For more than two years, Sibel Edmonds (doesn’t she look like Madonna?), a former FBI translator of Turkish and Turkic languages, has been warning the country of major security problems that remain unaddressed at the FBI HQ in Washington. Mrs. Edmonds has been responsible for making public a number of alarming revelations of FBI malfeasance and cover-up in matters concerning our most sensitive areas of national security and counter-terrorism.

Edmonds broke the story of the case of Melek Can Dickerson, the Turkish translator who was hired by the FBI after 9/11, despite her and her husband’s records of associations with individuals and organizations that were targets of FBI investigations. Melek Can Dickerson was given a top-secret clearance and given access to numerous documents concerning terrorism investigations. Dickerson blocked investigations into suspect organizations she was involved with and, with her supervisor’s approval, took hundreds of pages of top-secret documents outside the FBI to unknown recipients.

In 2002, Malek Can Dickerson and several FBI targets of investigations fled the United States. No criminal investigation has been opened into the Dickerson case, and Dickerson’s supervisor, who faciliated her criminal conduct, has been promoted to supervising Arabic language units of the FBI’s counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations.

Sibel Edmonds testified before the 911 Commission, but the Commission’s report does not include her explosive information, and only mentions her name in a single footnote. In an August 2, 2004 open letter to the 911 Commission, Mrs. Edmonds recounted the Dickerson case as well as several other important incidents illustrating the depth and breadth of the crisis at the FBI. Her letter stated:

“Your report omits these significant incidents, and your recommendations do not address this serious security breach and likely espionage issue. This issue needs to be investigated and prosecuted. The translation of our intelligence is being entrusted to individuals with loyalties to our enemies. Important “chit-chats” and “chatters” are being intentionally blocked from translation. Why does your report exclude this information and these serious issues despite the guidance and briefings you received? How can budget increases address and resolve this misconduct by midlevel bureaucratic management? How can the addition of an “intelligence czar” solve this problem?”

Earlier this year, Edmonds was subpoenaed by attorneys for a group of 911 families in their lawsuit against the federal government. They were seeking to have her testify concerning information she reportedly saw at FBI HQ proving senior officials knew of Al-Qaeda plans to attack the US with aircraft months before the strike. However, in April, the Bush administration obtained a court gag order preventing her from testifying.

On Monday, September 13, Sibel Edmonds held a whistleblowers press conference in Washington, D.C. bringing together various agents, analysts and other experts from various government agencies involved in national security.

She was joined at the press conference by four other former federal civil servants: Diane Kleiman, former Special Agent, U.S. Customs, John M. Cole, former Veteran Intelligence Operations Specialist, FBI, Bogdan Dzakovic, former Special Agent & Red Team Leader, FAA, and Melvin A. Goodman, former Senior Analyst/Division Manager, CIA.

In her opening comments, Sibel Edmonds called upon Congress to “refrain from narrow political considerations and to apply brakes to the race to implement the 911 Commission recommendations.” This “unique opportunity to introduce salturary reform,” she noted, “must not be squandered by poltically driven haste.”

Edmonds further stated:

Omission is one of the major flaws in the Commission’s report. We are aware of significant issues and cases that were duly reported to the Commission by those of us with direct knowledge, but somewhere 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 the key problems within the intelligence, aviation security, and law enforcement communities. The ommissin of such serious and applicable issues and information by itself renders the report flawed, and casts doubt on the validity of many of its recommendations.

More detail to follow.

NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.

Shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America, the FBI went on a hiring binge for language translators. Special Agent John M. Cole, who was working in the FBI’s Washington, D.C. HQ was assigned to do risk assessments on applicants for the translator positions.

Something in the first applicant file he picked up set of alarm bells. “One of the first things I noticed is that her father was a retired military general from a foreign power.”

“He also lived six months of the year in the US and the other six months in this foreign country. I ran his name through the FBI computer and found that he had been stationed as a military attache in the US during the ’70’s. One of the things I knew from my years in counterrorintelligence was that every military attache from that country had proven to be an intelligence agent for that government. This was a red flag.”

Special Agent Cole says he did exactly what he was supposed to do. He took the applicant file to his supervisor, recommended against hiring the applicant and suggested a further risk assessment by the counterterrorism unit. The supervisor was glad that Cole had caught the potential security problem and agreed with his evaluation. Shortly after, says Cole, he asked the supervisor if the risk assessment had been done on the applicant. He was dumbfounded at the response he received. He recounts, “I was told, “not that it matters now, she’s already been hired and has just started in work in the Washington D.C. field office.’” What’s more, she had been given Top Secret clearance!

“I was shocked,” he says, “I couldn’t believe that this obvious security risk was being rushed through withtout proper risk assessments and put in such a sensitive position.” John Cole is no rookie, he is an 18-year FBI veteran with much of that time spent in counterintelligence, as well as undercover operations and counterterrorism.

But he was in for more shocks, because it got much worse. According to Cole, there were as many as 12 additional applicants, hired as language specialists, whose files he had personally inspected, that showed red flags for various reasons. These also were not properly vetted, he says. “Now remember; this was during the time period right after the Robert Hannsen case broke.” He points out: “and the Bureau is insisting that it’s doing everything possible to tighten security in the wake of this scandal. We saw the incredible damage that one Hannsen could cause, and yet, here we were setting outselves up for several Hannsen-type disasters in the future.” Robert Hannsen, an FBI special agent with a long career in counterintelligence, was arrested in February 2001 for spying for Russia and the former Soviet Union. The total damage he caused to US security may never be known, but his case is regarded as the worst known case of foreign penetration of the FBI.

Cole says he became more and more alarmed at what he saw and repeatedly filed reports through channels warning that the Bureau was facing very serious potential security breaches. Instead of tightening security on questionable applicants, he says, “the Security Programs people started coming down on me” for continuing to bring these matters up.

He had been covering Afghanistan, Pakistan and India for the Bureau, which had become an especially important region in the terror war. Suddenly, he was transferred to the Sub-Saharan Africa desk, which was tantamount to being exiled to Siberia. Yet, even here, he discovered he could put his experience to good use. Perusing a file of a former FBI language specialist for this region, he discovered that the individual had been providing FBI information to a foreign intelligence service. This was both a crime and an enormous security breach. “I asked why a full investigation had not been initiated against this individual and why he had not been arrested, since he was still in the U.S.” Cole recounts, “Again, instead of doing the obvious right thing of opening this case, they took the Sub-Sahara desk away from me.”

It was obvious, says Cole, that he was suffering retaliation for “rocking the boat”, which, in this case, meant simply doing his job. “For 18 years, I had gotten nothing but exceptional ratings,” he notes, but now, all of a sudden, he was getting negative writeups. This is precisely what FBI Director Robert Mueller pledged would not happen in the new post-9/11 FBI.

“I will not tolerate reprisals or intimidation by any bureau employee against those who make protected disclosures, nor will I tolerate attempts to prevent the employees from making such disclosures.” Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 6, 2002. “I want people in the field to tell me what is happening,” he continued. “And I encourage, welcome the criticism, the insight, the suggestions, whether it be from the organization or from without the organization.”

However, the Bureau’s practices seem to contradict Directer Mueller’s rhetoric. The cases of Special Agents John Roberts, Jane Turner, Robert Wright and Barry Carmody provide recent examples of FBI retaliation against whistleblowers. So do the cases of fBI language specialists Sibel Edmonds and Behrooz Sarshar. Edmonds, a Turkic and Arabic translator (who I mentioned earlier) insists that federal officials had specific information about the impending 9/11 attacks. Please forgive the repetition–in her August 2004 open letter to the 9/11, Edmonds charged:

More than four months prior to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, in April, 2001, a long-term FBI informant/asset who had been providing the bureau with information since 1990, provided two FBI agents and a translator with specific information regarding a terrorist attack…Through his contacts in Afghanistan, he received information that 1) Osama bin Laden was planning a major terrorist attack in the US targetting four or five major cities 2) the attack was going to involve airplanes 3) some of the individuals in charge of carrying out this attack were already in place in the US 4) the attack was going to be carried out soon, in a few months.

Although Mrs. Edmonds’ charges have been public for more than two years, the Justice Department and FBI have asserted the rarely invoked State Secret Privilege to block the release of the Inspector General’s investigation into her allegations.

“Director Mueller tells Congress that he is waiting for our Inspector General’s report on the [John] Roberts case,” John cole notes. “Well, the IG report confirms that the FBI has been retaliating against Roberts for exposing serious FBI misconduct. Mueller knows that but has done nothing. And he has been blocking all documents related to Sibel Edmonds’ case.”

Then there is Mueller’s testimony before the 9/11 Commission. “It was amazing,” says Cole. “Mueller made it appear that everything is rosy at the Bureau and that all its problems have been fixed or are being fixed. He stated that the FBI’s top priorities are: 1) counterterrorism 2) counterintelligence and 3) training. However, what I was witenessing personally at HQ completely contradicted that. Counterintelligence and counterterrorism had become a total sham. The claim that training is now a top priority is also false. Training has actually decreased 75% since 9/11. Much of the training that is being done is worthless stuff put together by retired Bureau officials who have gotten fat contracts without competitive bidding.”

What about Mueller’s claim that he wanted to hear from agents? Empty public relations, says Cole. After repeatedly failing to get a response to his security concerns on the language translators, Cole went directly to Mueller. He says he hand-carried four letters to Mueller’s office–two in 2002 and two in 2003–and delivered them to Mueller’s secretary. “I never got a response from him–Zero. Nothing.”

Well not exactly nothing. John Cole did finally get a response from his superiors, but that response was not the one he had hoped for. In January, 2004, he was notified that he was being suspended. In March he resigned from the FBI. Like all FBI special agents, John Cole solemnly swore “to support, uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” It’s an oath he takes seriously. “When you take an oath to defend your country and do the right thing, you had better mean it.” he said. “And people should be held accountable when-whether through negligence or malfeasance-they violate that oath. Otherwise, what’s the point of having it.”

The FBI has changed since he first became a special agent, says Cole, who now works as a security analyst fot the US Air Force. “It used to be a great place to work,” he says. “You really felt that you were part of a team that was doing important, rewarding work. Now it has become so corrupt and there is no accountability, the most conscientious, professional employees are often penalized, while some of the worst are promoted. The Bureau is in worse shape than ever and morale is very low. This is very dangerous for America’s security.”

This conviction that our country was being left wide open to terrorist attack led John Cole to join Sibel Edmonds, former US Customs Agent Diane Kleiman, FAA/TSA Special Agent Bogdad Deskovic and other federal law enforcement and intelligence agents at the September 13, 2004 Whistleblowers’ press conference in Washington, D.C. These officers on the front lines of the terror war warn that, far from fixing the failures that led to 9/11, many of the 9/11 Report recommendations would do more harm than good.

“Director Mueller and the commission both talk a lot about accountability,” says Cole, “but both have refused to hold anyone accountable. They simply want to reshuffle the bureaucracy, spend more money, hire more people, increase their authority–and leave the same people in charge. That’s a prescription for more–and even bigger-disasters.”

Corruption

Whistleblowers

Edmonds Interview

NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.

When ‘former’ KGB officer, Vladimir Putin, came into power in 1999, “Russia had what approximated to an independent media,” notes media critic Stephen Glover in the September 11 issue of The Spectator of London. “Now all television channels and nearly all newspapers are controlled directly or indirectly by the Kremlin….The country’s last independent television channel was shut down last year on the pretext of financial insolvency.”

Putin’s regime reverts to Rezhnev-era censorship measures when necessary. When Izvestia asked pointed questions about the government’s actions in the recent terrorist horror at a school in Beslan, North Ossetia, Putin reacted “by securing the dismissal of the editor of Izvestia, Raf Shakirov.” Additionally, ‘two Russian journalists with independent views on Chchnya were not even allowed to go to Beslan.” One was arrested and jailed for five days, the other mysteriously took ill during a flight to the region after being served tea.

Another important weapon wielded by Putin against the media is the russian version of the McCain-Feingold “campaign finance reform law”. Signed in 2002 by President Bush (who had promised to veto any measure of that sort that constricts freedom of speech), the law places severe restrictions on political speech–via advertisements and other public messages–that mention political candidates within an election period. This has the effect of strengthening the power of th Establishment’s media cartel to shape public views of issues and candidates during the period when most Americans are most interested in them. It also works to the benefit of incumbent politicians, rather than challengers.

Russia’s version of McCain-Feingold, as described by Glover, is even more draconian. “A law passed last summer threatens newspapers with closure if, during an election period, they express any opinion about a politican’s policies, his campaign or his personality. Intimated by these and other new laws, many newspaper journalists practice self-censorship.” Having strangled Russia’s independent media in the crib, Putin is using the state-controlled media to culvitate a personality cult: “Television cameras follow Putin slavishly around Russia, portraying him in a heroic light.”

NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.

by Drew Johnson

“It’s an interesting idea,” George W. Bush said last month of a federal sales tax proposal to replace the income tax system that annually confounds American taxpayers. Aides downplayed that “interesting idea” within 24 hours of Bush’s initially favorable comment.

The reason? A misinformed tirade against the rumored sales tax proposal by John Kerry.

A federal sales tax would entirely replace the federal income tax, thus ending the Internal Revenue Service, audits, paycheck withholdings, and the drudgery of filing tax returns. Under a sales tax, workers receive all of the money they earn. Since funds are untaxed until spent, a sales tax does not discourage savings.

Kerry’s accusations, along with pleas from special interest groups intent on preserving their place of privilege in the world of tax write-offs, left a large paper trail of attacks on the idea of a federal sales tax over the last few weeks. The majority of these attacks cannot withstand the scrutiny of common sense, much less economic theory:

Fiction No. 1: A national sales tax would produce the “largest tax increase on the middle class in American history.”

The facts: Economic models indicate that current government spending levels would require a federal sales tax ranging from 17-23% (depending largely on whether Social Security taxes are collected through the sales tax or continue as a paycheck withholding). These figures vary little from the 21.4% overall effective federal tax rate for 2005. All federal sales tax proposals under consideration include a universal rebate, similar to the safeguard offered by the existing standard deduction. Most proposals set the rebate at, or above, the current poverty level. For a family of four, this means that no federal sales taxes will apply on the first $18,850 spent. Additionally, the abolition of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) would lower federal spending by over $10.67-billion per year. This translates into an average yearly savings of $104 for each American taxpayer.

Fiction No. 2: Small businesses will be hurt most by a national sales tax.

The facts: Since a sales tax means businesses would no longer file income tax returns, estimates project the total cost of business compliance with a national sales tax at less than $5 billion per year. This is a distinct advantage, since projected tax compliance burdens on private firms run at least $100 billion annually under the current system. (Some analysts place the total at two or three times that amount.)

This means that small business owners could reduce prices to become more competitive while expanding their own margins. Small businesses would be the first to benefit from customers with extra money in their pockets thanks to decreased tax burdens.

Fiction No. 3: Collecting a sales tax will place a stifling burden on retail sales businesses.

The facts: Administering a national sales tax would be no different from administering a state sales tax, a feat already performed by retail stores in 45 states and the District of Columbia. Mercifully, a federal sales tax ends the onerous task of preparing and filing taxes–a chore that robs Americans of at least 6.7 billion hours each year.

Fiction No. 4: Sales taxes on services are easy to elude and difficult to administer.

The facts: In addition to an income tax of up to 35%, self-employed service providers face a 15.3% payroll tax. Thus, due to its lower burden, a sales tax drastically reduces the incentive for such an individual to evade taxes. More importantly, even individuals participating in underground and black-market economic activities–people who formerly skirted their tax obligations–will bear their share of the tax burden by purchasing goods and services.

Fiction No. 5: A national sales tax will substantially increase the price of goods and services.

The facts: Currently, the prices of all goods and services offered by legitimate taxpaying businesses in the United States reflect the costs of the businesses’ tax liabilities, as well as the costs of tax compliance. Under a sales tax system, the tax rate will be lower at each step of production, and the compliance cost is virtually eliminated. This means the final price for consumers, even including the federal sales tax, will increase little, if at all, from current prices.

Over Labor Day weekend, comments from the Bush Administration that the White House is looking into a flat rate income tax came as a hopeful sign. However, until Bush and his aides embrace–rather than merely contemplate–a specific plan, there is no assurance that a meaningful debate over tax reform will take place this election.

Given the possible benefits of a federal sales tax, or even a flat tax, President Bush should stand in firm support of the idea. Considering a sales tax demonstrates that the administration recognizes the current income tax system is broken and desperately needs a comprehensive fix. The President should reconsider his quick dismissal of this “interesting idea.”

Learn more and join the grassroots movement at http://www.fairtax.org

NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.