CQ: FBI Considers Releasing Unclassified Version of Whistleblower Report

CQ HOMELAND SECURITY - INTELLIGENCE July 16, 2004 - 8:20 p.m.

FBI Considers Releasing Unclassified Version of Whistleblower Report
By Justin Rood, CQ Staff

The FBI might allow the Justice Department inspector general to release unclassified versions of two reports detailing his investigations into the bureau's translation program, the IG wrote Thursday in a letter to two senators.

Previously, the FBI had taken the unusual step of classifying both reports in their entirety - effectively ruling out the possibility that the IG could ever release redacted versions to the public.

But in a letter dated July 15, Justice IG Glenn A. Fine told Sens. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, and Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., both on the Judiciary Committee, that the FBI was now working with his office to produce unclassified versions of the reports.

The previous week, the senators had written to Fine, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and Attorney General John Ashcroft to request unclassified versions of the reports.

The letters appear to have accomplished their goal.

"[W]e are in the process of working with the agencies whose classified information is contained in the reports in an attempt to produce an unclassified version of the reports," Fine wrote to the senators.

One of the reports is based on allegations made by FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, who worked in the bureau's translation program.

"With regard to the Edmonds report, we are hopeful that we can develop an unclassified version of the report and are working with the FBI" to do so, wrote Fine.

Further, the IG said, his office is "engaged in discussion with the FBI" to produce an unclassified version of a second report, an audit of the bureau's translation program.

When asked why the FBI switched its position on the classification of the reports, bureau spokesman Ed Cogswell said simply, "Things change."

The senators had also requested an unclassified version of a third report, which details how the FBI handled intelligence before the Sept. 11 attacks.

That report may be more difficult to produce than the others, Fine wrote.

Because the report contains classified information from "various intelligence agencies," including the CIA and the National Security Agency, as well as from the FBI, Fine said, all agencies involved need to sign off on any document.