Sibel Edmonds was born in 1970 and is Turkish-American. Up until March 2002 she worked as a translator for the FBI. During the course of her work she encountered evidence that the the FBI was actively supressing evidence of US involvement in the illegal sales of nuclear materials and technologies to Turkey (often on behalf of Pakistan's ISI), drug trafficking, money laundering, terrorism, and corruption from the very highest levels of the US government down.
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Joseph K in the 21st Century
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When Sibel Edmonds brought this evidence to her superiors at the FBI she was told to leave it alone and that pursuing it would only open a can of worms. So she took her concerns to higher management within the FBI and eventually to assistant director Dale Watson and the FBI's director Robert Mueller. At this stage she was told not to take her concerns any further. If she did, she was told, the FBI would retaliate against her. When Sibel Edmonds refused to keep quiet she was fired. The offical and indeed only reason she was given for being fired was, "Solely for the convenience of the United States government.
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In March 2002, around three weeks before she was fired, Sibel Edmonds took her case to the Department of Justice Inspector General's office and also the Senate Judiciary Committee (SJC). The Inspector General promised the SJC a completed investigation into Edmonds case by autumn of that year. The investigation was never finished and never made public. The reason cited was "state privilege" and "national security". In spite of this several Senators of the SJC continued to work with Edmonds on her case. However this work finally came to an end in May 2004 when Attorney General John Ashcroft sent an order to Congress saying that the Justice Department was "retroactively" classifying everything Congress and the SJC had in its possession in regards to Sibel Edmonds case. The SJC was ordered to delete everything about Edmonds from their websites. The Attorney General was literally gagging Congress. From that time on the Senators of the SJC who had worked on Edmond's case simply stopped returning her phone calls.
Sibel Edmonds has since become known as the most gagged woman in US history. If she speaks out about what she knows she will be jailed.
That is a brief synopsis of Sibel Edmonds case. Listen to Edmonds tell her story in her own words below.
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Who you gonna call?
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What's perhaps most revealing when you look into Sibel Edmonds story and hear her speak is that you begin to understand how the vast US political, judicial, corporate and media machine operates when it is the US government itself that is accused of wrong doing. The FBI is the federal government agency whose purpose is to investigate crimes and gather evidence. They not only refused to investigate the evidence Edmonds had - or at least they refused to make their investigation public - they fired her, simply because she would not ignore the crimes she had uncovered. So Edmonds went to Congress. And Congress was duly gagged by the Attorney General. Then the courts threw out her case after hearing testimony given by government lawyers that Edmonds and her council were barred from hearing (they were told by the judge to leave the court room and were given no transcript of what was said; a situation that you cannot help but describe as Kafkaeque). Then there is the testimony she gave to the 9/11 Commission (behind closed doors). Not only was it left out of the final report, it was also stricken from the public record. All the while the Executive branch of government has classified everything in relation to Edmonds case. And I mean everything. Even Sibel Edmonds date of birth has been classified. And of course there is the coporate media, which does and says nothing.
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In US politics the constitutional 'checks and balances' that are suposed to restrain government are now utterly impotent. Government does pretty much whatever it likes, even if that means commiting crimes (and in Edmonds case we are talking about potentially treasonous activity). And why not? Especially when you know you have the means to cover those crimes up, and to halt, control or impede any investigation into them. And if someone speaks out, that can be dealt with. Those who refuse to be silenced, the whistle blowers, those who try to alert the public of illegal government activity, can simply be chewed up and spat out by the machine. Just like Edmonds. Just like Joseph K.
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As Edmonds says in the above film: where else can she go? Who does she call when it is the government who is being charged with criminal activity? She has tried the courts, the FBI, Congress, the SJC and the media, and each of them have failed her and have failed others like her.
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If anyone says to you, "well, why don't people speak out?" Tell them that they do. And that one way or another those people are silenced.
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9/11: Cover Up
Whilst working at the FBI Sibel Edmonds, amongst everything else, came across evidence that several of the 9/11 hijackers had been actively protected by the Justice Department, the State Depeartment, the White House and the FBI prior to the attacks. Not only was this covered up, following the attacks high level officials within the Bush administration were actively involved in getting persons suspected of being involved with those hijackers out of the country.
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Links
For sale: Weat's deadly nuclear secrets (The Times, Jan 2008)
Interview with Jim Hodge
Just a Citizen (Sibel Edmonds website. You may be interested in the 'gallery'. Remember that Edmonds has been gagged from naming those involved in her case...)
National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (founded by Edmonds in 2004)
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