INVESTIGATION SUPPORTS FBI WHISTLEBLOWER EDMONDS

FBI translator Sybil Edmonds is vindicated.

Edmonds maintains she was fired in March 2002 after she complained to FBI managers about shoddy wiretap translations and told them an interpreter with a relative at a foreign embassy might have compromised national security by blocking translations in some cases and notifying some targets of FBI investigations about surveillance of them.

``The FBI's failure to handle her allegations adequately contributed to Edmonds' increasingly vociferous complaints, which ultimately led to the termination of her services,'' the inspector general concluded.

Fine did not determine whether Edmonds' charges of espionage were true, which he said was beyond the scope of his investigation.

But he criticized the FBI's review of the espionage accusations, saying its initial questioning of Edmonds' co-worker by an investigator was ``significantly flawed'' and ``seemed not to appreciate or investigate the allegation that a coworker may have been committing espionage.''

``We found that many of Edmonds' core allegations relating to the co-worker were supported by either documentary evidence or witnesses other than Edmonds,'' the report said. ``Moreover, we concluded that, had the FBI performed a more careful investigation of Edmonds' allegations, it would have discovered evidence of significant omissions and inaccuracies by the co-worker related to these allegations.''

How are we supposed to trust ANY of our institutions anymore? Sybil Edmonds implicates a co-worker in TREASONOUS ACTIVITY and SHE's the one who's fired?

New rule (apologies to Bill Maher): If, as a U.S. government employee, you expose any incompetence or any embarrassing facts internally to your superiors or subsequently to the outside world, you will be fired and vilified. Take note, future whistleblowers! In BushLand, there is no "amending the system from within." And when that possibility for "gradualism" disappears, only external rebellion and revolution are left as options.