Safer Than You Were Four Years Ago?/ If We Reform Our Intelligence Services, The Terrorists Win Edition

As Daniel Drezner appropriately asks, "What the f#$% is going on at the FBI?" [It would have been more appropriate if he said "fuck," but what can you do--ed.] See for yourself:

Let's say you're running the organization responsible for trying to track potential terrorists in the United States. Immediately after 9/11, let's say that one of your new employees tells you that some of the people doing necessary translating work (from Middle Eastern languages into English) are incompetent, helping to explain why relevant information never made it to the necessary links in the chain of command. What do you do?

A) Give this person a medal and start cleaning house;

B) Fire the person, request a gag order to prevent her from speaking publicly about the case, and attempt to retroactively label anything said about the case as a state secret?

Alas, in the case of FBI whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds, it appears that both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice picked option B. [Emphasis mine.]

Full report here.