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COMMISSION SENSITIVE

MEMORANDUM

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FOR THE RECORD

IFBI Language Specialist

Type of event: Interview
Date: August 1, 2003
Special Access Issues: None
Prepared by: Barbara A. Grewe
Team Number: 6
Location: FBI Washington Field Office
Participants - Non-Commission: FBI Assistant General Counsel Robert Sinton
Participants - Commission: Senior Counsel Barbara Grewe, Counsel Peter Rundlet

Background

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9/11 Law Enforcement Privacy

J In 1994 he sent in
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an application and was hired ~ a full-time language specialist (LS) as a as-! 0 in the FBI's
Washington Field Office (WFO). He is now a GS-13 but that is as high as he can go. He has a
Top Secret clearance. He does some interpreting, but not all LS can do that. He has
accompanied the Director of the FBI on travel and provided interpreting for him.
Language Specialist positions

J
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'This is important because much of the
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\ \. -rnaterial has a religious tonetoit. He said it is important to know the culture to properly
\ \. ....
.....ri~de;St~d what one is hearing. "FOf'eX~ple, he said that the word "Mustafa" could be just a

\ \~~~ orit.could be referring to "the proph~i.»1 ~xplained that there is standard and
\ ~~1l~4~ial Arabic and within the latter there are 22 dialects. Highly educated people use standard

\. Ai~bi~>\.Othe~~e the individuals will speak one of the dialects. I 1

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l
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board\ Becati~epush~\~d Urdu ~ ..~~~.~abic based languages, they are not on the Arabic

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\ When a new translator is hired they'are assigned a reviewer to ensure quality control.
......\ "teview~\\he work
another ~tity with~.~t review:·1
'~ffellow langua~6·.~pecialists. No translations can be released to
Isaid translations need teamwork to uncover codes ..
They need to look atthe whole context to understand ..what is being said. Language specialists
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will make\f first cutb~ed on their assessment while li~~~ing to the material.

Priorities \ ....... ""'"

Pre-September 1 i"1 Forked Foreign Counterintelligence (FC!) and Terrorism

matters. He ~orks on the same types of matters post-Septembe~'·1..~' although he says that
terrorism mattrrs are always the top priority. He says this message .~~ made clear by
management. iOe only issue LSs have is establishing priorities among-terrorism cases, although
the agents are the ones who will decide who will work on what and whe~:·1 tays the LS
can help establis~ priorities based on what the LS is hearing or reading but the agent has more

background and can provide a general assessment of the matter.

On averag~ Forks 60-70 hours per week. When he has been sent overseas, he

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worked 80 hours a week. LSs on the Arabic board on average works 50-60 hours per week .

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\ \"'fontractors frequently work ·i6··h().ur~..~·daY:·1 ~aid immediately after September 11 the

\ amount of work was "terrible." The w~'rkload increased "tremendously." He says they
\, practically slept in the office. As one of the re~~~ers~ ~ad a lot more work to do,
Supervisors want them to finish
their work promptly. Most of the work is done within 24 hours. If something is very urgent, it
will be done in real time. The fact that there should be no backlog is emphasized more now. He
says he has never experienced any supervisor saying he should slow down. He says he has never
seen any of the allegations that were made on 60 Minutes.
Relationship with agents
\ He will make "tech cuts" for case agents from listening to intercepted matters. He will
\ provide a summary for the agent. If the agent says it is important to have 'a verbatim translation,
'{hen he will come back with a verbatim translation instead of just a summary. Before September

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~,l he would not know as much about what he was working on. Now agents may bring an
E,~ectronicCommunication (Ee) about the case to a meeting so that he better understands the
c~e. He will meet with the agent at least once every other week. There is much more
intrraction now. Sometimes he lectures agents on how to behave when interviewing Muslims.
He ~as accompanied agents for subject interviews or interviews of detainees.

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Alina Bloom is the new boss for WFO language services. There are four additional
supervisors, all of whom are non-agents. Each supervisor will have a number of boards he or she

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supervises.'l hs the supervisor of the Arabic board at WFO .

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Supervisors do not know what is in particular cuts because they are not doing all the
language work. He knows, however, he cannot leave important material out because the work is
reviewed. He said that documents are reviewed as a whole but because there are minimization
procedures for the tech cuts, he cannot tell if a LS missed something without asking to review the
entire cut. He says that when there are omissions it is not deliberate. He says sometimes the LS
"just doesn't get it."
ChaUenges
.I..... ---.~as concerns about it being known that he works for the FBI because the Arabic
conufunity does not have a positive attitude about police. He tells everyone except his wife that
he 'Yorks for the Department of Justice. Unfortunately when background investigators talked to
his neighbors, they told the neighbo~ Iworks for the FBI. He fears some repercussions
fr~ working for the FBI. When.fie goes overseas he tells people he is Moroccan.
! it

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~aid it is di.f,li6~ltfor the FBI to hire enough language specialists because it is
~ard!to find individuals with the necessary language skills and still be "clean as a whistle." He
foel.~~vesthat the FB~..Wlll need to be willing to pay more for such individuals to come to work for
/t~1FBI. He sai~ .: ~e FBI needs to send more people to interpreting school. He is also concerned

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