Sibel Edmonds Community

Sibel Deniz Emonds was born in 1970 in Iran. She is the daughter of an Azerbaijani doctor. Her family fled Iran in 1981 and moved to Turkey. In addition to English, Sibel speaks fluent Turkish, Persian and Azeri. She earned her masters degree in public policy and international commerce from George Mason University, and her bachelors in criminal justice and psychology from George Washington University. She came to the US as a student in 1988 and became an American citizen in 1996.
Sibel Edmonds was hired, on September 20th, 2001 as a contractor to work as an interpreter in the translations unit of the FBI. Edmonds was fired from her position as a language specialist at the FBI\'s Washington Field Office on March 22, 2002, after she accused a colleague of covering up illicit activity involving foreign nationals, alleging serious acts of security breaches, cover-ups, and intentional blocking of intelligence which, she contended, presented a danger to the United States\' security. Between December 2001 and March 2002, Edmonds reported to FBI managers various incidents of misconduct and incompetence, involving her supervisor Mike Feghali and others, that she observed while employed as a translator. She escalated her complaints to the FBI\'s Office of Professional Responsibility and the U.S. Department of Justice\'s Office of Inspector General. The OIG report was classified, but the unclassified version says (in part) “We found that many of Edmonds\' core allegations relating to the co-worker were supported by either documentary evidence or witnesses other than Edmonds.\"
Since that time, court proceedings on her whistleblower claims have been blocked by the assertion of State Secrets Privilege. Edmonds alleges that in the course of her work for the government, she found evidence that the FBI, State Department, and Pentagon had been infiltrated by a Turkish intelligence organization suspected of ties to terrorism. She also accused members of the FBI\'s translation unit of sabotage, intimidation, corruption and incompetence. Edmonds and government watchdog groups contend the State Department\'s invocation of the State Secrets Privilege barring her testimony on these subjects is not in the interests of the general public, but is instead designed to protect Bush administration and Department of Justice officials. On March 29, 2006, she was awarded the PEN/Newman\'s Own First Amendment Award in recognition of her defense of free speech as it applies to the written word.
Having unsuccessfully taken her case to be heard all the way to the Supreme Court and to Congress, a recent Brad Friedman story http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5197 indicates that Sibel is now willing to risk prison in order to tell the American people her full story. Kill The Messenger, a documentary about Sibel Edmonds\' story, was released in 2006. As of this writing, it is not available through netflix.
(source- primarily wikipedia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibel_Edmonds