Vacancies?
You would imagine that in these days of uncertain security, the main proponent of global security issues would be ahead of, indeed, on top of their game. In a recent testimony to a US Congressional hearing, however, Bassem Youssef, Unit Chief for the FBI’s Communications Analysis Unit and the most senior Arab-American member if the FBI, has stated that due to chronic staffing shortages in FBI linguistic posts, the US would be unable to effectively defend America from attack.
Apparently, this alarming state of events stems from the fact that four out of every ten linguistic supervisory posts lies vacant and this has often lead to the appointment of managers who have very little actual experience in the counter-terrorism or security fields and who additionally, often never wanted to work within these positions.
Identifying a string of past errors and commenting on current ones Bassem Youssef also stated that because of the Bureau’s personnel’s general lack of expertise in Arabic, managers relied too heavily on pure translations (as opposed to the type of linguistic ability and thorough knowledge of a language inherent in native speakers) and ,therefore, often missed hidden meaning found within localised linguistic structures: in a similar vein, he also attacked the Bureau’s reliance on technological translation solutions.
The Bureau in partial response has issued a statement to say that its staffing levels for linguists were satisfactory and more than enough to cope with any future situation, however, that was not to say that it was not always on the lookout for more linguists…volunteers anyone?