WTF? Granted, learning Arabic must be pretty challenging considering that it involves a radically different alphabet and grammatical structure than is used in most Western countries. So I’m not really surprised that more agents haven’t attained proficiency. But I am surprised that the Bureau hasn’t filled the void by drawing in new agents from the US’s population of Middle-Eastern immigrants, which stands at more than 1.5 million people. Oh wait, they can’t do that because those are the folks the FBI is spying on.

Homeland security my ass.

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There you are!

Remember the FBI's hiring specifications largely have nothing to do with the job at hand. Its no wonder that they have trouble finding good recruits when they start off by limiting their pool to people who have smoked pot less then 5 times.

Why do they need to evesdrop on these guys if they can't understand what they're saying?

Unless they're evesdropping on someone speaking english...

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"Jesus said: I have cast fire upon the world, and behold I guard it until it is ablaze."
Gospel of Thomas

Does that count the times they "Didn't Inhale"?

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Oh, sure, SonofaHun, just blame America first. If the terrorists would just speak English in the first place, we wouldn't even have this problem.

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"Anyone that needs what they want, and doesn’t want what they need
I want nothing to do with
And to do what I want
And to do what I please
Is first on my to-do list"
-Gnarls Barkley, "Going On" lyrics

In Hollywood movies, all terrorists always speak English, albeit with a strange accent. Is it not so in real life?

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President Josiah Bartlet: Sweden has a 100% literacy rate. 100%! How do they do that?
Leo McGarry: Maybe they don't and they can't add.

33 is probably all that’s needed, after all, the other 11,967 is listening and watching YOU.

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Anyone who thinks freedom comes cheap, please put the blindfold on and stand against the wall.

Many times I believe Americans will have to take back the country and start a new government.

The article could be a ploy….After the dumbass media announced that we were listening to phone calls, this could be a tactic to get the people encouraged to use phones again….Just a possibility.

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Anyone who thinks freedom comes cheap, please put the blindfold on and stand against the wall.

Many times I believe Americans will have to take back the country and start a new government.

So if there's an arabic speaking person calling the U.S. and the American is speaking English as the guy on the other end understands both you think that's not cause or just reason for surveilance?

Its actually no pot in the last three years and no more than 15 times in their life.

How can they check that anyway? Pot is undetectable after a few months.

They could as well be asking: "Did you ever think about perverted stuff?". Everybody knows the answer, but everybody answers "Sir, No, Sir!"

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Client: In six days, do you hear me, six days, God made the world. And you are not bloody well capable of making me a pair of trousers in three months!
Tailor: But my dear Sir, my dear Sir, look at the world, and look at my trousers.
(Beckett)

This is obviously Clintons fault, Bush has only been in office for 6 years, he's just getting settled, and besides finding 33 guys who can order baba'ganoush, is a major accomplishment in just 5 years.

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“ The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.”

Adam Smith , The Wealth of Nations 1776

"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics"
FDR's second Inaugural Address

What I find quite interesting is that I can go to Wal*Mart and buy one of those "Rossetta Stone=ARABIC" DVD's and I could probably learn the language after 4 years. If I studied it 8 hours per day and it was part of my job, I bet I could SPEAK the language fluently in 2 years. I guess such a plan to just train agents is beyond the scope of the FBI and so they have to "recruit" people instead. Our tax-dollars hard at work...

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Is our children learning? -George W. Bush

"I think—tide turning—see, as I remember—I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of—it's easy to see a tide turn—did I say those words?"—Washington, D.C., June 14, 2006

"[T]he illiteracy level of our children are appalling."—Washington, D.C., Jan. 23, 2004

See the way it works is you scan for people speaking Arabic, and then you just need to translate those phonecalls. No problem. I'm sure 33 people can translate all domestic calls made in Arabic.
...Well, to be fair, they probably also have some kind of screening system where they only have to translate calls with the arabic words for 'bomb, kill, president, jihad, allah, infidel, voter registration form, explosive, gun, timing device, anthrax' and so on.

A more interesting bit of information IMO is the proportion of Arabic translators working for the military in Iraq right now. But I'm sure that came up after the story about the translator that was fired after it was learned he was gay - I don't mean to repeat older threads, but that event was before I registered here.

What I find amazing is the complete frigging incompetance of an organization that can't find more than 33 people who speak arabic, and poorly at that, when there are millions of loyal arab-americans who do speak arabic.
When you need someone who has particular skills for a job, you can advertise, and you raise the salary offered until you fill the positions.

I can only conclude that the administration has no intention of developing any intelligence capability in this area, obviously they do not perceive arab language based terrorism as a real threat, but only as a part of their disinformation campaign to scare the American public into voting a certain way.

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“ The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.”

Adam Smith , The Wealth of Nations 1776

"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics"
FDR's second Inaugural Address