THE SECRET NESTS: Part II

THE SECRET NESTS

Flushing out some deep undercover birds!

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PART II - THE FBI

September 9, 2007

Judge Strikes Down Parts
of Patriot Act

By WILLIAM McCALL, AP

PORTLAND, Ore. - Two provisions of the USA Patriot Act are unconstitutional because they allow secret wiretapping and searches without a showing of probable cause, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ruled that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act , as amended by the Patriot Act , "now permits the executive branch of government to conduct surveillance and searches of American citizens without satisfying the probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment."

Portland attorney Brandon Mayfield sought the ruling in a lawsuit against the federal government after he was mistakenly linked by the FBI to the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people in 2004.

The federal government apologized and settled part of the lawsuit for $2 million after admitting a fingerprint was misread. But as part of the settlement, Mayfield retained the right to challenge parts of the Patriot Act, which greatly expanded the authority of law enforcers to investigate suspected acts of terrorism.

Mayfield claimed that secret searches of his house and office under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act violated the Fourth Amendment's guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure. Aiken agreed with Mayfield, repeatedly criticizing the government.

"For over 200 years, this Nation has adhered to the rule of law with unparalleled success. A shift to a Nation based on extra-constitutional authority is prohibited, as well as ill-advised," she wrote.

By asking her to dismiss Mayfield's lawsuit, the judge said, the U.S. attorney general's office was "asking this court to, in essence, amend the Bill of Rights, by giving it an interpretation that would deprive it of any real meaning. This court declines to do so."

Elden Rosenthal, an attorney for Mayfield, issued a statement on his behalf praising the judge, saying she "has upheld both the tradition of judicial independence, and our nation's most cherished principle of the right to be secure in one's own home."

Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr said the agency was reviewing the decision, and he declined to comment further.

The ruling probably won't have any immediate affect on enforcement under the Patriot Act , according to legal experts who predicted the government would quickly appeal.

"But it's an important first step," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's national security project.

Jaffer noted that the Patriot Act carries dozens of provisions and that several have been challenged, but that this is one of the first major rulings on Fourth Amendment rights.

"This is as clear a violation of the Fourth Amendment as you'll ever find," Jaffer said.

Garrett Epps, a constitutional law expert at the University of Oregon, said the ruling adds to the poor record that the Bush administration has piled up in defending the Patriot Act .

"It's embarrassing," Epps said. "It represents another judicial repudiation of this administration's terrorist surveillance policies."

A federal judge in New York this month handed the ACLU a victory in a challenge to the Patriot Act on behalf of an Internet service provider that was issued a "national security letter" demanding customer phone and computer records. The judge in that case ruled the FBI must justify to a court the need for secrecy for more than a brief and reasonable period of time.

Mayfield, a Muslim convert, was taken into custody on May 6, 2004, because of a fingerprint found on a detonator at the scene of the Madrid bombing. The FBI said the print matched Mayfield's. He was released about two weeks later, and the FBI admitted it had erred in saying the fingerprints were his and later apologized to him.

Before his arrest, the FBI put Mayfield under 24-hour surveillance, listened to his phone calls and surreptitiously searched his home and law office.

The Mayfield case has been an embarrassment for the federal government. Last year, the Justice Department's internal watchdog faulted the FBI for sloppy work in mistakenly linking Mayfield to the Madrid bombings. That report said federal prosecutors and FBI agents had made inaccurate and ambiguous statements to a federal judge to get arrest and criminal search warrants against Mayfield.

Congress passed the Patriot Act with little debate shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to help counter terrorist activities. It gave federal law enforcers the authority to search telephone and e-mail communications and expanded the Treasury Department's regulation of financial transactions involving foreign nationals. The law was renewed in 2005.

In early August, the Bush administration persuaded lawmakers to expand the government's power to listen in on any foreign communication it deemed of interest without a court order, even if an American was a party. The expanded surveillance authority expires early next year. As Congress takes a closer look at the law, many Democrats want to rein in language that many consider overly broad.

March 9, 2007

Congress Must Finally Hold Public
Hearings on Edmonds Case

By Mike Mejia

It has been almost five years now since former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds first contacted the Senate Judiciary Committee to reveal the shocking tale of Turkish bribery of high-level U.S. officials.

In that time span, Edmonds has been misled by members of Congress on several occasions: Numerous promises have been made to the whistleblower by the Senate Judiciary Committee that her allegations would be exposed in public hearings.

Those promises have rung hollow.

Now, with the Democratic victory in Congressional elections, coupled with revelations that many of the tapes she translated were probably obtained illegally through FISA warrants, the Turkish translator's case has gained new relevance. Edmonds recently presented to Congress her petition of 15,000 individual signatures and the support of 30 organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), OMB Watch, Project on Government Oversight (POGO), Government Accountability Project (GAP), People for the American Way, and the Liberty Coalition, who have sponsored this petition and joined her campaign. Furthermore, Edmonds has received assurances that the House Government Reform Committee will hold hearings. And one would hope that with a very good public servant, Henry Waxman, chairing the Government Reform Committee, a full public airing of Ms. Edmonds' allegations would be a foregone conclusion.

Unfortunately, time and time again the Congress has proven that, absent public pressure, a case like that of Turkey's corruption of U.S. government officials will not automatically receive its due attention. And although the Democrats' recent rise to power brings new hope, it won't automatically guarantee justice.

Unlike the numerous Iraq War investigations that Waxman and other Democrats in Congress are planning, the issues brought up by Sibel Edmonds may tarnish the images not just of the Bush Administration, but also of certain elements of the Clinton Administration.

Further complicating matters is that members of both political parties in Congress were also allegedly the recipient of Turkish gratuities: When a country like Turkey decides to engage in illegal espionage and lobbying, it spreads its funds generously.

And though Edmonds' case involves the nuclear black market, not even the potential of a nuke reaching American soil is guaranteed to motivate our public servants, especially when they fear some of the muck might splatter on their own Party.

One must also recall the case of another famous whistleblower from years past to fully understand the former FBI linguist's dilemma. While it is well-known that Daniel Ellsberg 'leaked' the Pentagon Papers to the press in order to expose the lies used to mislead the country into Vietnam, what is not as well known is the fact that Ellsberg first presented this information to representatives of Congress- including hallowed Democrats like William Fulbright.

According to Ellsberg, Fulbright and other Democrats in Congress feared bureaucratic retribution from the Nixon Administration and strung Ellsberg along with promises for almost two years. It was only because of the foot dragging by liberal Democrats that Ellsberg was finally forced to go to the New York Times.

In Edmonds' case, even the press might not be much of an option. The mainstream media has continually ignored each shocking new revelation surrounding her tenure at the FBI. To be sure, certain outlets have touched parts of the story, from CBS 60 Minutes' "Lost in Translation" to Vanity Fair's "An Inconvenient Patriot", but I am told many other journalists have sat on information given to them by Edmonds and others. Such information could have blown her case wide open by now. In frustration, Sibel Edmonds has turned to the activists and journalists in the blogosphere in order to build momentum for hearings in the Congress.

She is correct to do so. When all is said and done, exposing Edmonds' charges and curbing the abuse of the state secrets privilege will only happen with grassroots pressure. Simply electing Democrats will not result in uncovering and rooting out this kind of rank corruption in the Executive Branch and Congress. Similarly, electing the right folks has not resulted in a rapid withdrawal from Iraq.

The only real hope for making these hearings happen is to follow-up on the Democratic electoral victory by holding the politicians' feet to the fire. As Ellsberg is fond of saying, they may not see the light, but they'll feel the heat.

Let's make them feel the heat.

http://www.justacitizen.com

March 29, 2006

2006 PEN/Newman’s Own
First Amendment Award

Translator Fired from FBI for Blowing Whistle on Intelligence Failures to Receive 2006 PEN/Newman’s Own First Amendment Award

New York, NY —PEN American Center has named Sibel Edmonds, a translator who was fired from her job at the FBI after complaining of intelligence failures and poor performance in her unit, as the recipient of this year’s prestigious PEN/Newman’s Own First Amendment Award. Ms. Edmonds will receive the $20,000 prize at PEN’s annual Gala on April 18, 2006 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

Shortly after 9/11, Edmonds was hired as an FBI Language Specialist for Turkish, Farsi and Azerbaijani. In her work, Edmonds discovered poorly translated documents relevant to the 9-11 attacks and reported these to her supervisors.

She also expressed concerns about a co-worker’s relationship with a foreign intelligence officer, and reported being told to work slowly to give the appearance that her department was overworked, despite the large backlog of documents needing translation.

Edmonds followed all appropriate procedures for registering her concerns. However, instead of acting on her information, the FBI fired Edmonds in March 2002, claiming she had “committed security violations and had disrupted the translation unit.”

In June 2002, two U.S. Senators wrote the FBI demanding information on Edmond’s case, noting that many of her allegations had been confirmed by the FBI in unclassified briefings to Congress. The following month, Edmonds filed a lawsuit challenging the FBI’s retaliatory actions, but in July of 2004 Edmonds v. Department of Justice was dismissed by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after Attorney General John Ashcroft invoked “State Secrets Privilege” to prevent any materials that supported her case from becoming public. The Supreme Court has refused to hear her appeal.

In early 2004, an unclassified summary of the Justice Department's Inspector General's report on Edmonds confirmed that many of her claims "were supported, that the FBI did not take them seriously enough, and that her allegations were, in fact, the most significant factor in the FBI's decision to terminate her services."

In February of that year, Edmonds testified before the 9/11 Commission about problems at the FBI. Three months later, the Justice Department retroactively classified Edmonds’ briefings to Senators and the 9-11 Commission, as well the information the Senators had cited in their letter to the FBI, and forced the Members of Congress who had information about Edmonds’ case posted on their web sites to remove the documents.

In addition to courageously pursuing her case, Edmonds founded the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition in August 2004. The NSWBC organizes current or former government employees who have been punished for exposing official wrongdoing and advocates for legislation to protect the rights of National Security whistleblowers.

In announcing the award today in New York, PEN Freedom to Write Program Director Larry Siems praised Edmonds’ commitment to preserving the free flow of information in the United States in a time of growing international isolation and increasing government secrecy.

“It is hard to think of a position in public service more valuable to the nation in these turbulent times than a language specialist who is engaged in making important international information accessible to government officials and policymakers,” said Siems.

“Sibel Edmonds understood the importance of her position and carried out her work with energy and honor – only to face retaliation and dismissal. Unintimidated, she has fought to inform Congress and the American people on the urgent need for better translation services in areas vital to our national interests. PEN is proud to recognize her for her work as a language specialist, her heroic efforts to improve our country’s translation services, and her current efforts to organize and protect government whistleblowers.”

Siems noted that this year’s PEN/Newman’s Own Award comes amid a spate of news reports of government retaliation against employees who expose wrongdoing or dissent from official policy.

“Sibel Edmonds’ Kafkaesque ordeal underscores how easily government powers, especially powers wielded in the name of national security, can be abused to keep the public in the dark about official failings. PEN is deeply troubled by Sibel Edmonds’ story and by the growing number of reports of efforts by the administration to silence government employees.”...

http://www.pen.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/633/prmID/172

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From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibel_Edmonds

For more, GO TO > > > http://www.justacitizen.com

January 19, 2005

Groups support FBI
whistleblower's appeal

By Chris Strohm. cstrohm@govexec.com

A coalition of nonprofit groups asked a federal appeals court Wednesday to give FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds her day in court.

The coalition filed an amicus brief supporting Edmonds' appeal of a federal district court's ruling last July that dismissed her lawsuit.

The brief was filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. It comes less than a week after the Justice Department's inspector general issued a summary report concluding that the FBI failed to properly investigate charges made by Edmonds that there were security breaches, mismanagement and possible espionage within the FBI's translation unit in late 2001 and early 2002. The report also concluded that the FBI fired Edmonds mainly for bringing forth the accusations.

The bulk of the IG report is classified by the FBI.

The American Civil Liberties Union also filed an amicus brief last week asking the appeals court to reinstate Edmonds' lawsuit.

Edmonds, who was born in Iran but is now a U.S. citizen, was hired as an FBI contract linguist immediately after the 9/11 terrorist attacks to help translate backlogged material. She quickly became concerned about the activities of a fellow linguist. She alleged that the other linguist had an association and improper contacts with one or more targets of FBI investigations, and was suspected of leaking information to one or more targets to which she was assigned to perform translation services.

Edmonds was fired in March 2002 for "disruptive" behavior. Attorney General John Ashcroft asserted "state secrets privilege" over Edmonds, saying that information about her case would cause serious damage to the security and foreign policy interests of the United States if publicly disclosed. The gag order on Edmonds remains in effect.

Edmonds filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department but never got a hearing. Judge Reggie Walton of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed her case last July, ruling that she would be unable to pursue her claims against the government without disclosing privileged information.

At the time, Edmonds noted that the court heard the government's evidence in private, never giving her the ability to respond. Walton acknowledged that his ruling was "draconian," and "a drastic remedy that has rarely been invoked."

The legal brief filed Tuesday was submitted by 14 nonprofit groups that either advocate for open government or have an interest in obtaining information related to 9/11.

The brief argues that the lower court could have taken measures to give Edmonds a defense while protecting sensitive and classified information.

"The District Court's failure to determine whether the government's assertion of the state secrets privilege was a false alarm not only served to unfairly deny Ms. Edmonds her day in court, it countenanced a wave of unnecessary secrecy that denies the public access to government information concerning one of the most significant events in our nation's modern history," the brief states.

The brief charges that the government used state secrets privilege "as a litigation tactic to deprive Ms. Edmonds of the right to prove in court what the inspector general has found."

The appeals court will hear arguments on Edmonds' appeal on April 21. The groups plan to hold a press conference in Washington on Jan. 26.

The FBI issued a short statement in response to the IG report, outlining management improvements that have been made in its Language Services Program. The bureau said it continues to investigate Edmonds' allegations against the fellow linguist.

An FBI spokeswoman had no additional comment.

The inspector general concluded that many allegations made by Edmonds were supported, but not all of them, such as a claim that linguists were directed to slow the pace of their work so that material to be translated would pile up, giving the FBI a basis to request more translators.

The IG added, however, that the FBI still has yet to properly investigate whether espionage was occurring within the translation program.

"The majority of the allegations raised by Edmonds related to the actions of a co-worker," the IG said. "The allegations raised serious concerns that, if true, could potentially have extremely damaging consequences for the FBI. These allegations warranted a thorough and careful review by the FBI. Our investigation concluded that the FBI did not, and still has not, adequately investigated these allegations."

Edmonds also alleged that the FBI possessed documents that clearly showed the 9/11 hijackers were in the country and plotting to use airplanes as missiles to carry out an attack in a major city several months before the attacks occurred. She said the documents included information relating to terrorist financial activities.

The IG report said Edmonds never raised those allegations with its office and, therefore, they were not investigated.

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0105/011905c1.htm

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For more about Sybil Edmonds, go to: http://www.justacitizen.com

April 11, 2003

FBI SAYS ITS AGENT HAD AFFAIR
WITH CHINESE SPY

Accused woman was prominent Republican activist

By Erica Werner, Associated Press

LOS ANGELES - If the FBI is right, one of its own agents carried on an affair with a prominent Republican activist who happened to be a Chinese double agent.

The affair allegedly gave the spy, nicknamed “Parlor Maid,” access to classified documents while she wined and dined some of California’s top politicians and businessmen.

“Basically you see her everywhere,” said Paul Zee, a businessman and former mayor of South Pasadena who is active in the Chinese-American community.

Authorities said Katrina Leung, 49, was recruited to work for the FBI in the early 1980s and soon began an affair with her handler, former supervisory Special Agent James J. Smith, 59.

She would copy classified documents he left unattended when he came to debrief her at the posh home she shared with her husband and their son in wealthy San Marino, according to a prosecution affidavit.

Attorneys for both have denied the accusations.

The FBI alleges it paid Leung $1.7 million over 20 years to act as an informer, and during that time she allegedly had an affair with a second agent, whom officials did not identify. The second agent learned of Leung’s unauthorized contacts with officials in Beijing and alerted Smith, but Smith continued his relationship with Leung, authorities said.

Leung was charged Wednesday with obtaining a classified national security document for purposes of aiding a foreign nation, Smith was charged with gross negligence for allowing Leung to obtain the documents. They could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

Prosecutors said they found FBI documents at Leung’s home, including phone directories and a secret 1997 memorandum about Chinese fugitives that contained “national defense information.” The affidavit said that an FBI agent secretly searched her luggage when she left Los Angeles for China in November and found six photographs of current and former FBI agents. The photos were not found when the luggage was secretly searched again upon her return....

The house Leung and her husband, Kam, own has four stone lions around a fountain, and a pool and guest house. The two worked as consultants, and Katrina Leung brought neighbors cookies and cake at Christmas.

Leung worked with many Chinese-American groups, and her former posts included secretary of the National Association of Chinese Americans.

A naturalized American citizen and a registered Republican, she donated money to Republicans including Rep. David Dreier and failed GOP gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon, as well as some Asian-American Democrats including Chu, records show. She raised money for Simon and former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan.

She accompanied Riordan on a trip to China in 1998 and joined Mayor James Hahn’s delegation when he went to China last year.

Leung and her husband donated about $25,000 last year to candidates for state office, including a $10,000 donation to Riordan.

According to the federal affidavit, Leung has admitted setting up bank accounts in Hong Kong to which she pretended to make mortgage payments on the home she bought about 12 years ago for $1.4 million, though she was actually paying herself.

That enabled her to claim mortgage interest tax deductions after she had actually paid off her mortgage.

For more on Bill Simon, GO TO > > > William Simon Says

For more on the China Connection, GO TO > > > Crouching Dragons ~ Hidden Rats

June 9, 2002

FBI too top heavy, whistleblower tells panel

By Toni Locy, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — FBI agent Coleen Rowley went to Congress on Thursday to blow the whistle on her own agency, which she said is too big, too slow and too set in its ways. "We need to streamline," Rowley, legal counsel to the FBI's Minneapolis office, told the Senate Judiciary Committee. "We need that agility and ability to react. If you get too top heavy with too many layers, you are going to be stymied." Rowley, who dreamed of being an FBI agent as a little girl growing up in Iowa, received star-witness treatment. She was greeted by the sound of shutters clicking madly as more than two dozen photographers jockeyed for the best shot of the FBI's most famous whistleblower.

Two senators escorted her to the witness table, where only an hour before, FBI Director Robert Mueller was grilled for more than four hours about her critique of the way FBI headquarters handled the investigation of suspected terrorist Zaccarias Moussaoui in August.

In a letter to Mueller on May 21, Rowley had charged that officials at FBI headquarters had thwarted the efforts of agents in the field and that he and other senior FBI officials had "circled the wagons" and skewed facts in their post-Sept. 11 accounts of what they had known before the attacks.

Rowley claimed that FBI headquarters shelved requests from the Minneapolis office in the weeks before the attacks to aggressively investigate Moussaoui, who was being held in Minnesota on immigration violations and now is charged with conspiring with al-Qaeda operatives in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Mueller told the committee that he plans to change the culture of the FBI from an agency that reacts to events to one that can meet the dangers posed by "terrorist groups that are as determined as ever" to destroy the USA.

Rowley said she was "encouraged" by Mueller's ideas for reforming the FBI. "He really has an extremely difficult job, and that's an understatement," she said.

But Rowley also showed flashes of the feistiness that led her to jeopardize a 21-year career and write a scathing letter to the FBI director.

She told one senator, Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., she had already answered the question he posed — while he was out of the room. And she stuck to her view that the FBI has too many layers of supervision — a position at odds with Mueller's plans to reform the FBI by shifting hundreds of agents and creating new offices to gather and analyze intelligence.

"Seven to nine layers (of supervision) is ridiculous," Rowley said.

She said one impetus for her letter was a report that Mueller intended to form "super squads" of managers who she thought — erroneously, she now admits — would come into field offices and "micro-manage" cases.

Such a plan, she said, would "fly in the face of what we should have learned from Sept. 11." Mueller's plan, however, would send agents, not managers, to help field offices when needed.

"Mistakes are inevitable," Rowley said during the hearing. "But a distinction can and should be drawn between those mistakes made when trying to do the right thing and those mistakes (made) due to selfish motives."

Too often, she said, agents who rise through the ranks of the FBI worry about preserving the agency's "pecking order" and advancing their own careers.

"I've heard there is a saying at FBI headquarters," Rowley said in a nine-page statement to the committee. "Big cases, big problems; little cases, little problems; no cases, no problems.' "

In her written statement, Rowley exhibited a biting sense of humor: "The resulting cumbersomeness of getting approval for even the smallest decision is obvious. ... Like the plant in the Little Shop of Horrors movie, the bureaucracy just keeps saying 'feed me, feed me.' "

Mueller renewed his pledge that no one will retaliate against Rowley. She said she was "pleasantly surprised" by the way Mueller handled the furor over her memo.

Meanwhile, members of the joint House-Senate Intelligence Committee held a third day of closed-door briefings. Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., said the first week of the inquiry into the Sept. 11 attacks amounted to a "Terrorism 101" course.

Lawmakers denied that they have been engaging in behind-the-scenes partisan bickering. "There is an intense interest in this being conducted in a bipartisan way" Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said. "People expect Congress to act like grownups."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2002/06/06/attacks-hearings.htm

May 24, 2002

FBI Flaws Alleged by Field Staff

Moussaoui Probe Lapses Blamed on Headquarters

By Dan Eggen and Bill Miller, The Washington Post

Minneapolis FBI agents investigating terror suspect Zacarias Moussaoui last August were severely hampered by officials at FBI headquarters, who resisted seeking search warrants and admonished agents for seeking help from the CIA, according to a letter from the general counsel for the FBI's Minneapolis field office.

Coleen Rowley also wrote in a letter Tuesday to FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III that evidence gathered in the Moussaoui case, combined with a July 10 FBI warning that al Qaeda operatives might be taking flight training in Arizona, should have prompted stronger suspicion at FBI headquarters that a terror attack was planned, according to officials familiar with Rowley's letter.

"There was a great deal of frustration expressed on the part of the Minneapolis office toward what they viewed as a less than aggressive attitude from headquarters," said one official. "The bottom line is that headquarters was the problem."

The sharply worded letter from Rowley stands in stark contrast to statements by Mueller and other FBI officials, who have insisted that the bureau did all it could to determine whether Moussaoui was part of a terrorist plot. It is also the clearest sign of dissent within the FBI over whether the bureau mishandled clues to the Sept. 11 attacks last summer, an issue that has mushroomed this month amid increasingly fierce questioning from lawmakers.

Mueller released a statement last night saying that he has referred Rowley's complaints to the Justice Department's inspector general for investigation.

"While I cannot comment on the specifics of the letter, I am convinced that a different approach is required," Mueller said. "New strategies, new analytical capacities and a different culture makes us an agency that is changing post-9/11. There is no room after the attacks for the types of problems and attitudes that could inhibit our efforts."

In her classified 13-page letter, which includes detailed footnotes, Rowley said Minneapolis investigators had significant evidence of Moussaoui's possible ties to terrorists, including corroboration from a foreign source that Moussaoui posed a major threat, sources said.

But agent Dave Rapp and his colleagues in Minnesota faced resistance from headquarters staff that Rowley considered unnecessary and counterproductive, according to officials who have seen the letter.

FBI attorneys in Washington determined there was not enough evidence to ask a judge for warrants to search Moussaoui's computer under routine criminal procedures or a special law aimed at terrorists. Officials have said there was no evidence of a crime and no solid connections between Moussaoui and any designated terrorist group.

Moussaoui, who was detained Aug. 16 after arousing suspicions at a Minnesota flight school, has been charged as a conspirator in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Mueller, who took over as FBI director on Sept. 4, was questioned about the letter during an appearance Wednesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee, sources said. One official said Mueller "was very forthright in saying the course of action should have been more aggressive."

Rowley, who officials said has worked for the FBI for more than 20 years, declined to comment yesterday. "Our office has been very diligent in not leaking anything," Rowley said. "I'm going to have to stick with that in this case."

In Berlin yesterday, President Bush said he opposed having an independent commission investigate intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks. . . .

More than a month before Moussaoui was arrested on immigration charges, Phoenix FBI agent Kenneth Williams wrote a memo July 10 to FBI headquarters outlining his investigation of Islamic radicals enrolled at a Prescott, Ariz., aviation school. He cited bin Laden and raised the possibility that the al Qaeda terror network was using U.S. flight schools as a training ground.

Williams's suggestion that the FBI canvass U.S. flight schools was rejected within weeks by FBI counter-terror division mid-level managers, who decided they lacked the manpower to pursue it. The memo was not shared with agents who later investigated Moussaoui, and it was never given to any other intelligence agency.

Williams told lawmakers in closed-door briefings this week, however, that he did not expect his request to be acted on immediately and did not believe his memo could have thwarted the Sept. 11 attacks. None of the men named in the document, including several associated with a militant London group that has praised bin Laden, has been connected to the deadly hijackings.

Rowley's correspondence, by contrast, underscores the depth of frustration within the Minneapolis field office over the way the Moussaoui case was handled.

"It really paints a very grim and troubling picture about the institution of the FBI at the end of August last year and how many obstacles the Minnesota office ran into," said one official familiar with the letter's contents. "Clearly she feels this was handled very poorly."

At one point, according to accounts of Rowley's letter, agents in Minnesota went to the CIA for help, only to be admonished by headquarters.

The FBI first notified the CIA about Moussaoui soon after arresting him, a U.S. government official said. The CIA found nothing in an initial check of Moussaoui's name, but over the next couple of weeks, French intelligence interviewed Moussaoui's brother and the parents of a man who blamed Moussaoui for radicalizing their son, according to U.S. sources, and turned over the information.

In late August, CIA officials learned from "FBI agents in the field" that they hoped to obtain a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which would have allowed the government to search Moussaoui's laptop computer without notifying him, one government official said. He could not confirm that this was the contact that brought the admonishment.

The hard drive of Moussaoui's computer, which was finally searched several hours after the Sept. 11 attacks, was found to include detailed information on crop-dusting and on the type of jetliner hijacked.

The computer also included the names of Moussaoui associates in Singapore and elsewhere that could have opened new paths for investigators, two sources said....

In testimony earlier this month before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mueller acknowledged that the FBI should have responded more aggressively to the Phoenix memorandum, but he argued that the FBI did all it could in pursuing Moussaoui....

November 25, 2002

FBI Whistleblower Harassed?

CBS News

Not long after the Sep. 11 attacks, FBI director Robert Mueller issued a memorandum to all FBI employees, urging them to report wrongdoing, misconduct or any other behavior within the FBI that could hamper the bureau’s efforts to battle terrorism.

He offered his personal assurance that retaliation against any FBI whistleblower would not be tolerated. But in the case of one FBI agent who appeared on 60 Minutes three weeks ago, Mueller’s orders seem to have been ignored, Ed Bradley reports.

Special agent John Roberts says he was threatened, intimidated and humiliated for exposing what he said has become a pattern of misconduct at the highest levels of the FBI and that has gone unpunished.

Here’s what he said on 60 Minutes that got him into hot water: “I don’t know of another person in the FBI who has done the internal investigations that I have and has seen what I have, and knows what has occurred and what has been glossed over and what has, frankly, just disappeared, just vaporized and no one disciplined for it.”

What disturbs Roberts is a double standard of discipline at the bureau, in which, he says, senior officials are rarely punished and often promoted, while lower level employees end up taking the blame. Roberts is a chief of the bureau’s Internal Affairs department and for the past 10 years has investigated and documented hundreds of cases of wrongdoing by FBI employees. And as he told 60 Minutes several weeks ago about misconduct in the FBI’s translation department, he doubts that double standard will ever change.

“I think the double standard of discipline will continue,” Roberts said. “No matter who comes in, no matter who tries to change, you-- you have a certain - certain group that - that will continue to protect itself. That's just how it is,I would say, no matter what happens.”

Roberts said he had found cases since 9/11 in which people were involved in misconduct and were not reprimanded. Instead, they were promoted.

“You would think that after 9/11, that's a big slap on the face. Hello! This is a wake-up call here,” Bradley said.

“Depends on who you are. If you're in a senior executive level, [it] may not hurt you. You'll be promoted,” Roberts said.

What happened to Roberts after that interview aired may be the beginning of the end of his 20 years at the FBI. Roberts says he was called in to a meeting in the office of his boss - assistant FBI director Robert Jordan - and was read the riot act for what he had said on 60 Minutes - even though the FBI had given Roberts written approval to be interviewed about his criticism of the FBI.

According to investigators familiar with that meeting, assistant director Jordan told Roberts : "You dissed me and the director." Jordan later went on to suggest that Roberts might be transferred or fired.

The way that Roberts was treated got the attention of Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy and Republican Sen. Charles Grassley. They sit on the Judiciary Committee, which has oversight of the FBI. Earlier this year, Mueller testified before that committee that retaliation against FBI employees who report wrongdoing would not happen on his watch.

Now, Grassley is trying to hold the FBI director to his word.

Ed Bradley: When you look at what's happened to John Roberts after he criticized the organization what do you make of the pledges by director Mueller?

Sen. Grassley: It seems to me that director Mueller has acknowledged the importance of whistleblowing. And he’s got to step in then and if he doesn’t then, I think he's gone back on his word to the Congress of the United States that whistle blowers need to be protected. Because, for sure, Roberts has not been protected. No - you don't put domesticated animals through what Mr. Roberts went through.

Grassley and Leahy are leading a bi-partisan congressional investigation into the FBI’s treatment of Roberts.

“In effect ,they sought to end his career,” says Leahy. “And keep in mind, this is not - we're not talking about some rookie FBI agent. We're talking about a person whose life was the FBI, who was the epitome of what you want in law enforcement. And to be treated like this - it seemed to me that they're sending a signal throughout the FBI, you dare question something, you're going to get clobbered.”

Roberts, who spoke freely a few weeks ago, would not speak to Bradley this week because his lawyer, Steve Kohn, says he is too afraid.

“As John would say, his legs have been cut off. His authority as a supervisor has been taken away,” Kohn said.

Kohn says Roberts was humiliated by assistant director Jordan in front of some 40 people, including Roberts’ wife, Brenda, who works in the same department. According to some who were present, Jordan read sarcastically from a transcript of the 60 Minutes report, and said that John Roberts had betrayed everyone at the FBI.

Says Kohn: “And the assistant director got up there and said, 'We are a family and we have to understand that if we say harmful things to the family we're all hurt.' and that was the message to everybody. It was that John Roberts violated the trust of the family.”

“The FBI is not family. The FBI is a government agency. The agents are employees. You know, the Mafia used to talk about being family. The FBI's not Mafia, at least they're not supposed to be. But you get the impression that that sort of peer pressure is what you have to be, and you don't mess with the family,” says Grassley.

All of this was particularly hard on Roberts’ wife who broke down and required medical assistance after Jordan addressed the staff.

Says Kohn: “Her husband was ridiculed in front of every co-employee, all the subordinates, all the support staff and she is totally traumatized. Some of the co-workers won't look at her any more. They won't return greetings. Essentially she - they've - been vilified and she feels it.

“Just think of how macho it is for a guy like Jordan to stand up before a group and say those things? You know, it might- you might need that sort of macho when you're going after bank robbers and terrorists and bin Laden, but you don't have to do that to the spouse of a very patriotic FBI agent,” says Grassley.

Earlier this week, Grassley summoned Jordan to his office demanding an explanation. He says he never got one.

“They would not answer my questions,” Grassley said. “They would not answer the questions I was told by counsel for Mr. Jordan because he was very nervous because 60 Minutes was sitting outside of my office, I made very clear that if 60 Minutes was a problem that I would not speak to 60 Minutes because I was here to get basic information.”

“My suspicion is that he didn't want to talk to me in the first place. Jordan ducked out a side door and headed down the street,” says Grassley.

Jordan also declined to talk to Ed Bradley. He suggested that Bradley contact the press office.

60 Minutes went to the FBI’s press office and was told Robert Jordan would not be available for an interview. It also was told that Director Robert Mueller, too, was unavailable. The bureau did send a written statement saying, "The FBI is committed to fairness in the workplace and does not tolerate retaliation of any kind." it went on to say, "We have asked the department of justice Inspector General to expeditiously investigate this matter, and welcome his findings. If, at that time any action is appropriate, we will not hesitate to take it."

This was not the first time that John Roberts had gotten into trouble for criticizing the FBI. He says three years ago he was called on the carpet because of a high-profile investigation he conducted into the FBI’s handling of the 1992 siege at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, where the wife of white supremacist Randy Weaver was killed by an FBI sniper as she stood inside her home.

Roberts concluded that six senior FBI officials had lied or committed misconduct in their handling of the case. Despite his findings, none of them were disciplined. The only people punished were subordinate bureau employees. Roberts testified about that last year at a congressional hearing.

He testified that: “What occurred during the Ruby Ridge investigation should not be viewed as an isolated incident. This should be alarming to all of us, because not only is it fundamentally unfair, but more important because, if the rank and file of any law enforcement organization believe their executive management condones or approves of misconduct, that is a precursor for corruption.”

John Roberts told 60 Minutes a few weeks ago that because he exposed misconduct in the executive ranks of the FBI at Ruby Ridge and other incidents, he’s been badgered by the very people he was assigned to investigate.

“I received a call from one of those senior executives who, in fact, asked me, ‘Do you realize,’ meaning me, John Roberts, do I realize what I’m doing to the senior executive ranks of the FBI? I was shocked. And my response was ‘I’m not doing anything. I'm merely conducting an investigation of those who have done something wrong.’”

Because of that, he says, his career is at a dead end. He says he has been passed over for transfer or promotion 14 times.

“I’ve been denied that. And the persons making those decisions are the individuals against whom I alleged and investigated misconduct,” Roberts says.

So what kind of message is being sent to officials like him at the FBI?

“Where are your loyalties? If they’re to the person that can advance your career then you will be loyal if you want to move on. If you want to take a stand and say, ‘Hey, enough’s enough, this is wrong. We can’t continue to operate this way’ then they’re doomed,” Roberts says.

As for the senior FBI officials whom Roberts found had committed misconduct at Ruby Ridge, all of them were promoted and - in some cases - given bonuses. One of them is Van Harp. Even though Roberts said Harp altered a report to cover up serious wrongdoing, Harp was promoted and awarded a bonus of $22,000. Harp now runs the FBI’s Washington field office and is heading the anthrax investigation.

The FBI itself says Harp did nothing wrong at Ruby Ridge, but last week, the Inspector General of the Justice Department released a report that endorsed John Roberts’ findings about the FBI’s handling of Ruby Ridge and his criticism of Harp. The report said the FBI’s handling of the incident was rife with misconduct, obstruction, and was, at best, grossly deficient and, at worst, intentionally slanted to protect the FBI and senior FBI officials. The report concludes that the "FBI suffered and still suffers from a strong perception that a double standard exists within the FBI.”

“John Roberts has been vindicated, but then you have to ask, of course, the obvious question: If he was vindicated, why all this retaliation against him, against his wife, why this effort to hold him up to ridicule?” asks Leahy.

“This is what it comes down to, this effort to send a signal, not just here in Washington, but in California and Texas, Illinois, everywhere else where the FBI are, that send a signal, don't blow the whistle. Don't be a whistleblower.”

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/11/25/60minutes/main530750.shtml

Coleen Rowley's Memo to
FBI Director Robert Mueller

An edited version of the agent's 13-page letterMay 21, 2002

FBI Director Robert Mueller
FBI Headquarters Washington, D.C.

Dear Director Mueller:

I feel at this point that I have to put my concerns in writing concerning the important topic of the FBI's response to evidence of terrorist activity in the United States prior to September 11th. The issues are fundamentally ones of INTEGRITY and go to the heart of the FBI'