.jpg)
Sibel Edmonds is a Turkish-American former FBI translator who gained prominence as a whistleblower. Born in 1970 in Iran to an Iranian Azerbaijani father and Turkish mother, she lived in Iran and Turkey before moving to the United States in 1988 as a student. Fluent in Turkish, Persian, Azerbaijani, and English, she earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and psychology from George Washington University and a master’s in public policy and international commerce from George Mason University.
Shortly after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Edmonds was hired by the FBI as a contract translator due to her language skills. She worked at the FBI’s Washington Field Office from September 20, 2001, until March 2002, when she was fired. During her brief tenure, she alleged that she uncovered serious security breaches, incompetence, and cover-ups within the agency, including claims that a colleague was involved in suppressing intelligence related to Turkish nationals and potential espionage. Edmonds asserted that this misconduct compromised national security, including information pertinent to the 9/11 attacks that she believed was deliberately ignored or mishandled.
After raising these concerns with her supervisors and later with the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility and the Department of Justice’s Inspector General, she faced retaliation and was terminated. She challenged her dismissal through a lawsuit filed in July 2002, but the case was dismissed in 2004 when the U.S. government invoked the "state secrets privilege," arguing that her claims would reveal sensitive information harmful to national security. This gag order, imposed by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, effectively silenced her ability to discuss specifics of her case publicly, earning her the moniker "the most classified woman in U.S. history."
Edmonds went on to become a prominent advocate for government transparency and whistleblower rights. In 2004, she founded the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC), a nonprofit aimed at supporting whistleblowers in national security roles. She also launched Boiling Frogs Post, an online platform for investigative journalism, in 2009, and later expanded it into NewsBud, an independent media outlet, in 2016. Her 2012 memoir, Classified Woman: The Sibel Edmonds Story, details her experiences, while her 2014 novel, The Lone Gladio, is a fictionalized account inspired by her allegations of covert operations, including an extension of NATO’s Operation Gladio into what she calls "Gladio B," involving alleged collaboration with Islamic extremists.
Her claims have sparked both support and controversy. She received the 2006 PEN/Newman’s Own First Amendment Award for her efforts to uphold free speech, and figures like Senators Charles Grassley and Patrick Leahy publicly backed her, citing an Inspector General report that partially substantiated her allegations of retaliation. However, critics argue some of her broader assertions—such as pre-9/11 intelligence failures and U.S. government ties to terrorist groups—lack definitive proof due to the classified nature of the evidence and the passage of time.
Edmonds remains a polarizing figure, celebrated by some as a champion of accountability and dismissed by others as a purveyor of unverified theories. Her story highlights tensions between national security, government secrecy, and individual efforts to expose perceived wrongdoing.