Before their scheduled meeting with FBI supervisor Mike Feghali, translators Sibel Edmonds and Kevin Taskasen meet with FBI field agent Dennis Saccher to discuss how they will present their findings to Feghali on efforts by translator Melek Can Dickerson to protect certain surveillance targets. After the short pre-meeting, they take an elevator and run into Feghali who—unaware that the two translators had just met with Saccher—tells them that Saccher can’t make the meeting because “he’s been sent out somewhere in the field.” Saccher later tells Edmonds that he had been told the meeting was postponed. After the meeting, Saccher’s superiors order him off the case and, in an unprecedented move, prohibit him from obtaining copies of Edmond’s translations, even though he is the one in charge of Turkish counter-intelligence. He chooses not to resist, citing his concern that he might be assigned “to some fucked-up office in the land of tornadoes.” [Vanity Fair, 9/2005] In a 2005 interview, Edmonds will assert that the efforts to bury her allegations did not originate in the FBI, but rather “came directly from the Department of State.” According to Edmonds, the State Department was concerned that her findings might jeopardize high-level criminal operations involving certain US allies. [Anti-War (.com), 8/15/2005]
Between February 1, 2002 and February 11, 2002: FBI Whistleblower Reassigned to Windowless Office; Given Permission to Write Description of Allegations at Home
FBI contract translator Sibel Edmonds is reassigned to the windowless office of translation-department supervisor Stephanie Bryan. Bryan instructs Edmonds to write a confidential memo explaining her allegations and gives her permission to write it at home. She turns in the memo on February 11. [Associated Press, 1/14/2005; Vanity Fair, 9/2005]
Afternoon February 12, 2002: FBI Translator Submits Formal Memo Alleging Security Breaches by Co-Worker in Department
FBI translator Sibel Edmonds submits a confidential memo (see Between February 1, 2002 and February 11, 2002) alleging that co-translator Melek Can Dickerson shielded Turkish officials from an FBI investigation by failing to translate important wiretapped conversations. Edmonds’ supervisor, Stephanie Bryan, passes the memo onto supervisory special agent Tom Frields. But Frields says he will not look at the memo until after Dickerson and supervisor Mike Feghali have reviewed and commented on it. Shortly after submitting the memo, Edmonds is informed that she is being investigated by the bureau’s security department because she wrote the memo on a home computer, even though she had received explicit permission to do so (see Between February 1, 2002 and February 11, 2002). Before leaving the office, Dickerson allegedly comes over to her and says, “Why are you doing this, Sibel? Why don’t you just drop it? You know there could be serious consequences. Why put your family in Turkey in danger over this?” [New York Observer, 1/22/2004; Vanity Fair, 9/2005] The following day, three FBI agents come to the home of Sibel and Matthew Edmonds and seize their computer. [Associated Press, 1/14/2005; Vanity Fair, 9/2005]
February 13, 2002: FBI Translations Supervisor Dismisses Allegations by Whistleblower in Memo to Superiors
Mike Feghali, the supervisor of the FBI’s translations center, writes in a memo to his superiors that “there was no basis” for Sibel Edmonds’s allegations (see Afternoon February 12, 2002) that FBI translator Melek Can Dickerson had shielded Turkish officials from FBI investigation by failing to provide field agents with accurate transcripts of wiretapped conversations. [Vanity Fair, 9/2005]
February 22, 2002: FBI Supervisor Encourages Whistleblower to Drop Allegations
Sibel Edmonds takes her complaints and allegations to supervisory special agent Tom Frields, who encourages her to let the matter rest. When she indicates that she will do no such thing, Frields warns her that if she has disclosed any classified information to anyone she could be arrested. [Vanity Fair, 9/2005]
March 7, 2002: FBI Whistleblower under FBI Surveillance
Sibel Edmonds meets with James Caruso, the FBI’s deputy assistant director for counterterrorism and counter-intelligence, to discuss her allegations against co-worker Melek Can Dickerson (see Afternoon February 12, 2002). Caruso takes no notes and asks no questions as Edmonds tells him her story. After the meeting, she has lunch with her husband at the Capital Grille. As the Edmondses look over their menus, two men arrive in an FBI-issue SUV and sit down at an adjacent table. “They just sat and stared at Sibel,” Matthew Edmonds later recalls in an interview with Vanity Fair magazine. “They didn’t eat or drink—just sat, staring at Sibel, the whole time we were there.” [Vanity Fair, 9/2005]
Afternoon March 7, 2002: After Being Rebuffed by Own Superiors, FBI Whistleblower Sends Letters to Senators and FBI Internal Investigation Departments
FBI translator Sibel Edmonds writes letters to the Justice Department’s internal affairs division, known as the Office of Professional Responsibility, and its office of inspector general, describing her allegations against co-worker Melek Can Dickerson (see Afternoon February 12, 2002). Edmonds also sends faxes alleging possible national security breaches to the Senate Intelligence Committee and Senators Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT), both of whom sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee. [Vanity Fair, 9/2005]
March 22, 2002: FBI Whistleblower Fired after Alleging Security Breaches in Translations Department
FBI translator Sibel Edmonds is called to the office of Stephanie Bryan, the supervisor of the Bureau’s translation department. While waiting she sees Mike Feghali, who, according to Edmonds, “tap[s] his watch and say[s], ‘In less than an hour you will be fired, you whore.’” A few minutes later, she meets with supervisory special agent Tom Frields who dismisses her on grounds that she violated security procedures. [Vanity Fair, 9/2005] An agent then escorts her out of the building and tells her: “We will be watching you and listening to you. If you dare to consult an attorney who is not approved by the FBI, or if you take this issue outside the FBI to the Senate, the next time I see you, it will be in jail.” [New York Observer, 1/22/2004]
June 2002: Former FBI Translator Files Whistleblower Suit Against Justice Department
Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds files a lawsuit against the Justice Department. She alleges that the government leaked confidential information about her to the media in violation of the Privacy Act, and that it also violated her free speech and due process rights when it fired her in retaliation for her having reported possible illegal activity by co-worker Melek Can Dickerson and other security and management problems in the FBI’s language department. She is suing for monetary damages and reinstatement of her contract with the Bureau. [CNN, 7/7/2004] Dickerson and her husband Douglas Dickerson are subpoenaed in the case and the Justice Department is ordered by the court not to allow the couple to leave the country. [Anti-War (.com), 7/1/2004]
June 17, 2002: FBI Acknowledges Some Allegations by FBI Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds
In a lengthy unclassified hearing held by the Senate Judiciary Committee, FBI officials confirm translator Sibel Edmond’s allegations that co-worker Melek Can Dickerson had either mistranslated or incorrectly marked “not pertinent” hundreds of wiretapped telephone conversations involving certain surveillance targets with whom she had become friends (see (November 2001)). They also acknowledge that she had attempted to take control over all translation assignments involving those targets (see November 2001 or December 2001). The targets worked at the American-Turkish Council (ATC), where Dickerson was an intern before taking her job at the FBI. The FBI confirms also that Dickerson had failed to disclose this information on her application (see also (Late October 2001)), but nonetheless attributes her failure to translate these wiretaps to lack of training. [Leahy and Grassley, 6/19/2002; Washington Post, 6/19/2002; United Press International, 1/24/2005; Vanity Fair, 9/2005] One of the participants of the hearing will later tell the New York Observer that the session was tense. “None of the FBI officials’ answers washed, and they could tell we didn’t believe them.” He remembers that one of the Congressional investigators told the officials, “You basically admitted almost all that Sibel alleged, yet you say there’s no problem here. What’s wrong with this picture?” [New York Observer, 1/22/2004]
