TTSOML #113: Wising Up To The FBI Through Sibel Edmonds (Vanity Fair)

I first began to have doubts about how the FBI was handling my report, after I was left in the dark for so long. I began to have concerns. For one thing, the FBI kept telling me how I would have to be careful now, because I might end up working WITH Raul Bujanda in the FBI and I'd have to know how to play it cool and get along.

The FBI made a big deal about my working for them. Like that was going to happen. From the start, they tried to smooth something over, and flatter me, to try to persuade me nothing really bad happened. I began to wonder, and after getting profiled by police all over the place, I started to wonder what someone had put in the file about me.

If this was an "internal investigation", what did they do? Those guys, their guys, would defend themselves, and how were they going to do that? By pointing to the Willamette Week article? By claiming I was mentally ill? If so, whatever they said about me, would be in an FBI file and maybe even accessilbe to the state, or country police, or anyone who looked my name up. I was concerned that having my name smeared in the FBI record would cause problems for me. I was already having problems, so I found out from someone, that I could file FOIA requests. Freedom Of Information Act requests. I started filing. I sent them to the Portland FBI and never got a response. Then I'd get responses to "Mr. Garrett" or "Camero Garret" and things were purposefully screwed up. They knew I couldn't get an accurate search for my records when they constantly screwed my name and gender up, and I made several corrections. They were fucking with me. There is no way they would make typos, that many times. It was a way to stall. After ONE YEAR of filing these requests and getting nothing, I didn't know who the next authority was and then I stumbled across an article in Vanity Fair about Sibel Edmonds, a former translator who made legitimate reports and was smeared by her own employer, the FBI, which tried to write her up as mentally disturbed. I saw the governing body was something called the OIG. They were who I had to go to next.

Backing up, I started making my FOIA requests when I was in Wentachee. But before I got to Edmonds story, some serious things happened first. Which is what I will write about next.