November 2001 or December 2001: FBI Translator to Have Exclusive Access to Wiretaps of Surveillance Targets with Whom She Has Links

FBI translator Melek Can Dickerson recommends in a proposal to supervisor Mike Feghali that the Bureau’s Turkish language department adopt a new system for assigning translation tasks. Instead of the current system that randomly distributes assignments to translators, she suggests that each translator be permanently responsible for certain targets. Included with her proposal is a list of recommended assignments for each of the department’s translators. Under the proposed arrangement, she would be assigned to the phone lines of the American-Turkish Council (ATC) along with three other “high-value” diplomatic targets. Dickerson formerly worked for the ATC as an intern and is currently a personal friend of at least one of those high-value targets. She discusses her proposal alone with Feghali in his office for most of the afternoon. The following day, Feghali sends an email announcing that he has decided to adopt the new system proposed by Dickerson. [Vanity Fair, 9/2005] As a result of the new arrangement, Dickerson, a mere “monitor,” has exclusive access to her targets’ wiretapped communications. (An FBI translator is either a “linguist” or a “monitor” for any given language. Linguists are more qualified and consequently have broader roles. For example, while linguists can to do verbatim translations, monitors may only produce summaries. [Anti-War (.com), 7/1/2004] ) From this point on, none of the recorded conversations for these targets will be reviewed by an official department linguist, or any other translator for that matter. [Vanity Fair, 9/2005]