Well, we campaigned for her to get the JFK Profile in Courage Award, which Murtha got instead, but finally Sibel Edmonds gets her due and acknowledgement for her courage in her efforts to protect the rights to free speech and being able to speak truth to power! Congratulations Sibel!
From:
http://www.pen.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/633/prmID/172March 29, 2006: 2006 PEN/Newman’s Own First Amendment Award
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For more information contact: Larry Siems, (212) 334-1660 ext. 105, lsiems@pen.org
Translator Fired from FBI for Blowing Whistle on Intelligence Failures to Receive 2006 PEN/Newman’s Own First Amendment Award
New York, New York, March 29, 2006—PEN American Center has named Sibel Edmonds, a translator who was fired from her job at the FBI after complaining of intelligence failures and poor performance in her unit, as the recipient of this year’s prestigious PEN/Newman’s Own First Amendment Award. Ms. Edmonds will receive the $20,000 prize at PEN’s annual Gala on April 18, 2006 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
Shortly after 9/11, Edmonds was hired as an FBI Language Specialist for Turkish, Farsi and Azerbaijani. In her work, Edmonds discovered poorly translated documents relevant to the 9-11 attacks and reported these to her supervisors. She also expressed concerns about a co-worker’s relationship with a foreign intelligence officer, and reported being told to work slowly to give the appearance that her department was overworked, despite the large backlog of documents needing translation. Edmonds followed all appropriate procedures for registering her concerns. However, instead of acting on her information, the FBI fired Edmonds in March 2002, claiming she had “committed security violations and had disrupted the translation unit.”
In June 2002, two U.S. Senators wrote the FBI demanding information on Edmond’s case, noting that many of her allegations had been confirmed by the FBI in unclassified briefings to Congress. The following month, Edmonds filed a lawsuit challenging the FBI’s retaliatory actions, but in July of 2004 Edmonds v. Department of Justice was dismissed by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after Attorney General John Ashcroft invoked “State Secrets Privilege” to prevent any materials that supported her case from becoming public. The Supreme Court has refused to hear her appeal.
In early 2004, an unclassified summary of the Justice Department's Inspector General's report on Edmonds confirmed that many of her 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." In February of that year, Edmonds testified before the 9/11 Commission about problems at the FBI. Three months later, the Justice Department retroactively classified Edmonds’ briefings to Senators and the 9-11 Commission, as well the information the Senators had cited in their letter to the FBI, and forced the Members of Congress who had information about Edmonds’ case posted on their web sites to remove the documents.
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