mfr nara- t6- fbi- fbi lang spe 3- 9-3-03- 00382

8/14/2019 Mfr Nara- t6- FBI- FBI Lang Spe 3- 9-3-03- 00382

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Law Enforcement SensitiveMEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD

Evenq lFBI New York Field Office Language Specialist) InterviewT Y p , e of event: Interview"~,ate:,,~eptember 3, 2003Sp'~,~ialAc,~,essIssues: NonePreparedby.Lance ColeTeam N um ber: '6",Location: \'~,~I Washi~gton Field OfficeParticipants ~\,~on-Com:~~,ssion: FBI Assistant General Counsel Randy BlairParticipants - Co~mission:"'~,ance Cole and Mike Jacobson

Background>1 ts a native of the India-Pakistan border area and\.in the partition of 1947 the area in which he lived went to Pakistan. As a non-Muslim he\was subjected to religious persecution i~'P~istan and sought asylum in India. The~dian government granted him asylum and paid for his education. He was educated inIndia at the University of Bombay and has a Masters in Finance and Economics, and alsohas'a degree in International Law. In addition to hi~e~Iucation in India, after he came tothe qnited States he took college courses in business administration at the BaruchBusiness School at the City University of New York.' I rent to the u.s. Consulate. in India and sought asYl~mas a refugee fromreligious persecution in Pakistan. His application was granted and'h\came to the UnitedStates in 1960. He obtained residency status in early 1963. He initially.worked for theNew York Central Railroad, until it went bankrupt. He then worked for the.Delawareand Hudson Railroad in upstate New York, but he did not care for the very coldwintersthere. When the Delaware and Hudson Railroad began to have financial problemsj..__came back to New York City and bought a house in Queens. He was approached by anFBI agent who overheard his Indian accent while standing in line at a grocery store inQueens. The agent arranged for him to be hired as a translator by the FBI, and he beganworking for the FBI in 1986 .


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. . FBI Work Experience.j Ispeaks Hindi, Punjabi, and Urdu. Sikh terrorism". "',,:was a problem whenl I w ~ ~hired by the FBI, so his language skills were in demand

'.\. at'the time.A:t-t,~e time he was hire~1 Iwas the only translator in the New York-,officewho spoke 'tfobse"lan~,tiages. /The FBI agent who recruite~.Dtold him that "ourb'ack is against th' wall'tbecause "we don't know what is happening out in the[i~'~igrant'f~nununity~nd:'the


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th~'.,~~~,u~g~'':lnd''ctl? translate written materials), and ~'artalysts'~\(can read, write, andspeak'},}i'~:':1.~~g~:~g,e,ndcan both translate written materials '~nd "read between the lines"of con~'a~~at:~:9,ns):'1'" je~'phasized ~,~'atwithout th~roJ~h ~nowt-rdge and

\:"''.,understanding ..O f language, customs, a : h d traditions a translator cannot really understand....:~'\~heuances"df ~~~~ is be~'~'g"said~~~{,~hat is actually. me~nt. Of the''.'t.~nLSs in place\'~'~er the ~tt.~~k~~""t~of~he"pidU speakers have Since\been askedto leave (the two

' ,', . . ', ', ; > , " : ', : "referred to above -.Otthe eight remaining (two Urdu~ four:Hin~i, and two Punjabi), onlyt~~~ have skills at ~ h ~ ,~~~)y~t,~'/'leve~>ac,~ordin~'t~ :1 Of the remaining five, one isa "d;'qnitor" and the oth'er f~'lt';"'have"tran~lator" level skill~l \ ",

\\FISA MonitoriD~:l~da1 ~Sgt:~uplhas "some backlog" in.theFCI area,but "n'~\l?acklog" in counterterrorism ("CT") work'>l i kaid C~ work is aprioritybecaus~'",i~!"edon't want~.6 be ~tvdent's"pfhistory - w~ want ~ocatch things bef~re theyhappen.tS::::=}xpre~~d some6~nceITisabout the bomput~r syste\". that the (Ss use inNew York. "Dsa~d the computers, "are not state of the art" and he is "not totally andcompletely satisfied~/with their perfo~~nce.\t~e ccmputers often bteak down ~ ' < : l areunreliable. When the system goes down 'infonna'tiQ~ is not l d : s t - it rebains in stor~ge,but that may not ~'~helpful if it is no longe;"ti~ely Jhen it is ~ltimate;~ retrieved. ~'penmonitoring FISA wire surveillance the LSs are\~~suaIIya?ou~ . land are.I ,:/ """ - . . . .

Wh~.fi information is very pertinent and "hot"~ '. i l , l prepar~1 l "

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Facilities and Working Conditions. At that p'~'lritDtook us on a tour of theLS squad area. He characterized the working conditions for the LS squad as "not thebest" and that some of his colleagues say the working conditions are like those in a third-world country. For example, the air conditioning system does not work well and thetemperature is often uncomfortable. Some 150 LSs are now using a space that wasoriginally intended for about 90. Our observations on the tour confirmed that the LSs arevery crowded, in small cubicles in alarge "bull pen" area on one floor and that thefurnishings and equipment appear worn and out-of-date. For example, several oldelectric typewriters appeared to be in use, perhaps because of the shortage of computers.There were only three or four computer terminals for accessing internal FBI e-mail (inaddition to the terminals for the monitoring system) that served the entire floor of some150 LS. (We do not know if those computers can also be used to access the Internet andfor non-classified word processing.) Our impression was that morale is low among theLSs and that the working conditions are substandard.

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mfr nara- t6- fbi- fbi lang spe 3- 9-3-03- 00382

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