Two FBI Whistleblowers Confirm Illegal Wiretapping of Government Officials and Misuse of FISA

National
Security Whistleblowers Coalition

www.nswbc.org

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE- March 5, 2007

 

Contact: Sibel Edmonds, National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, sedmonds@nswbc.org or William Weaver, wweaver@nswbc.org

 

 

 

Two FBI Whistleblowers Confirm Illegal
Wiretapping of Government Officials and Misuse of FISA

 

State Secrets Privilege Was Used to Cover
Up Corruption and Silence Whistleblowers

 

The
National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC)
has obtained a copy of an official complaint filed by a veteran
FBI Special Agent, Gilbert Graham, with the Department of Justice Office of the
Inspector General (DOJ-OIG). SA Graham’s protected disclosures report the violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
(FISA) in conducting electronic surveillance of high-profile U.S. public officials.

Before his retirement in 2002, SA Gilbert Graham worked for the FBI Washington
Field Office (WFO) Squad NS-24. One of the main areas of Mr. Graham’s
counterintelligence investigations involved espionage activities by Turkish
officials and agents in the United States. On April 2, 2002, Graham filed with
the DOJ-OIG a classified protected disclosure, which provided a detailed
account of FISA violations involving misuse of FISA warrants to engage in
domestic surveillance. In his unclassified report SA Graham states: “It is the complainant’s reasonable belief
that the request for ELSUR [electronic surveillance] coverage was a subterfuge
to collect evidentiary information concerning public corruption matters.” Graham blew the whistle on this
illegal behavior, but the actions were covered up by the Department of Justice
and the Attorney General’s office.

 

Click
here to read the
unclassified version of SA Graham’s Official Report.

 

The
report filed by SA Graham bolsters another FBI whistleblower’s case that became
public several months after Graham’s official filing with the Justice
Department in 2002. Sibel Edmonds, former FBI Language Specialist,
also worked for the FBI Washington Field Office (WFO), and her assignments
included the translations of Turkish Counterintelligence documents and
audiotapes, some of which were part of espionage investigations led by SA
Graham. After she filed her complaint with the DOJ-OIG and Congress, she was retaliated against by the
FBI and ultimately fired in March 2002. Court proceedings in Edmonds’ case were blocked by the assertion of the

State Secrets Privilege by then
Attorney General John Ashcroft, and the Congress gagged and prevented from investigating
her case through retroactive re-classification of documents by DOJ. To read the
timeline on Edmonds’ case Click here.

 

Edmonds’
complaint included allegations of illegal activities by Turkish organizations
and their agents in the United States, and the involvement of certain elected
and appointed U.S. officials in the Department of State, Pentagon, and the U.S.
Congress in these activities. In its September 2005 issue, Vanity Fair
ran a comprehensive piece on Edmonds’ case by reporter David Rose, in which
several former and current congressional and Justice Department officials
identified former House Speaker Dennis Hastert as being involved in illegal
activities with the Turkish organizations and
personnel targeted in FBI investigations. In addition, Rose reported: “…much of what Edmonds reportedly heard seemed
to concern not state espionage but criminal activity. There was talk, she told
investigators, of laundering the profits of large-scale drug deals and of
selling classified military technologies to the highest bidder.” In January
2005, DOJ-OIG released an unclassified summary
of its investigation into Edmonds’ termination. The report concluded that
Edmonds was fired for reporting serious security breaches and misconduct in the
agency’s translation program, and that many of her allegations were supported
by convincing evidence.

 

Another
Former Veteran FBI Counterintelligence and Espionage Specialist at FBI
Headquarters in Washington DC also filed similar reports with DOJ-OIG and
several congressional offices regarding violations of FISA implementation and
the covering up of several espionage cases involving FBI Language Specialists
and public corruption cases by the Bureau. The cases reported by this
whistleblower corroborate those reported by SA Graham and Sibel Edmonds. In an
interview with NSWBC investigators the former FBI Specialist, who wished to
remain anonymous, stated: “…you are
looking at covering up massive public corruption and espionage cases; to top
that off you have major violations of FISA by the FBI Washington Field Office
and HQ targeting these cases. Everyone involved has motive to cover up these
reports and prevent investigation and public disclosure. No wonder they invoked
the state secrets privilege in Edmonds’ case.”

 

William Weaver, NSWBC Senior Advisor noted that,”These abuses of power are precisely why we
must pay attention to whistleblowers. 
Preservation of the balance of powers between the branches of government
increasingly relies on information provided by whistleblowers, especially in
the face of aggressive and expanding executive power. Through illegal surveillance members of Congress and other
officials may be controlled by the executive branch, thereby dissolving the
matrix of our democracy. The abuse of
two powers of secrecy, FISA and the state secrets privilege, are working hand
in hand to subvert the Constitution. In an abominably perverse arrangement, the
abuse of FISA is being covered up by abuse of the state secrets privilege. Only
whistleblowers and the congressional and judicial oversight their revelations
spawn can bring our system back into balance.”

 

Several
civil liberties and whistleblowers organizations have joined Edmonds and NSWBC
in urging congress to hold public hearing on Edmonds’ case, including the
supporting cases of SA Graham and other FBI witnesses, and the erroneous use of
state secrets privilege by the executive branch to cover up its own illegal
conduct. The petition endorsed by these groups is expected to be released to
public in the next few days.

 

 

About National Security Whistleblowers Coalition

National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC), founded in
August 2004, is an independent and nonpartisan alliance of whistleblowers who
have come forward to address our nation’s security weaknesses; to inform
authorities of security vulnerabilities in our intelligence agencies, at
nuclear power plants and weapon facilities, in airports, and at our nation’s
borders and ports; to uncover government waste, fraud, abuse, and in some cases
criminal conduct. The NSWBC is dedicated to aiding national security
whistleblowers through a variety of methods, including advocacy of governmental
and legal reform, educating the public concerning whistleblowing activity,
provision of comfort and fellowship to national security whistleblowers suffering
retaliation and other harms, and working with other public interest
organizations to affect goals defined in the NSWBC mission statement. For
more on NSWBC visit www.nswbc.org

 

© Copyright 2006, National Security
Whistleblowers Coalition. Information
in this release may be freely distributed and published provided that all such
distributions make appropriate attribution to the National Security Whistleblowers
Coalition.