Sibel Deniz Edmonds (born 1970) is a Turkish-American former FBI translator and founder of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC).Apparently the Bush-regime gag-order on her has been lifted, because she's been posting for just about a month. The blog is not her first venture into the public sphere:
Edmonds was fired from her position as a language specialist at the FBI's Washington Field Office in March, 2002, after she accused a colleague of covering up illicit activity involving foreign nationals, alleging serious acts of security breaches, cover-ups, and intentional blocking of intelligence which, she contended, presented a danger to the United States' security.
Since that time, court proceedings on her whistleblower claims have been blocked by the assertion of State Secrets Privilege. On March 29, 2006, she was awarded the PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award in recognition of her defense of free speech as it applies to the written word.
In August, 2004, Edmonds founded the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC), an alliance of whistleblowers who have come forward to address security weaknesses of the US. The NSWBC helps national security agency whistleblowers through advocacy of governmental and legal reform, public education on whistleblowing activity, provision of comfort and fellowship to national security whistleblowers suffering retaliation and other harms, and working with other public interest organizations. NSWBC is involved in backing former intelligence analyst Russ Tice, who was dismissed by the National Security Agency (NSA) in May, 2005. On December 16, 2005, ABC reported that Tice was among the sources of a leak about illegal NSA wiretap programs, ordered by the White House and first disclosed by the New York Times.So let us welcome this brave and forthright colleague to the IT frontier. iBienvenidos!
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