The story of Sibel Edmonds is a sadly typical example of corruption run amok in the Bush Administration and the revolving doors of power in our nation's capitol. Ms. Edmonds' story began when she was hired as a contract translator for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) shortly after the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks. Her story continues today as Bush administration officials protect themselves and other Republican party cronies by gagging her with the "state secrets privilege."
Why would the Bush Department of Justice (DOJ) make Sibel Edmonds the most gagged citizen in the history of our country? Why would they retroactively classify her public testimony to Congress? What are they trying to hide, keep secret, or cover-up?
Some of the very basic facts are:
1. Sibel Edmonds monitored certain FBI wiretaps and translated them. 2. She also re-checked previously translated documents for accuracy. 3. She alleged that her co-worker, Dickerson, committed various crimes. 4. She alleged that her supervisor, Feghali, ignored these crimes. 5. She alleged the FBI fired her because she was a whistleblower. 6. She sued the FBI and took her case all the way to the Supreme Court. 7. The Bush Administration has hid behind "state secrets privilege." 8. She testified to the 9/11 Commission but was ignored. 9. She tried to work within the system but the system failed all of us.
The cast of characters:
Sibel Edmonds - The whistleblower Melek Can Dickerson - Edmonds' co-worker Mike Feghali - Edmonds' supervisor Robert Mueller - Bush-appointed FBI director John Ashcroft - Bush-appointed U.S. Attorney General Thomas Kean - Bush-appointed Chairman of the 9/11 Commission
The raw story:
The best independent reporting of the Sibel Edmonds' story was done by David Rose. His article is the source for many of the points along the timeline below. He published "An Inconvenient Patriot" in Vanity Fair magazine in September 2005:
Love of country led Sibel Edmonds to become a translator for the F.B.I. following 9/11. But everything changed when she accused a colleague of covering up illicit activity involving Turkish nationals. Fired after sounding the alarm, she's now fighting for the ideals that made her an American, and threatening some very powerful people.
In Washington, D.C., and its suburbs, December 2, 2001 was fine but cool, the start of the slide into winter after a spell of unseasonable warmth. At 10 o'clock that morning, Sibel and Matthew Edmonds were still in their pajamas, sipping coffee in the kitchen of their waterfront town house in Alexandria, Virginia, and looking forward to a well-deserved lazy Sunday.
Since mid-September, nine days after the 9/11 attacks, Sibel had been exploiting her fluency in Turkish, Farsi, and Azerbaijani as a translator at the F.B.I. It was arduous, demanding work, and Edmonds—who had two bachelor's degrees, was about to begin studying for her master's, and had plans for a doctorate—could have been considered overqualified. But as a naturalized Turkish-American, she saw the job as her patriotic duty. (read the rest of the article)
The Timeline
For people who are completely unfamiliar with ongoing saga of Sibel Edmonds, a timeline of events is helpful to view the events of the narrative in some chronological order. This timeline is compiled from and linked to cooperativeresearch.org. Clicking the headline below will take you to the synopsis of that event in this timeline with citations of original source links for further research.
Now that the Democrats are in charge, where are the Congressional hearings about this national security matter?
Contact Chairman of the Government Oversight Committee, Henry Waxman.
Contact the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Tell them you want them to hold a hearing on this important matter of national security. While the Sibel Edmonds story may only be one of many Bushworld cover-ups, they seem to fear what she has to say enough to gag her testimony in order to keep the lid on their Pandora's box of lies.
The two Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, have been exploring the red planet for the last three-and-a-half years. They were originally designed and engineered to only survive a ninety day mission. This upcoming Saturday, NASA has planned to launch a third Mars rover named Phoenix from Patrick AFB in Florida. The Phoenix spacecraft is currently sitting atop a Boeing Delta II rocket. After the Phoenix launches at 5:26-6:03 a.m, it will make the ten-month-long journey, and then land in the north polar ice cap region of Mars on May 25th, 2008.
The main reason to explore the polar region is to see if life could, does, or did exist below the surface hidden from the harsh Martian conditions. The basic science with this mission is a major motivation for embarking upon it.
First of all, it is rocket science. Launching a spacecraft to another planet and landing it there is an amazing feat of engineering technology that incorporates just about every major engineering discipline.
Secondly, burrowing under the Martian permafrost and looking for forms of life brings geological, chemical and biological scientific disciplines to the mission. For example, simply discovering traces of methane in a soil sample doesn't necessarily mean that the methane was produced by biological processes since methane can be trapped there from geological processes.
If the Mars exploration missions interest you, here are my suggested links:
Last Saturday, I drove my friend's pontoon boat around Lake Weir again. I'm not as sunburned as last time because I did all the sea captaining with the top up.
It makes me wish I had a poontang boat of my own because I'd be on the water more often, if I did have one. There would be hot babes in bikini bathing suits on it, sunning themselves, feeding me cupcakes and whatnot, and getting into some softcore pr0n pillow fights, of course.
As it turned out, we inadvertently showed up on the second day that a brand new $4.4 million boat ramp facility was open to the public within Carney Park, in Ocklawaha. It was very cool in a boating kind of way. They had eight access ramps with big parking spots across from each ramp that lined up perfectly for the backing-up-with-a-trailer-challenged truck drivers.
The new access facility in Carney Park on Lake Weir was very cool. Besides the eight boat ramps that the park rangers informed us were supposed to be "splash and dash" to keep the traffic flowing, the new facility had plenty of spacious parking for trucks with boat trailers, restrooms, and very cool durable plastic docks with tie-downs beyond the boat ramps.
This time when I pulled the poontang off the trailer, I checked the crosswind and parallel-parked it against the dock like a frickin' pro. Yes, I'm still quite proud of myself about that naval maneuver, even now. After my friend parked his truck and walked back to the boat, we were able to get under away.
First, I headed east across the lake to the far shore. Afternoon thunderstorms were starting to form, so I headed north. We didn't stop at Gator Joe's or Ma Barker's because I was sea captain that day and the weather worried me. After a while, I headed southwest back to Carney Park and we got the poontang back on the trailer. Within just a minute, the downpour began. My spidey-sense got the both of us off of the lake before the lightning started flying around.
Dragnet is a classic TV series that ran from 1951-1959. If you enjoy crime drama, like modern day CSI, then you'll probably like this grandfather of the type of show that portrays the professionals of law enforcement. Dragnet's main character, Sgt. Joe Friday, was portrayed by actor Jack Webb. Webb's first film role was in 1932 as a boy in the film, "Three on a Match," which starred Humphrey Bogart and Bette Davis. As the face of Dragnet, Jack Webb also developed Dragnet into a franchise TV series, writing and directing seasons of Dragnet in 1967, and then again in 2003. When Webb died in 2004, the Los Angeles Police Department officially retired badge number 714 in his honor.
Watching some of the films and TV shows created decades before I was born is interesting to me. Although artistic works of fiction, the Dragnet series is nearly historical in its portrayal of the LAPD in that era. I have to concede that Dragnet never showed the LAPD in a negative light, to the point of being propaganda, but I enjoy it because it depicts the people of the time: their automobiles, their clothing, and their use of language.
One of the places where I watch a few classic movies and some television is on White Springs TV online. Their broadcast schedule states that on Sunday, July 29th, they will be streaming Dragnet episodes from Noon until Midnight.
Click here to launch Windows Media Player with the White Springs TV video stream. If you are having trouble viewing it, try their video feed page.
Just a sidenote: I have been having some kind of connection difficulties browsing any subdomains at Blogdrive for about a week now. This means that I can't view your blogs. I'm not intentionally ignoring people. I honestly don't a clue why this is happening. I don't have any troubles on any other websites, so I can't fault my internet service provider on this. I can only hope that the problem fixes itself, at this point.
President Bush underwent a colonoscopy procedure Saturday. Bush's butt was news around the world this weekend as the President legally and officially turned the reigns of American power over to his Vice President Dick Cheney for about two hours. Anal retentive people point out that Cheney was actually our Emperor between 7:16 a.m. and 9:21 a.m. on Saturday morning.
I don't know why the mainstream media makes such a big deal about Cheney being in control for two hours. It's not like it's been a secret to anyone paying attention that Cheney has been the actual Dick behind the president for the last six and a half years screwing the planet hard. That fat reptilian alien had no empathy or conscious well before doctors bionically kept him alive with a heart pacemaker in order to be able to manipulate the federal government for our sock puppet President.
Speaking of sock puppets, the eight Democratic presidential candidates were at The Citadel in South Carolina tonight for the first Democratic National Committee sanctioned debate. Trying so hard to be hip, the Dems and CNN used YouTube generated questions. CNN broadcast this dog and pony show live and streamed it on the web.
I watched it. It was more entertaining than a funeral, but tedious in its value for figuring out which candidate would be the best leader of my country. Andersen Cooper moderated the infotainment and moved the show along fast enough to show a number of YouTube video clips.
Mike Gravel, Christopher Dodd, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, Joseph Biden, and Dennis Kucinich were on the stage. The CNN host primarily directed questions to future President Clinton, Vice President Edwards and Secretary of State Obama that were serious enough to allow them to get their campaign messages out. And you can tell, the top tier are colluding not to bash each other in the run up to the primary election.
Like the videos played to "lighten the mood," Cooper did ask Gravel and Kucinich a few questions. I admire their honesty to their core message, even if they don't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning the nomination. I actually enjoyed the humor of Richardson and Biden because both are fairly affable people, think fast, and are occasionally honest and very witty.
Maybe I'm overly cynical, but the only winner in tonight's political infotainment was YouTube ... and maybe these two guys:
If Jeff Foxworthy and Larry The Cable Guy can cash in on whitetrash redneck faux ignorance, these guys have a better than even chance to please Red State America. Watching the millionaire candidates politely laugh on stage after this video was shown disguised the jealously that the front runners have for Al Gore's popularity.
I hope some creative person creates an equally unnerving video for the Republican stepford candidates to answer about Fred Thompson. Their debate is dropping on September 17th, in Florida.
Oh. Wait for it ... wait for it ... okay. I was thrilled to see one of my old bricklayer buddies from the Metro Detroit area in the house tonight (you have to click that link for the punchline).
