ALA Washington Office
Midwinter Meeting 2008 Information

Last Update: January 28, 2008

Washington Office Update Session

Breakout Sessions

Handouts

Video: FBI Whistleblower Session

Other Resources

Washington Office Update Session

Senior FBI official, whistleblower addresses ALA Meeting

The Chief of the FBI unit responsible for administering two highly controversial FBI warrantless search programs, spoke at the American Library Association’s Midwinter Meeting on Jan. 12 in Philadelphia. The session was titled, “Inside the FBI: A Whistleblower Speaks Out.”

(See bottom of page for audio and video of the event.)

FBI Supervisory Special Agent Bassem Youssef is the Chief of the FBI Counterterrorism Division’s Communications Analysis Unit. That unit has responsibility for administering two programs authorized under the USA PATRIOT Act. The first is a still-top secret warrantless search operation known as the “special program.” Additionally, Mr. Youssef’s unit administers the National Security Letters (NSLs) search program related to the telephone records of American citizens and non-citizens within the United States. Both programs are highly controversial.

Mr. Youssef discussed a number of critical failures within the FBI’s counterterrorism program, which undermine basic Constitutional rights of American citizens and threaten the effectiveness of America’s counterterrorism efforts

Mr. Youssef is the highest ranking Arab-American agent and fluent Arabic speaking agent employed by the FBI. Prior to being appointed to the Unit Chief position, Mr. Youssef served as FBI’s first Legal Attaché in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, responsible for coordinating the FBI’s programs in the Gulf region. He is the recipient of the prestigious Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) award for his work on the first World Trade Center bombing case.

In 2002, Mr. Youssef “blew the whistle” to the Director of the FBI and Congress that discriminatory practices within the Bureau were undermining the ability of the FBI to legally and effectively combat Middle Eastern terrorism. His case resulted in widespread media attention to the fact that top FBI counterterrorism lacked subject matter expertise in terrorism related matters. For example, the top FBI manager responsible for Middle Eastern terrorism on September 11, 2001, did not know the difference between a Shiite and a Sunni Muslim.

Mr. Youssef spoke on his own behalf, and not as a representative of the FBI. He was accompanied by his attorney, Stephen M. Kohn, the President of the National Whistleblower Center. Mr. Kohn, the author of Concepts and Procedures in Whistleblower Law, has represented numerous FBI agents, including Dr. Frederic Whitehurst (crime lab) and Sibel Edmonds (translator).

For additional information on Mr. Youssef, please visit http://www.whistleblowers.org/html/inside_the_fbi.html, or http://www.whistleblowersblog.org.

Breakout Sessions

The Washington Office also hosted three breakout sessions following the main update session:

ALA OITP Director Alan Inouye led a discussion on “All (Telecom) Politics is Local: What the FCC is up to and what it has to do with your library,” including discussion of the February 17, 2009, Digital Television Transition, in which libraries are set to play a big role.
1. John Windhausen's PowerPoint presentation: An Overview of U.S. Broadband Deployment and Policy (PPT)
The ALA Government Documents Round Table session featured representatives of the Library of Congress, the Federal Depository Library Program, and Indiana University, who discussed a wide range of topics from digitization to an intergovernmental search engine.
The third breakout discussion was an exploration of how crucial libraries are to E-government.