Lost in Translation - FBI needs translators Newsweek

The Feds listen in on terrorists every day. Too often they can’t understand a word they hear

The clash of civilizations rages in some surprising places, and one of them is the large room in the FBI’s Washington, D.C., Field Office that houses a unit known as CI-19. In one set of cubicles sit the foreign-born Muslims; across a partition is everyone else.

They have the same vital job: to translate supersecret wiretaps of suspected terrorists and spies. But the 150 or so members of CI-19 (for Counterintelligence) segregate themselves by ethnicity and religion. Some of the U.S.-born translators have accused their Middle Eastern-born counterparts of making disparaging or unpatriotic remarks, or of making “mistranslations”—failing to translate comments that might reflect poorly on their fellow Muslims, such as references to sexual deviancy. The tensions erupt in arguments and angry finger-pointing from time to time. “It’s a good thing the translators are not allowed to carry guns,” says Sibel Edmonds, a Farsi translator who formerly worked in the unit.

http://msnbc.com/news/982235.asp?0cv=CB20

The first sentence says 'listen in on terrorists every day' but the latter says 'suspected terrorists and spies'.

----------------------------

Email them to encourage honest reporting!

----------------------------

Lost in Translation - US Army Linguists Fired for Being Gay


Daniel Klaidman and Michael Isikoff should be fired for not mentioning facts so closely related to their current story Lost in Translation.
http://msnbc.com/news/982235.asp?0cv=CB20

Thank you,

Me


US Army Linguists Fired for Being Gay
All Spent Months In Intensive Training
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1115-03.htm


WebEditors@newsweek.com, Editors@newsweek.com, Letters@newsweek.com, Rsmith@newsweek.com, Customer.Care@newsweek.com

neal.shapiro@nbc.com, mark.effron@msnbc.com, Erik.Sorenson@msnbc.com, world@msnbc.com, letters@MSNBC.com, TWIP@msnbc.com, reed.price@msnbc.com, steve.johnson@msnbc.com, gary.sheffer@corporate.ge.com, louise.binns@corporate.ge.com, alex.constantinople@corporate.ge.com