9/11 – REVISED EDITION
Unsolved mysteries of 9/11 – when are we going to get some answers?

You would think that a spy scandal such as was reported by FBI wiretap translator Sibel Edmonds would rate mile-high headlines. So far, however, the coverage of this story has been limited to the Washington Post and … here. Edmonds claims that one of her fellow translators met with a government official of a foreign country even as the feds were tapping his phone conversations. Edmonds also avers that she was invited to join the foreign organization that was under surveillance, and, when she refused, her family was threatened. The Post still isn't naming the mysterious "Middle Eastern country" that seems to have penetrated the FBI's innermost secrets, but last week reporter James Grimaldi, who broke the story, had an item in his "Washington Hearsay" column that reveals some of the details of the ongoing cover-up:

"There may be various efforts to prompt Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) into jump-starting judicial hearings; congressional sources believe that's why some anonymous senator has placed a hold on a bill by Leahy and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa). The bill would give FBI employees federal whistleblower protection.

I can think of a few other reasons for the hold. Although it's too late to silence Rowley, Senator Anonymous clearly doesn't want to hear what Ms. Edmonds has to say. Her position, in any case, is none too good:

"The law is meant to protect people such as FBI agent Colleen Rowley, who recently testified before Congress. Even under that bill, though, protection would be more tenuous for Sibel Edmonds, the latest whistleblower to be fired by the FBI."

That Ms. Edmonds has come forward, anyway, is a tribute to her patriotism – and a reproach to her superiors, whose motives are questionable at best. The "Homeland Security" legislation currently being rammed through Congress would jail whistleblowers like Edmonds, whose story, Grimaldi reports, has been confirmed in its essentials by the FBI. "But Edmonds was fired because she was 'disruptive,'" he writes with evident disgust, citing a floor speech by Leahy:

"It is not a good management practice for the FBI to fire the person who reports a security breach, while nothing happens to the person who allegedly committed the breach."

It depends, however, on what is being managed. If you're the head of a spy ring that has infiltrated the top echelons of US law enforcement, and you have the power to muzzle whistleblowers by firing them and then invoking the gods of "national security" to cover the whole thing up – I would call that pretty good management practice. It all depends on what side you're on.