It's an Interesting Time to be a Whistle-Blower

Especially when you're surrounded by so many deaf ears.

Official Alerted FBI to Rules Abuse Two Years Ago

WASHINGTON, March 18 — Almost two years before the Federal Bureau of Investigation publicly admitted this month that it had ignored its own rules when demanding telephone and financial records about private citizens, a top official in that program warned the bureau about widespread lapses, his lawyer said on Sunday.

The official, Bassem Youssef, who is in charge of the bureau’s Communications Analysis Unit, said he discovered frequent legal lapses and raised concerns with superiors soon after he was assigned to the unit in early 2005.

Stephen M. Kohn, the lawyer for Mr. Youssef, said his client told his superiors that the bureau had frequently failed to document an urgent national security need — proving “exigent circumstances,” in the bureau’s language — when obtaining personal information without a court order through the use of “national security letters.”

Mr. Youssef said his superiors had initially minimized the scope of the problem and the likely violation of laws intended to protect privacy, Mr. Kohn said.

“He identified the problems in 2005, shortly after he became unit chief,” Mr. Kohn said. “As in other matters, he was met with apathy and resistance.”

More of the same, more of the same, etc, etc... and of course, this story has the wonderful "are you with us or against us" aspect:

Mr. Youssef, born in Egypt, is suing the bureau for discrimination, charging that senior officials improperly suspected his loyalties in part because of his Egyptian origins.

Nice. He couldn't possibly be telling the truth... he's one of them ay-rabs, after all... how do we know he ain't workin' with the enemy?

One of the F.B.I.’s few fluent Arabic speakers, Mr. Youssef won the Director of Central Intelligence Award in 1995 for his work infiltrating the Islamic group led by Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, who is now serving a life sentence in prison on charges tied to the first bombing of the World Trade Center, in 1993. From 1996 to 2000, Mr. Youssef was the Justice’s Department’s legal attaché to Saudi Arabia, where he won praise for his work with Saudi officials on investigations of the bombing of the Khobar Towers in 1996.

Okay, so he's an award-winning investigator. That doesn't mean he's telling the truth. Geez. Who are you gonna believe; some brown guy, or his superiors?