests? Was I insane to think I could? Yet how I tried!
In the worst depths of my rage and despair, my husband quietly talked to me. He had planned a trip to a Caribbean island for the two of us, a perfect getaway. No TV, no computers, no radio or news. Our deal was not to discuss anything related to my all-consuming struggle of the past four years—some trick!—but that was the plan. It lasted until the fourth day, when Matthew, understandably and deeply concerned, turned to me with empathy. “I know how hard it is for you, how hard it’s been,” he began. “It’s been hard on me too. I know you think you lost—lost everything—but you are wrong, Sibel. You accomplished a lot; I just can’t stand to see you not seeing this …”
“Yeah well too bad, futile,” I snapped, clenching my fist. “Wasted four long years and lost everything—almost everything. And you know what? In the end, no one gives a shit, people don’t care. They are too busy with their lives, like I was before this. As far as the government goes, this government is worse than a monarchy; at least with a monarchy you don’t have any expectations or illusions … I don’t want to talk about it. You promised …”
He didn’t back off. “You’re wrong. People do care;
some
do. You went beyond your own case, Sibel …” He talked about some things I managed to accomplish. I didn’t want to hear it. I cut him off.
“Frankly, I’m sorry that I gave hope to all these whistleblowers …”
I continued with my defeatist rant; I grew more and more manic. “Remember that so-called saint, the revered Democrat, Representative Henry Waxman? What happened? I went inside a SCIF for only, God, like my what, tenth SCIF session … I went in there with his top people, and they said they wanted to know, know everything about Dennis Hastert and the rest of the corrupt cabal—and what happened? In the middle of my testimony, his chief legal advisor stops me, interrupts to ask, ‘Before you go any further, were there any Democrats involved in this?’ to which I replied, ‘Yes, a few.’ And then he gets up and says, ‘We have to stop here and not go any further. We don’t want to know. Not at this point. We’ll wait for the IG report and after that contact you to come again.’ Aha!
That’s
the way it works!”
I paused to catch my breath. “I wish you would have stopped me instead of encouraging me to keep pushing. My mother was right, this damn government is no different than the rest—it is nothing but a grand illusion!”
I went inside the cottage and grabbed another beer. My heart was pounding frantically. I was angry now,
very
angry. I guessed this was another stage. I’d gone from inconsolable sobbing to nonstop crying to total numbness to sleeping and hiding to discarding reminders and taking flight in my mind and now this: to raw, unexpurgated anger. I didn’t want to dump it all on him, not here, not now, but Matthew had started it, he opened the floodgate. His optimism and hope enraged me. How could he? Was he blind or just stupid? He maintained the illusion I once believed in, the eternal vigilance crap, the light at the end of the tunnel dream; white knights defeating the forces of evil.
I raved at him and told him all that. I accused him of being blind and naïve. I demanded that he wake up and smell reality. I poured out four years of bottled-up anger until I ran out of words, exhausted. Now what? What was left in me? I wondered.
Matthew listened serenely, in part relieved, and glad—I’m sure—to see me worked up and wired rather than so utterly devoid of feeling. He was frustrated too for not being able to reach me, to make me see what he saw. At the end of my tirade, he spoke gently, with insistence. “I’m sorry, I know I promised not to talk about this … I only wanted to make you realize that not all was loss … they [testimonies, briefings, interviews, rallies, et al.] were not for nothing. They touched some people; they affected some; they woke up some of them. Some whistleblowers decided to come forward after seeing your efforts and reading about you; some will do the same in the future. There may be other people and organizations paying attention to these cases and issues you don’t know of.” He got up from his chair and faced me. “Maybe your legal case is now over, in the courts. But I see a movement you’ve started. That one is just beginning. That’s all.”
I didn’t believe him. Rather, I didn’t
want
to believe him. I was afraid to hope. I’d made up my mind to put it behind me, to end it, and I didn’t want him planting doubts. I was determined to move on, as far as I could from the filth of politics, DC: the
real
sin city. I had plans and all sorts of things to take care of: a house to sell, a city to choose, a job to obtain. In a few months’ time, I kept telling myself, nobody would even remember this saga. No one really cares to know, let alone fight for these issues.
“Ms. Edmonds,” the strange voice on the phone almost pleaded, after I had tried to cut him off, “my name is Larry Siems. I’m not with the news. I’m with PEN Foundation in New York. You were one of the nominees for our 2006 PEN Newman First Amendment Award.”
Oh. I did remember receiving a notification letter a few months back. My name had been put forth by the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), a coalition of top-notch civil liberties organizations, as a nominee for this prestigious award. Though honored, I’d dismissed it as highly unlikely, considering who’d won it in the past. I didn’t think I had the slightest chance.
“Right, I apologize for the mix-up,” I told him dismissively. “So, who won this year?”
He gave a quiet chuckle. “Well, that’s why I’m calling you, Ms. Edmonds. Our committee, our panel of judges, has selected you as the winner of this year’s PEN Newman First Amendment Award. You are the winner.”
I was speechless. I remained silent for what must’ve been minutes, letting this news sink in. These organizations in NCAC, the PEN Foundation, its staff and juries, all of whom were familiar with my case, had recognized my struggle—my relentless battle—as not only that of one lone whistleblower but a battle for freedom of speech itself, our first and most precious guaranteed right.
In a voice now nearly a whisper, I managed to stammer how honored I was, confessing to this stranger how I’d decided no one cared and how futile it all was. Suddenly this voice sounded small.
My God …
Larry told me to expect follow-up calls and e-mails from the foundation. Their annual award gala was scheduled for April 18, about a month away. I thanked him again, hung up, and sat there awhile, as if in a dream. My father had spent his entire life fighting for this most important, essential right: the right of free speech. That my battle now was recognized as such felt akin to victory. I would have given anything to bring him back, if only to share this moment, an impossible wish. I knew in that very same moment, however, how fortunate I was to have a person, a life partner, who lived this with me, every high and low, each pain, each tiny victory. And victory it was. With that thought I reached for the phone and dialed.
Matthew answered on the first ring. “Hi and how are you doing today?”
“Matthew …” and suddenly I burst into tears.
He panicked. “What’s wrong? Where are you? What happened?”
I grabbed hold of myself, almost embarrassed. “I received a call from the PEN Foundation. Remember that letter from a few months back? …”
He would be home in an hour, he said. “This calls for a celebration. I’ll pick up a bottle of champagne on the way …”
An hour later, Matthew came home, and after giving me a long hug, dragged me to our home office. “Wait, first I want to show you something.” He sat me in front of the computer and pulled up a chair. Then he went to Google and under Search typed
State Secrets Privilege
and hit Enter. The search result brought up over 100,000 hits. Matthew turned to me. “Remember four years ago, when we found out about Ashcroft invoking the State Secrets Privilege in your case? Remember how we searched under Google to find out what the heck it was about?” I nodded and he went on. “Remember we got less than ten hits? Look at it now: over one hundred thousand. Almost all of it on you—your fight, your battle; you and your case put this out in the public domain. Your relentless pursuit, your refusal to give up and your public outcry was picked up by tens of thousands of people, forums and websites.”
Next he typed
Sibel Edmonds
in the search box and hit Enter. This search brought up over 400,000 hits. Matthew turned to me again. “Nearly half a million, Sibel. You said ‘it was for nothing, it didn’t make a difference, no one cares’ but the results, the facts, say otherwise. There are tens of thousands of people who have been publishing everything you’ve been writing, everything you’ve ever said; they have documented all the court filings, articles, letters, you name it. You owe these people, you have to keep up the fight. It’s not over, not yet.”
He was right. I may have lost the court battles, the battle in getting Congress to do what it should have done, as its duty to the nation, and the attempt to shake up the media to stand up and do its job. I may have lost my birth country and all my family relations there; but I had not lost all the battles. Maybe some—however few, however little—I had won, and others still continued; none of them mine alone.
On April 18, 2006, the evening of the PEN Award gala, I couldn’t relax. I was worried about the appropriateness of the short acceptance speech I had already rewritten several times. I was nervous about standing in a spotlight before such a distinguished crowd in so formal a setting, reading this brief statement. Reflecting on the award itself, I was overwhelmed with its significance, and that it had been bestowed on me.
ABC’s Diane Sawyer hosted the award. After the introduction, the screens came on and a beautifully executed six-minute film on my case began to play. I was surprised. No one had told me they had produced this touching film; it meant so much. There was Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, offering her passionate testimonial from the screen, “… she not only was a strong advocate for her own case, but she became a strong advocate for the public policy, for the greater good.” Then Senator Lautenberg, our organization’s only advocate in the Senate, whose staff also helped to draft comprehensive legislation to protect whistleblowers, added to the film his gracious remarks.
The voice-over was done by Sawyer, who went on to describe how a large marble piece of the U.S. Supreme Court building had broken off and shattered into pieces on the very day the judges there rejected hearing my case.
And finally, there he was, Paul Newman himself, on my 2006 PEN Newman First Amendment Award film, delivering one of my all-time favorite quotes.
“I’m Paul Newman. For the past fourteen years we’ve been honoring courageous Americans who have defended their First Amendment rights against overwhelming odds, and in so doing, affirmed the protection of the First Amendment for all of us. Sibel Edmonds adds luster to this distinguished group of honorees with her refusal to back down from her confrontation with the FBI. In his straight-talking way, President Harry Truman said: When even one American, who has done nothing wrong, is forced by fear to shut his mouth, then all Americans are in peril. Sibel Edmonds would not let an intimidating FBI shut her mouth, and as a result, suffered grievous consequences, but she has persevered and we are better off for her sacrifices.”
Diane Sawyer announced my name as I made my way through the maze of tables to the stage, clutching the piece of paper with my brief acceptance speech.
Once there, in the spotlight, gazing into the darkened full room, I wished that my father, Dan Ellsberg, Bill Weaver, and every single member of the NSWBC were there to share that moment. I felt a surge of energy, confidence and determination—something I thought had been lost forever. All anxiety and nervousness began to melt as I started to speak. I thanked the National Coalition Against Censorship and PEN. I accepted the award on behalf of all our whistleblowers at NSWBC and continued with the following.,
“Standing up to despotism and tyranny has always been considered illegal by those in power, and dangerous to those who would expose them. Today we are facing despots who use ‘national security’ to push everything under a blanket of secrecy; to gag and call it a privilege; to detain without having to show a cause; and to torture yet believe it’s fully justified.
“We must be vigilant and fight back, for our freedom is under assault—not from terrorists—for they only attack us, not our freedom, and they can never prevail. No, the attacks on our freedom are from within, from our very own government; and unless we recognize these attacks for what they are, and stand up, and speak out—no, shout out—against those in government who are attempting to silence the brave few who are warning us, then we are doomed to wake up one sad morning and wonder when and where our freedom died.”
There came a thunder of applause; people stood up and kept applauding for what seemed a very long time. I knew they were applauding not only for me but for those who had fought the bloody fight for the past four years; those who had stood up for our rights and freedom, despite the severe consequences brought on them by the now despotic state.
As I descended from the stage, I found myself face to face with Verboud, my French director friend. He put his hand on my arm and said, “This is where our documentary ends. We started with Sibel the FBI whistleblower; then Sibel the gagged and classified woman; and that was followed by Sibel the whistleblower coalition leader and organizer. Today, Sibel has been recognized and awarded by other activists on the broader front where the fight is for freedom. This is the beginning of your ‘next stage.’ I want to congratulate you again … you have given up so much; you deserve this and so much more. Your fight has not ended.”
From the time I was a kid, I always liked to step out of myself and look at my life from above; to pretend I’m a camera, capturing a snapshot, mainly of turning points: those discrete, ethereal choices that determine what we become and where we go.
I had almost given up. I had decided that my little voice and small raised fists didn’t count—that I could kick and scream and fight all I could and it wouldn’t make a difference in the end. I was ready to move on and become the “uninvolved” citizen again; live my day-to-day life and tune out the alarms. One decision by one organization, followed by a phone call, changed all that; it became a turning point. It put me back on course, not as a fighter for one case, not a whistleblower for her cause, but as a fighter for our most sacrosanct right: our freedom. In a moment of despair, I had nearly forgotten Jefferson’s priceless words, that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. I would continue this fight for as long as it took; that may be my lifetime. I will do so as a loving human, as my father’s daughter, as a woman, and as a citizen of a nation that promised and guaranteed my freedom.