Commission Sensitive

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lVIElVI0RANDUl\1 FOR THE RECORD

Event: ..1 ... ~f.13,!,Miami Field Office Language Specialist) Interview

Type of event: Interview ""'" """"

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Date: October 2', 2003 """"'"
""'",1" Ir-It/ 02 :'0 '0;)
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Special Access Issues: None .......... ,.

Prepared by: Lance Cole

";9111 Law Enforcement Privacy
Team Number: 6
Location: FBI Miami Field Office
Participants - Non-Commission: FBI Assistant Gell~~,a:{Counsel" Sean 0 'N eill
Participants - Commission: Lance Cole and Caroline Barnes! :\

Personal BaCkgrOund:lt{aLanguage Specialist ("LS") in the FBI's Miami

Field Office. He was born in Egypt and carne to the United States i~ 1980 when he was 24 years
old. He has college degrees in English-and Education. Afte~ coming-to the United States he
, worked in New York City at hotels.Tor an accounting finn, and {:n the.City of New York Finance'

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Department. He saw an adverti~,~ment for a position with the FBI in a newspaper and applied for
the position. It was two and a.half years after he applied before his background investigation f.9
was complete, but in 1990 h~' was hired by the FBI's New York
: . Riegion~'l Office. . .'

FBI 'Vork Experience. Since joining ~he FBIDhas worked his way up from a GS-7
to a OS-13 Master Linguist position. A Master Linguist is the highest lev~'t"of skill attainment
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for FBI LSs and requires successful completion of a very demanding peer evaluation process. In
,New YorOworked on foreign counterintelligence ("FCI") and '~ounterteV'Orism ("CT")
cases, including the first W orld Trade Center bombing case and the African embassy bombings
cases. He was assigned to the 1-9 squad (the Translation Section), and about 95:0/0 of his work
was FISA surveillance, with very little Title III criminal case surveillance workDdoes not
recall that there was any increase in LS staffing after the first World Trade Center bombing case.
An analyst program was initiated in the New York office in 1996, buDdid not interact with
them. He recalled that there were 10/12 Arabic LSs in NY when he started in 1990 and the same
number when he left in 1998. Most of the other LSs he worked with were more than 75 years

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old, so he was called upon to do all of the night work.
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~/ D~also noted that the computer system for FISA recording and transcription has

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changed sev~ral times since he joined the FBI. InDopinion the old "Double Dagger"
system that h~ first worked on in the New York office was better than the subsequent
"Spidemet" and "Watchdog" systems that have replaced it. He does not know why the system
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has been changed and does not believe the new systems have been significant improvements.
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The older systems seemed more user friendly. '

In 1998D,saw that there was an opening for an LS position in Miami, so he applied
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for it. He and his wife did not like living in New York and wanted to move away from the New
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York area. He "loved, the work" in New York, which he referred to as the "golden years" of his

career, but he "hated living there," in part becausethe weather was too cold.
Miami Office 1.S Changes After 9/11. Prior to the 9111 attackOwas the only
Arabic LS in the Miami\office;
" ....
now there are six to eight Arabic'LSs
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hi the office,
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most of them
contractors who work 'as'needed. All of the LSs now are on one squad, which was formed in
2002; prior to that timO,was assigned to What is now the T-l squad, but as the only Arabic
LS in the office he alsosupported other squads. After the 9111 attacks the Miami office was

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getting translation work fromNew York and from FBI Headquarters. Now Headquarters
"controls everything - it i~ all \\centralized now." Deliev eSi-that the Arabic LSs who have
been hired since 9/11 are ~ery competent and ar:b "a solid group."
Dpas been to the, Guantanamo Bay detention facility to assist with interrogations, but
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has not been 'there recently. "\On'¢ of the inmates there told/him that the military translators were
not good and that he wasgladt::Jwas there.!The military translators are not native Arabic
speakers and the~e.fore cannot b~\as\,effectiye as a native speaker can be!,L:]agrees with other
FBI LSs who believe that in g~~eral the FBI toSs are more competentihan tlie military linguists.
Opportunlties for Career Advanc~jment atthe FBI. Thllack of opportunity for career
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advancement for LSs at...

.the FBI\is~,:aproblem. Whbn he was ~,p./NewYo~Oapplied for a
linguist position at the NSA. If he had bee,h hire,d he wouldhave gonefrom a GS-9 position to a
GS-14 position, which reflects the,.'\l1e:tter,
qomp'e'nsation)inguist~'i~ceive at the NSA and CIA.
Db~!ieves that he was not'''~iredVor the' position because.the NSA and CIA had agreed "not to
take theFBlc$eeop Ie.~asap~roachedbY a.Superviscry IRS about the possibility of his
becoming an an~fyst,b~tDf.ee~s ~F Cj~u~:':be/n1ore"effectiveas an LS, and he'd rather report

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facts than supposition .

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-. A diffe;~~ce'thaDhas noted between New York and Miami is that in NY there was
....'l)ett·~rtdtiI1:ingfor the LSs and more direct involvement in cases working closely with the case .
• ··ag~ht~. inNYDfound that when he asked about the details of a case he was told (he thinks
that ~~y oth'erLSs didn't ask). That is "not happening here" because "the attitude is different"
andther~:::i:~"notas much respect for the contribution that the LSs can make to an investigation in
\"MiaIl1i:[:=]?;~lievestharone reason for the different attitude in Miami is that many of the
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agents here wh'6:~':~re

workingterrorism now came from criminal backgrounds [and were
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reassigned from crtminal squadsafter the 9111 attacks] and do not understand the contributions
that LSs can make t~:::~:,investigatio~:'Dbelieve; it should be possible to train the agents to
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us~':.LSsfor more than jU$t:'Jranslation- they can provide more context, for example - and to have
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the LSs more involved in tb~>rvestigations, but the LSs here "have given up" on the situation
\\ and "have decided to let it be'-"(:\-.
. "DdesCribed a number~f.tbingS that could be done differently to better utilize the LSs
\ in Miami. For example, herein Mi~ili\Jhe agents do not take LSs along for interviews unless
\they are needed to serve as interpreters~·f·: Ibelieves that LSs should go on all interviews [of
Middle Eastern subjects] because they can C911,~butemore than just translation and can provide
valuable information to the agents. For exan1~t~Dbelieves he often can tell when an Middle .
k~stem individual may be lying or holding back. ...::TheLSs could also help the agents recruit
sources in the Arab and Middle Eastern communitiei;:Ddid this in New York and could do
SQ here in Miami if given the opportunity. Instead, her~"'j\ Miami, the LSs are used "for purely
translation," as is the norm in criminal cases, and not permitted to playa broader role in
investigation, as should be 'the case in terrorism investigatio~~':Dand the other Arabic LSs
have Iittle or no interaction with the case agents and do not receive enough feedback from the
ageI;-t~on cases as to what is important and what is the objective of the investigation.
\ Dnoted that some of these problems have become worse since the 9-11 attacks. After
the zooz reorganization the LSs were put on a squad together and given a different supervisor,
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rather than being assigned directly to squads as in the past. The other change since 9-11 is that
the agents working terrorism cases have criminal backgrounds and don't have experience
investigating terrorism.
Drai sed one jssue that he said would be an important improvement for the LSs in

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Miami
He said that "translation is not the problem,','Jhe'ditfi~ulty is
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understand why "millions are spent" updating the software systems but nothing is done to get
..1 I He said LSs also deserve better pay. Finally, he said he felt it would
be better for the LSs to be located with the substantive squads they support rather than offby
themselves. He recognized that it would be impractical for all 8 Arabic LSs to be located on the
same substantive squad, however.

9/11 Law Enforcement

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