In Gag We Trust?

An Interview with FBI Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds (Part II)

By Khatchig Mouradian

"The Armenian Weekly", Volume 73, No. 20, May 19, 2007

Part I of this interview appeared in last week’s issue.

K.M.—Let us talk about you: your frustrations, your feelings. How do you deal with all of this?

S.E.—I can’t say it’s been easy, the anger and disappointment over knowing that my country, my government, has let me down, that the mainstream media has let all of us down. With many whistleblowers, the pressure reaches a point where they either have nervous breakdowns or they explode. And many of them do explode or they get disgusted and go away. After one or two years of fighting, they say the heck with it, I’m just going to leave.

If you explode, you have given them the perfect excuse to point at you and say, look this person is crazy, she’s not legitimate. If you go and expose some documents, they have an excuse to say you have breached security and should be jailed—and again, they benefit. They get away with this because nobody has been willing to come forward, and right now, it’s only me. If there had been one or two other agents who had committed to that much compromise and sacrifice and come forward, maybe we would have seen some progress. But the fear factor is so great out there.

I’ve lived in this country for 18 years and am an American citizen. Maybe a lot of people born here take their citizenship for granted, but for me it was a conscious choice. At that point I was a student of this country’s history and its laws, and I was mesmerized. As part of that oath you make a commitment to stand up for this country’s constitution and rights and people, whether the enemies threatening it are foreign or domestic. And I did take it seriously and I do take it seriously, and I also look at the alternative—the alternative being count your losses and go away; it’s just going to get worse.

Again, many Americans think this is about one whistleblower who lost her job, that this is one case, and they don’t see themselves affected by it. With September 11, they saw themselves directly affected—”I can be next.” Well, I’m trying to tell them that with the money laundering, the narcotics, their own representatives going against their own interests, they’re all being affected by the cover-ups.

It’s been five years, and I never thought it would continue for this long. I went to the Judiciary Committee in March 2002, and I thought that was it. I thought that all I had to do was give them the documents, give them the facts, the names, and everything would be taken care of. It was not. When I went to the Inspector General’s Office, I thought that was it. When I went to the courts, I thought this was it, it was done. I never thought I would be sitting here, five years later, saying that everything was shut down successfully, and no accountability and no justice whatsoever had taken place.

I set up this organization [www.justacitizen.com] to encourage other whistleblowers, those good agents out there who dealt with Turkish counter-intelligence operations in the FBI. And that’s not the only agency. There are other agencies in this nation, within our government, with good conscientious people who should be saying enough is enough, it’s time to stand up.

K.M.—What can be done? What can the ordinary citizen do?

S.E.—It boils down to the people standing up and demanding their rights, the right actions. I don’t want to get my job back with the FBI. That’s not what I’m after. I’m not asking to be compensated in any way for my suffering.

I can never go back to Turkey and visit my family. I have been blacklisted because I have committed, as any good journalist in Turkey would automatically commit: the act of treason. Under their laws, anyone who criticizes Turkey, or shows it under some negative light or hurts certain official thugs there, is treasonous and should be arrested and taken to military tribunals. All you have to do is read the Human Rights Watch reports and see what happens to good reporters in Turkey. If they’re lucky, by the way, they will end up in a military tribunal, if not, they will end up dead or disappear. If you look at the tens of thousands of people who have disappeared in the past 10 years in Turkey for political reasons, the number is astonishing for a country that is considered a democracy and a great ally. You have tens of thousands of good activist students who have just disappeared into thin air and nobody knows where they are. It happened once upon a time in Argentina and Chile, but I don’t know how easy it is to say that things like that happen in a great democracy and an ally country.

But I’m not asking to be compensated, I’m not asking to get my position back. All I have been asking is for justice to take place, for the American people to know what’s going on, and for those people who are working against their interests to be held accountable.

Some respected, great Representatives, Democratic Congressmen, have expressed interest in my case. The leader of that group was Congressman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), and I briefed his staff several times, by giving them the same details I gave five years ago to the Judiciary Committee. They obtained the classified version of the Inspector General’s report two years ago and they were outraged. I have several letters from Congressman Waxman saying he finds these gag orders stunning and that the Republicans were preventing a hearing from taking place on my case. Well, in January, after we went through the change [in Congress], Congressman Waxman is now Chairman Waxman and there is no power within Congress that can prevent him from holding this hearing. He has the jurisdiction, the authority to put the hearing there, and I have already obtained the consent and names of conscientious, good agents. One of them was the head of the Turkish counter-intelligence operations who actually retired two years ago. They’re all willing to come forward and testify on all the issues I have been gagged on. And that gag doesn’t work in Congress during a hearing.

So in January, after the election results, especially since we have such a great Chairman today, 30 organizations have put together this petition addressed to Chairman Waxman saying you have been promising us for the past five years. These are major organizations, and we call them transpartisan, because there are organizations from the right, organizations from the left, organizations that are whistleblower-related such as the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), the Government Accountability Project (GAP), the National Whistleblower Center, human rights organizations, the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), civil liberties-related organizations such as the American Civil Liberties union (ACLU). We have 30 solid organizations. According to the ACLU, there has been no case of an American citizen who has had so many gag orders issued on her.

We also had 15,000 citizens sign the petition, and they delivered it to Chairman Waxman’s office in March 2007, just over a month ago. And based on the office’s own report, tens of thousands of people in the past 3-4 weeks have called to say, well, when are you going to hold a hearing?

But we have received no response and we don’t know why. None of these organizations know why because they have all the facts, they have all the confirmation, they have the IG report, they have the executive branch’s own report saying she’s credible and her allegations have been supported by other witnesses and documents. We are not talking about allegations. We are talking about facts, documented and witnessed facts.

And I still believe that the Americans who care about their rights can make this happen. Maybe it hasn’t happened because one of the factors that is not present there is the mainstream media. We know the mainstream media has such influence over the Congress. Maybe Congress is not finding it worthy of their attention despite all these severe consequences because the media isn’t there.

The citizens can change this, the constituents of Chairman Henry Waxman in California, in the LA area, can change that. They can say, you represent us, you represent our interests, and you are the chairman of the Government Reform Committee. So after not hearing back from Chairman Waxman through this petition and 30 organizations, I’m trying to reach out to those constituents in California, I’m trying to reach out to all citizens in this country and say, forget about me, this is not about Sibel Edmonds. Let’s go to the core issues: What was it that I reported that caused all these gag orders and firings and threats? What was it? What I reported had nothing to do with me. It had to do with the interests of the American public being stomped upon. It had to do with elected officials abusing their authority to obtain lucrative early retirement positions afterwards as representatives of foreign interests. And this is very important. In order to obtain it afterwards they had to serve those foreign interests while they were working and had those positions. In every single one of them that’s how it happens. You start serving the interests of outside influences before you obtain your positions afterwards and say bye to your civil service career. And that is, especially in some cases, criminal. That is not something that should be tolerated by this country, and we need to set an example of those people.

We have the facts, we have the documents, we have the witnesses, and it’s time to do it. So stand up and call Chairman Waxman’s office, keep calling until you get an answer on when the hearing will take place. For each citizen it may cost four minutes. But the benefit to this country, and the number of issues that we are going to shed light on, is worth it. And if it was not, they would not have gone this far to gag it. I have been fighting very hard, but they have been fighting very hard, too.

This is unprecedented. If I am the most gagged woman in the history of this country, and if they have gone as far as invoking the States Secrets Privilege, the issue is important enough. So for anyone who may say, well, how do I know this case is credible? I’ll tell you that there is a report, there are statements from bipartisan senators, Senator Grassley, Senator Leahy, Congressman Waxman. And these are all on the record establishing the credibility of the case.

Call Chairman Waxman and write to him and do not stop until we have this hearing in place, and we have the agents testifying. I’m going to emphasize two things here: a) that they testify on oath, and b) that the hearings be public. I have had some hearings, and they have been behind closed doors in the Congress. I have briefed them. They already have this information. It’s the American public’s turn to hear about this.

It’s possible that in light of the Chairman’s decision to hold a hearing, the government comes in and says it has to be in close session and not in public because these are classified issues. But they’re not. If that happens, we won’t get anywhere because then it’s futile. I would not even be willing to testify because I have already done so. Five years ago I gave them testimony behind closed doors. So did other witnesses. It’s time to have open, public hearings and have people under oath. I will testify under oath, and the consequences of lying are severe.

So let’s make this happen, and let’s say that when all channels we rely upon—be it the courts and the Congress and the executive branch and the mainstream media—fail us, we still should move forward and not stop, and reach out to the American public, and make it happen. I hope we can do it, because not being able to do it sends a very bad, awful message to our children and our grandchildren, to say that active citizenry is dead in this country.

Contact Chairman Henry Waxman by calling (202) 225-3976 or writing to 2204 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515.

If you are in the LA area, call (818) 878-7400 or write to 8436 West Third Street, Suite 600, Los Angeles, CA 90048.