Report: FBI getting lost in translations
Half-million hours of intelligence material not yet in English
From Terry Frieden
CNN Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The FBI is collecting more foreign language material than it is able to translate, with audiotape backlogs now totaling hundreds of thousands of hours in material associated with terrorism and intelligence cases, according to a new report.
The report, released Monday by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine, blames the FBI's backlog of unreviewed material on an insufficient number of linguists and limitations in information technology systems.
"Our audit found that the FBI's collection of material requiring translation has continued to outpace its translation capabilities," the inspector general said. "The FBI cannot translate all the foreign language counterterrorism and counterintelligence material it collects," he said.
The conclusions were disclosed in an unclassified executive summary of a secret 157-page audit provided in July to the FBI, Congress and the commission investigating the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
The summary released Monday said that since the attacks, more than 123,000 hours of audio associated with counterterrorism and 370,000 hours of audio associated with counterintelligence have not been reviewed.
However, the inspector general said, "all this unreviewed audio may not necessarily represent critical intelligence information or even material that required translation."
The Justice report gave credit to the FBI for substantially increasing its capabilities since September 11, 2001. Surveillance collection in languages related to counterterrorism (Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Pashto) has increased by 45 percent in the past two years and is expected to continue to grow 15 percent annually in coming years.
In addition, the FBI has hired linguists at the maximum rate that its funding allowed. The Language Services Section at FBI headquarters employs more than 1,200 linguists stationed across the United States.
The inspector general made several mostly technical recommendations to improve the FBI's translation capabilities. The recommendations include expediting an automated reporting system and increasing computer capacity to ensure old, unreviewed material is not automatically deleted.
"FBI officials were receptive to the recommendations we offered during the audit and in many instances took corrective actions during the audit," the report said.
The inspector general's review is separate from an earlier review that investigated claims by former FBI linguist and whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds.
The inspector general said he is continuing to work with the FBI to produce a declassified version of that completed 100-page report. Edmonds sued the Justice Department last week, seeking to force the inspector general to disclose the results of the investigation into her firing.
Edmonds alleges she was fired after complaining about poor performance in the translations unit. She also alleged that another interpreter may have compromised national security by helping pass information to the target of an investigation.
FBI Director Robert Mueller, who has seen the classified report, has issued an apparently contradictory statement saying the inspector general's investigation found the FBI had not retaliated against Edmonds, but that the complaint was "at least a contributing factor" in her termination.
A federal judge rejected a previous suit by Edmonds challenging her firing. In his dismissal, the judge said he agreed with the government that the case could result in the harmful exposure of secret government operations and damage to national security.
