Attorney General John Ashcroft has put a plug in the whistle of former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds. Ms. Edmonds, a naturalized US citizen born in Turkey, is at the center of one of the most interesting government secrecy debates in US history.

After the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001, the FBI was under pressure to hire more linguists. Edmonds joined the ranks only to find herself fired less than half a year after blowing the whistle on what she felt were incompetent and corrupt procedures within her department. She claims that she brought to the attention of her superiors some serious conflicts in the translation staff — including those related to a colleague and a group being monitored.

According to a 2002 article in the Washington Post,

Edmonds said that on several occasions, the translator tried to recruit her to join the targeted foreign group. "This person told us she worked for our target organization," Edmonds said in an interview. "These are the people we are targeting, monitoring."

Edmonds would not identify the other translator, but The Post has learned from other sources that she is a 33-year-old US citizen whose native country is home to the target group. Both Edmonds and the other translator are US citizens who trace their ethnicity to the same Middle Eastern country [Turkey]. Reached by telephone last week, the woman, who works under contract for the FBI's Washington field office, declined to comment.

Edmonds allegedly went to her superiors.

"Investigations are being compromised," Edmonds wrote to the inspector general's office in March. "Incorrect or misleading translations are being sent to agents in the field. Translations are being blocked and circumvented."

The axe fell, as they say, when she was accused of having “breached security,” partly due, she says, “to specific instruction by a supervisor to prepare a report on the other translator on her home computer.”

Afterwards she found herself censured by Mr. Ashcroft, “at the request of FBI Director Robert Mueller,” from testifying in court under the rare, but absolute, "state secrets privilege." (Edmonds has actually brought suit against the Department of Justice). She did, however, testify in camera before the 9/11 Commission, but the specifics of that testimony are unknown to the public.

And in a move that has confused Senators from both parties, Ashcroft retroactively classified material in the Edmonds case. This material included letters from Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who expressed concern over the classification measures.

Earlier this month, the FBI and Justice Department indicated they might release an “unclassified version” of the reports investigating the claims by Edmonds. And The New York Times, quoting FBI director Robert Mueller, reported Thursday that the OIG at the Justice Department concluded that Edmonds' whistle-blowing actions were "a contributing factor" to her dismissal.

The inspector general "also criticized the FBI's failure to adequately pursue Ms. Edmonds's allegations of espionage as they related to one of her colleagues," Mr. Mueller said in his letter. The Times noted that the FBI is "considering disciplinary action against some employees as a result" of this finding.

For further reference:

Statement of FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds and her attorneys
August 13, 2002 (Washington Post)

STATE SECRETS PRIVILEGE GETS A WORKOUT (Federaton of American Scientists)

Federal Rules of Evidence (2004) (Legal Information Institute, Cornell)

Ex-CIA analyst and Edmonds dissect final 9/11 commission report (Democracy Now)

What's covered in the 9-11 report? What's covered up?(Village Voice)

National Whistleblowers Center

The worst humanitarian crisis in the world, the ethnic cleansing taking place in Sudan, is the subject of a Monitor article on Monday. This situation has been declared a genocide by the United States Congress, which could help open the path for UN peacekeepers, may prompt governments to impose sanctions on the country, and likely will result in more NGOs being allowed in to help the situation.

In the meantime, the American Bar Association is surveying Sudanese refugees to find out if indeed genocide has occurred, probably for purposes of evidence if this comes to an international tribunal in the future.

However it is defined, it has claimed an estimated 30,000 lives since February 2003. Exacerbating the situation is the fact that the government has resisted allowing aid groups into the country.

Reasons for the crisis are complex and numerous. At the center of the conflict seems to be competition for water and grazing resources between the Janjaweed Arab militias and Sudanese farmers of differing ethnic backgrounds. A map from the Human Rights Watch shows the integration of these ethnolinguistic groups.

A column at the website of the Poynter Institute, a school for professional journalists, claims that the world press is not paying enough attention to this situation, though Monitor coverage is mentioned.

Driving a car, in American society, is celebrated as freedom. Particularly so in rural areas, where alternative transportation may not be available. It is largely seen as an individual right, until the issue of drivers' licenses for illegal immigrants arises, when it becomes a privilege.

This has been a particularly contentious debate in immigration; seemingly more so than medical care, educational opportunities, or housing issues.

This is the subject of a Monitor article Monday, which describes a bill in California to grant licenses to illegal immigrants that was rescinded, and a 'certificate of driving' that has just been launched in Tennessee for undocumented immigrants.

A few bills have been introduced in Congress to prevent illegal immigrants from obtaining licenses or ID cards, such as the Drivers License Integrity Act and the State Accountability and Identity Fraud Elimination Act.

In the states, bills reflect a divide on the issue, with most laws favorable to immigrants. And despite this push, there is evidence that states are not exactly rushing to license immigrants, in fact, quite the opposite. For further research on the issue of immigrants and drivers' licenses, the National Immigration Law Center has a roundup of state laws, requirements, and other news.

In Scott Peterson’s piece from last week on the growth in Asian nuclear power, he writes, “Since the atom was first harnessed for peaceful purposes – at the reactor at Obninsk ... half a century ago this weekend – the history of nuclear power has proven to be a double-edged sword.”

The emphasis of Mr. Peterson’s article is on security and the steps that led to a system of sharing nuclear technology that has had mixed results according to various proponents and critics who have commented on the "duality" of this system.

Although the first plant for nuclear power was created at Obninsk, Russia in 1954, the construction of the world’s first "full-scale nuclear reactor" was begun by the Soviets in 1946, and the first electricity-generating reactor was built in 1951, in the Idaho desert.

Dubbed the EBR-1 (i.e, the first experimental breeder reactor), construction of the project had begun in 1949 and had lured scientists from the Manhattan Project, known for its work which led to the use of the first atomic bombs.

The EBR-1, now maintained for the US Department of Energy by Bechtel, was a working reactor from the early 1950s until 1963 and helped to create the first atomic-powered city, Arco, Idaho.

Peterson draws attention to the December 1953 speech by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, referred to as the "Atoms for Peace" speech. The speech was considered the catalyst for the program, which would originally envision a "uranium bank" that would ostensibly be a depository for surplus uranium but would eventually lead to the trade of nuclear material – for "peaceful technologies" or otherwise – and end up with the present-day arrangement between the US and Russia to repatriate research reactor fuel from other countries. The underlying aim of Eisenhower's message might best be summed up by these passages taken from the speech:

The United States would seek more than the mere reduction or elimination of atomic materials for military purposes.

It is not enough to take this weapon out of the hands of the soldiers. It must be put into the hands of those who will know how to strip its military casing and adapt it to the arts of peace.

The United States knows that if the fearful trend of atomic military build up can be reversed, this greatest of destructive forces can be developed into a great boon, for the benefit of all mankind.

Adapting nuclear technology "to the arts of peace" has been the proverbial fly in the ointment, however. The Nuclear Energy Information Service has posted an article citing a 1981 Los Alamos National Laboratory document which says, "There is no technical demarcation between the military and civilian reactor and there never was one. What has persisted over the decades is just the misconception that such a linkage does not exist."

In practical terms the recently enacted Global Threat Reduction Initiative is the latest marker in the sequence of steps taken after Eisenhower's speech, steps which include the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (itself an amendment to the "McMahon Act" of 1946) and the "Megatons to Megawatts" design roughly 40 years later.

Eisenhower’s speech and the Atomic Energy Act set the stage for the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, created in 1957, and the Energy Act of the early 90s produced the controversial USEC, the US Enrichment Corporation, now a privatized facility with shareholders, and the only entity that regulates the purchase and sales of uranium acquired as part of the original uranium acquisition arrangement with Russia.

For further reference:

US Outlines Plan for Securing Nuclear Materials

Nuclear power timeline from Nuclearfiles.org

Reactors around the world: Maps of Nuclear Power Reactors: Menu Page

Nuclear Power Plants Operating in the United States as of April 15, 2003

Citizen Kurchatov

Nuclear Power Plant Security (Project on Government Oversight)

An editorialin Wednesday's Monitor focuses on women gaining political prominence in Mexico. As many men migrate to other countries, Mexican women have more confidence and opportunity to run for public office. In fact, women now comprise 22% of seats in the Lower House and 15% in the Upper House of the Mexican Parliament, which is above the world average.

That is encouraging, as not only are women politicians likely to put more attention on issues of concern to families and women, but they can bring a different approach to policy making. There is even evidence that corruption in public life is less likely where women hold a larger share of parliamentary seats, according to a study by researchers affiliated with the Center for Institutional Reform, University of Maryland.

Clearly it is essential to increase the percentages of those who represent large number of constituents or so-called minorities. In terms of women, this would be a little over half the world's population. But more important is to affirm why women's presence in public policymaking is needed.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964, designed to protect rights of black Americans, is half-a-century old this week. Measuring black achievement over 50 years, with a focus on the southern United States, is the subject of a Monitor article today. By a number of measures compiled by the Census bureau that compare 1964 to today, there has been significant progress.

Educational attainment and college degree persistence is higher and widespread. The poverty rate among black households is half of what it was in 1964. The number of black elected officials had increased to over 9000 in 2001. nine times what it had been in 1970. The gap between voter registration ratesof black people and white people in the South had almost closed by the 1980s.

But it appears that there is still important work to do. The Rev. Joseph Lowery, a source in the story, says that there is a persistent economic gap. While the black middle class has quadrupled since the 1960s, there are still the same number of black children living at the poverty line, according to Henry Louis Gates, professor of Afro-American studies, Harvard University.

Gates recently produced a documentary and companion book, 'America Beyond the Color Line' in which he studied the state of black America. He observed that black families are moving back to the Southern states, the very place where the battle for civil rights was fought. This time, they are moving to neighborhoods of their own choice, where there are other black families. The south is where the most forward progress is taking place.