Just another Reality-based bubble in the foam of the multiverse.

Saturday, May 07, 2005

"These aren't the droids you're looking for..."

A federal appeals court agreed with the government on Friday that a suit by an F.B.I. translator who was fired after accusing the bureau of ineptitude could expose government secrets and jeopardize national security.

The decision, by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, effectively ends the suit by the translator, Sibel Edmonds.

Her lawyer said, however, that she planned to take the case to the Supreme Court.

Ms. Edmonds, a contract linguist for the bureau for about six months, translating material in Azerbaijani, Farsi and Turkish, was trying to revive the lawsuit she filed after being was fired in 2002.

She had repeatedly complained that bureau linguists produced slipshod and incomplete translations of important terrorism intelligence before and after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. She also accused a linguist in the Washington field office of blocking the translation of material that involved acquaintances who had come under suspicion and said the bureau had allowed diplomatic concerns to affect the translation of important intelligence.

Ms. Edmonds's suit was dismissed in July after Attorney General John Ashcroft invoked a rarely used power and declared that the case fell under "state secret" privilege...


More on Ms. Edmonds here.

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