Audit Finds Large FBI Translation Backlog

Here is an example of the failed leadership of George Bush.

Here is an example of his in-ability to keep America safe and secure.

It's time for America to abandon the low expectations and lack of
direction and wisdom of the Bush White House.

Bush has no plan for a safe and secure America other than to keep
Americans in a constant state of fear and uncertainty. There is no
solution in sight from this white house - just a constant battle, a
"war" against unknown, secret enemies.

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

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...on_3&printer=1

Audit Finds Large FBI Translation Backlog
Mon Sep 27, 6:06 PM ET
By CURT ANDERSON, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The FBI (news - web sites) has a backlog of hundreds of
thousands of hours of untranslated audio recordings from terror and
espionage investigations, despite large increases in money and
personnel for translations since the 2001 terror attacks, a Justice
Department (news - web sites) audit released Monday said.

In addition, the audit by Glenn A. Fine, the agency's inspector
general, found more than one-third of al-Qaida intercepts authorized
by a secret federal court were not reviewed within 12 hours of
collection as required by FBI Director Robert Mueller.

"Our audit highlighted the significant challenges facing the FBI to
ensure that translation of key information is performed timely and
accurately," Fine said.

The audit was completed in July in classified form. The version
released Monday was edited to remove sections classified as "secret"
by the FBI.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, more than 123,000 hours of audio in languages
associated with terrorists still had not been reviewed as of April
2004, the audit found. In addition, more than 370,000 hours of audio
associated with counterintelligence had not been reviewed.

This backlog existed even though money for the FBI's language services
had increased from $21.5 million in fiscal 2001 to about $70 million
in fiscal 2004. The number of linguists had risen from 883 to 1,214
over that period.

The FBI also is not meeting Mueller's requirement that all al-Qaida
communications collected under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act be reviewed within 12 hours of interception. During April 2004,
the audit found, 36 percent of such communications were not even
received at FBI headquarters within 12 hours.

The audit found that the FBI still lacks language personnel necessary
to do all the needed translation work, and limitations in its
technology, especially computer storage capacity, also cause problems
that lead to backlogs.

Critics said the audit shows the FBI's translation capability is far
from adequate.

"Three years after the worst terrorist attack on American soil, the
overall effectiveness of a major investigative tool in our
antiterrorism arsenal is still in doubt," said Sen. Patrick Leahy
(news, bio, voting record) of Vermont, senior Democrat on the Senate
Judiciary Committee (news - web sites). "The Justice Department's
translation mess has become a chronic problem that has obvious
implications for our national security."

The audit made 18 recommendations for the FBI, many of which already
have been implemented, Fine said. FBI officials told auditors they are
hiring linguists as quickly as they can be found in such languages as
Arabic, Farsi, Pashto, Urdu, Chinese, Turkish and Kurdish.

"The FBI appears to be taking steps to address these issues, which are
critical components of the FBI's counterterrorism and
counterintelligence efforts," Fine said.

Mueller said the FBI's translation workload has doubled since the
Sept. 11 attacks, and the bureau is committed to hiring more linguists
and fixing the technological problems. One difficulty is that the FBI
has trouble finding qualified linguists who can pass required security
clearances for sensitive terrorism and intelligence investigations, he
said.

But Mueller also said FBI linguists are now connected worldwide so
that someone in one office can work on information collected by
another office far away.

"We agree with (the inspector general) that more remains to be done in
our language services program, and we are giving this effort the
highest priority," Mueller said.

"Meghan Powers" wrote in message
...
Here is an example of the failed leadership of George Bush.

Here is an example of his in-ability to keep America safe and secure.

It's time for America to abandon the low expectations and lack of
direction and wisdom of the Bush White House.

Bush has no plan for a safe and secure America other than to keep
Americans in a constant state of fear and uncertainty. There is no
solution in sight from this white house - just a constant battle, a
"war" against unknown, secret enemies.


John Kerry's problem is that voters see these kinds of stories and can't
help but wonder how much worse the situation would be if Kerry was
President.

Matt

Matt wrote:

John Kerry's problem

There is no such Kerry "problem". This is fiction - an attack made by
Bush and his supporters

voters see these kinds of stories and can't help but wonder
how much worse the situation would be if Kerry was President.

No. That's what Bush and his supporters want others to think.

Don't look at the situation the way it is (which is bad on so many
fronts). Shift the focus to Kerry as President. Put Kerry on trial
for the string of disasters and bad news and bad outcomes that is the
Bush presidency.

Make Kerry answer to or answer for Bush's poor decisions, Bush's bad
choices, Bush's ill-conceived campaigns. How cowardly - yet how
fitting for Bush the Vietnam war draft dodger.

Deflect the analysis of how the situation got this bad, and the fact
that Bush *IS* in charge, and has been for the past 4 years.

It's really quite funny to see Bush, the white house, and all the
right-wing spin-masters put Kerry's presidential leadership record on
trial - when it hasn't even happened yet!

They do it because Bush's own record is shameful and indefensible.

Matt wrote:
John Kerry's problem is that voters see these kinds of stories and can't
help but wonder how much worse the situation would be if Kerry was
President.


No, Kerry is affraid to attack the bush regime because the mistakes are so
bad, and americans have refused to believe those attacks for so long that he
would be labeled unpatriotic. The democrats should have chosen Howard Dean.
His "overenthousiastic speach" may have been his downfall, but he wouldn't hve
hesitated in attacking/destroying the bush regime and he may have succeeded in
waking up americans.

There is , however a difference between the necessary removal of war criminals
from office and choosing a good president.

"Meghan Powers" wrote in message
...
Matt wrote:

John Kerry's problem

There is no such Kerry "problem". This is fiction - an attack made by
Bush and his supporters


I would say trailing in the polls by 5-10 points is a pretty big problem.

Matt

"nobody" wrote in message
...
Matt wrote:
John Kerry's problem is that voters see these kinds of stories and can't
help but wonder how much worse the situation would be if Kerry was
President.


No, Kerry is affraid to attack the bush regime

Uh....what planet do you live on? Every time Kerry opens his mouth he's
attacking Bush.

because the mistakes are so
bad, and americans have refused to believe those attacks for so long

Or, maybe it's just that a good percentage of Americans can see through the
attacks. One difference between Democrats and Republicans is that Dems
think Republicans are stupid to see the truth. The thought that someone
could disagree with your beliefs for valid reasons is enough to make your
head want to explode. Republicans just disagree with the liberal
philosophy.

that he
would be labeled unpatriotic. The democrats should have chosen Howard
Dean.

That's like saying the Republicans should have put Pat Buchanan on the
ticket. Howard Dean would have had no chance at winning.

Matt

On 28/09/2004, Meghan Powers wrote:
One difficulty is that the FBI
has trouble finding qualified linguists who can pass required security
clearances for sensitive terrorism and intelligence investigations, he
said.

I don't suppose there's an easy solution to this. But what did surprise
me was this:

and limitations in its
technology, especially computer storage capacity, also cause problems
that lead to backlogs.

... which was reiterated in the BBC's coverage:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3696344.stm

quote
Another problem for the FBI is limited computer storage capacity.

In some cases, potentially crucial surveillance material is being
automatically deleted before it can be reviewed, the audit found.
/quote

Storage solutions are cheap these days. I wonder why the FBI hasn't
just sent someone out to buy a few more terabytes.

But Mueller also said FBI linguists are now connected worldwide so
that someone in one office can work on information collected by
another office far away.

This implies that the FBI linguists were not connected until quite
recently. Very strange.

--
Simon Elliott http://www.ctsn.co.uk

"Simon Elliott" Simon at ctsn.co.uk wrote in message
.. .
On 28/09/2004, Meghan Powers wrote:

Storage solutions are cheap these days. I wonder why the FBI hasn't
just sent someone out to buy a few more terabytes.

But Mueller also said FBI linguists are now connected worldwide so
that someone in one office can work on information collected by
another office far away.

This implies that the FBI linguists were not connected until quite
recently. Very strange.


My guess is that if you got some FBI networking admin in an interview,
they'd have some pretty good reasons why it's much more complicated than it
would seem.

Matt

"Dennis G. Rears" wrote in message
...
"Jeff Hacker" wrote in message
...
JF -

Please confine your political rantings to other places than
rec.travel.air, and I would also request you limit them to things you
MAY
know about - maybe your own country??


If you want to complain about politcal rantings, complain to the original
poster. This subbject is OT for recreational air travel.

dennis


Your right of course. I had forgotten about Meghan Powers posts. I for one
will try to keep from responding to these in the future. Looks like some
asshole from Canada.

Got a few minutes to kill, here is some interesting reading on Meghan
Powers.

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=e...=Meghan+Powers

Looks like there was an effort to get rid of this person about a year ago.
Looks like it worked since there wasn't any posts from Meghan Powers for
almost 9 months. Maybe it's time to try again. Looks like we can still
complain to about this person by sending copy of complete
headers.

Matt

Simon Elliott wrote:
quote
Another problem for the FBI is limited computer storage capacity.

Did you ever hear the Bush Regime's mantra of "total information awareness". ?

The amount of data generated by by all their listening/spying equipment around
the world must be staggering. In the past, they probably only tasked specific
pieces of equipment to record stuff when it was needed. (eg: you suspect a bad
guy to stay at a specific hotel, you you activate your link to the hotel's
telephone switch and record all conversations during 3 days and then use yor
equipmeht to pick out only those voices that match your suspect and then translate.

However, with "total information awareness", they want to constant record
everything and constantly parse everything in order to not only find suspectts
in places they didn't know they were going, but also spot terrorists before
they are known to the FBI.

Whether that is achievable or not, and whether this is desirable or not is a
totally different question. However, it is ironic that the one country whose
citizens were so much against big brother and even scared of a national
identity card is the one country where citizens are embracing its regime's
plans to spy on everyone all the time.