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Newsbud
Title: Sibel Edmonds Pen Newman Award
Published: 2014-01-10
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdicBssDSn0
Title: Sibel Edmonds Pen Newman Award
Published: 2014-01-10
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdicBssDSn0
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bell Edmonds lives in suburban Washington and never expected to become in the words of the Vanity Fair headline and inconvenient patriot scene is a modern day Paul Revere she stood up and said this is wrong and they told her to shut up and she just kept on talking and they told her to shut up again and took away her security clearance took away her job and2/12
she still just kept on talk they have threatened me that they would put mean jail Edmunds was born in Iran if her earliest memories the Shah's secret police SAVAK searching her family's house in Tehran then the Ayatollah Khomeini's revolution one time revolutionary guard surrounded an eleven year old Sabella told her she could go to jail because their head scarf was not modest enough her family fled3/12
to Turkey Sibel ended up in college in Maryland %HESITATION languages include English Farsi Turkish and Azerbaijani after nine eleven admins decided to go to the FBI they did not have a single translator who could speak Turkish came a contract linguists translating conversations seize documents and wiretaps of foreign officials under suspicion and she discovered in fact that there had been serious security breaches which could jeopardize the4/12
work and jeopardize the investigation and also that in fact there was a person that you just convince was a spy from another country she told her boss and her bosses boss but nothing changed then further the justice department the office of the inspector general and two senators on the Judiciary Committee when action was taken it was the FBI firing her they said for her disruptive effect5/12
on the translating unit she brought suit against the FBI for firing her but the department of justice invoked the state secrets privilege saying that hearing the case would jeopardize national security case was dismissed she never even got into court the government retroactively classified briefings that Edmonds and made to senators yet she continued to speak out finally the independent office of the inspector general the OIG investigated6/12
their report neatly classified by the FBI but when an unclassified version was released it confirmed Sibel story quote many of her allegations had bases in fact we believe 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 even with that report the appeal of her case was denied so she7/12
took her case to the highest court in the land preen court declined to hear it her supporters cite the ultimate irony the hearing was denied the same day that a hung marble from the cream courts facade fell to the pavement but her because it's not over the Paul Revere freedom to warn act a similar Senate bill to strengthen protection for government whistleblowers will now make its8/12
way through Congress because of Sibel Edmonds case she's a first amendment %HESITATION cannonball us she speaks up for what she believes that she is a leader the fact that she not only was a strong advocate for her own case but she became a strong advocate for the public policy for the greater good she had the %HESITATION intuition courage of the backbone stand up and do it9/12
and we are very grateful to her and a pen award is significant in that regard tell the public what happened that Sibel Edmonds was a heroin Sibel Edmonds is an American patriot she has a classic story to tell which is the story of an immigrant who came here seeking more freedom and seeking a real democracy %HESITATION and was unfortunately kind of shut down when she tried10/12
to exercise her rights under the first of I'm Paul Newman for the past fourteen years we've been honoring courageous Americans who have defended their first amendment rights against overwhelming odds and in so doing affirmed the protection of the first amendment for all of us Sibel Edmonds adds luster to this distinguished group of honorees with her refusal to back down from her confrontation with the FBI in11/12
his straight talking way president Harry Truman said whenever one American who has done nothing wrong is forced by fear shut his mouth then all Americans are in peril Sibel Edmonds would not let an intimidating FBI shut her mouth and as a result suffered grievous consequences but she has persevered and we are better off for sacrifice pan American center is pleased to present Sibel Edmonds with the