Federal Bureau of Investigation's Foreign Language Translation Program Follow-Up

Audit Report 05-33
July 2005
Office of the Inspector General


Changes Since July 2004 that Affect the FBI’s Foreign Language Program


Foreign Language Translation Workload and Unreviewed Material

Each FBI field office and the Language Services Translation Center at FBI headquarters is required to submit a survey quarterly to the LSS for each language processed at that office. The survey requires the reporting of the volume of FISA audio/video and text collected, forwarded to another office, received from another office, and reviewed by each language. However, the quarterly survey does not specifically report backlog, which the FBI defines as any unreviewed material. The quarterly survey also does not differentiate between counterterrorism and counterintelligence material or report the translation information by type of case. Rather, the quarterly survey reports the information by language.

Additionally, each field office and the Language Services Translation Center with active counterterrorism FISAs are required to submit a monthly survey to the LSS for each active FISA case. In contrast to the quarterly survey described above, the monthly survey reports by counterterrorism case the volume of FISA audio/video, text, electronic data files collected and reviewed, and any accrued backlog.

During our follow-up work performed in March and April 2005, we used the FBI’s quarterly and monthly surveys to assess the status of the FBI’s efforts to reduce the amount of total unreviewed audio material that we identified in our July 2004 audit. However, in doing so we also attempted to differentiate between counterterrorism and counterintelligence material.12

In the following sections, we first update the amount of counterterrorism and counterintelligence material collected by the FBI. We then examine the amount of unreviewed audio material, first by counterterrorism material and then by counterintelligence material.

Workload

Our follow-up review found that the FBI’s increased need for foreign language translations has continued. Table 1 depicts the amount of counterterrorism and counterintelligence material collected through the end of FY 2004 (as of September 30, 2004).13

As Table 1 illustrates, the FBI’s counterterrorism audio workload has increased by 19 percent from FY 2003 to FY 2004. The counterterrorism text workload increased by 52 percent during the same period. With regard to the counterintelligence workload, audio collection has decreased by 14 percent and text collection decreased by 24 percent during this same period.14

Table 1: FOREIGN LANGUAGE WORKLOAD

Program Fiscal Year Audio Collection (Hours) Percent Increase Over FY 2003 Levels Text Collection (Pages)15 Percent Increase Over FY 2003 Levels Percent of Total Collection16
Audio Text
Counterterrorism 2003 153,179 N/A 1,458,394 N/A 84% 16%
2004 182,014 19% 2,215,951 52% 80% 20%
Counterintelligence 2003 673,852 N/A 1,012,188 N/A 97% 3%
2004 579,595 (14)% 764,511 (24)% 97% 3%
Source: OIG-developed from FBI Language Services Section data.

Unreviewed Audio Material

Our July 2004 report found the FBI had a significant backlog in translating counterterrorism and counterintelligence FISA audio material. However, identification of the precise amount of unreviewed counterterrorism material, as opposed to counterintelligence material, was difficult to determine because of the way the FBI collects its survey data. The FBI does not specifically track the amount of counterintelligence materials. Therefore, separating counterintelligence and counterterrorism unreviewed materials requires subtracting the monthly counterterrorism survey from the quarterly workload survey. After discussions with the FBI, we used this method in this follow-up review to distinguish counterterrorism and counterintelligence unreviewed audio backlog.17

Using this method, Table 2 provides the amount of audio collected and unreviewed through the end of the first quarter of FY 2004 (as of December 31, 2003) and also through the end of the second quarter of FY 2005 (as of March 31, 2005). As that table demonstrates, the FBI’s collection of audio material continues to outpace its ability to review and translate all that material.

Table 2: TOTAL AUDIO COLLECTED AND UNREVIEWED

Program Accrued Unreviewed Audio FY 2002 through 1st Quarter FY 2004 (Hours) Audio Collected FY 2002 through 1st Quarter FY 2004 (Hours) Percent Unreviewed of Collected Accrued Unreviewed Audio FY 2002 through 2nd Quarter FY 2005 (Hours) Audio Collected FY 2002 through 2nd Quarter FY 2005 (Hours) Percent Unreviewed of Total Collected
Counterterrorism 24,786 354,014 7% 38,514 573,920 7%
Counterintelligence 453,787 1,322,773 34% 669,228 2,015,998 33%
Total 478,573 1,676,787 29% 707,742 2,589,918 27%
Source: OIG calculations based on FBI Language Services Section data.

Table 2 demonstrates that the total collections of counterterrorism and counterintelligence audio material increased from approximately 1.6 million hours as of December 31, 2003, to approximately 2.5 million as of March 31, 2005. During the same time period, the total amount of unreviewed audio increased from 478,573 hours to 707,742 hours. As a percentage of total collections, the percentage of unreviewed audio material remained relatively constant, only slightly decreasing from 29 percent to 27 percent.

  1. Counterterrorism
  2. As shown in Table 2, the FBI reported in its monthly counterterrorism FISA surveys that the accrued unreviewed counterterrorism audio was 24,786 hours as of December 31, 2003, and has increased to 38,514 hours as of March 31, 2005.

    However, in its monthly surveys, the FBI attempts to refine the amount of counterterrorism audio that is reported as unreviewed by the FBI’s data collection system. The FBI tries to eliminate double counting of unreviewed material by more than one field office, unreviewed material in cases that are no longer active, and collections of materials from the wrong sources due to technical problems. To determine the amounts of unreviewed material that should be eliminated on the monthly surveys, FBI field offices submit what they believe is their total accrued backlog after eliminating these items. The FBI then accumulates the field offices’ submissions to reach a refined estimate of the total amount of unreviewed counterterrorism audio material.

    According to this method, our July 2004 audit reported that the FBI’s estimated counterterrorism audio backlog that we reported in our July 2004 report was 4,086 hours as of April 2004. In this follow-up review, according to this same method, we found that the counterterrorism audio backlog had increased to 8,354 hours as of March 2005.18 Therefore, according to this method the counterterrorism backlog represented 1 percent of all counterterrorism audio collected as of April 2004 and 1.5 percent of all counterterrorism audio collected as of March 2005.

    Table 3 below shows this counterterrorism audio backlog by month from April 2004 through March 2005. The table shows that the counterterrorism backlog remained relatively constant until November 2004, when it began increasing.

    Table 3: COUNTERTERRORISM AUDIO ACCRUED BACKLOG
    April 2004 through March 2005
    Backlog Reported at the End of Each Month

    Total Accrued Backlog:  Apr 2004 - 4,086; 	May 2004 - 3,671;	Jun 2004 - 3,706;  Jul 2004 - 2,504; 	Aug 2004 - 2,865;	Sep 2004 - 4,373;	Oct 2004 -  3,559;	Nov 2004 - 4,802;  Dec 2004 - 6,569;	Jan 2005 - 7,814; Feb 2005 - 7,889; Mar 2005:	8,354.
    Source: FBI Language Services Section counterterrorism FISA monthly surveys.

    In addition, in this follow-up review we attempted to determine the priority of the counterterrorism material that was not reviewed. The FBI designates one of five levels of priority to its counterterrorism cases. We found that none of the counterterrorism audio backlog as of March 2005 was in the highest level priority cases. However, almost all of the 8,354 hours of counterterrorism backlog reported by the FBI was in cases designated in the second and third highest priority levels. Seventy-two percent of this backlog was in the FBI’s second highest priority counterterrorism cases, and 27 percent was in the third highest priority.19

  3. Counterintelligence
  4. With respect to counterintelligence material, as Table 1 shows total collections increased from approximately 1.3 million hours as of December 31, 2003, to 2 million hours as of March 31, 2005. The amount of unreviewed counterintelligence material increased from 453,787 hours to 669,228 hours during this same period. The percentage of unreviewed counterintelligence material remained relatively constant, decreasing from 34 percent to 33 percent.

    In response, the FBI stated that it collects significant amounts of audio material that it does not intend to translate, either immediately or possibly ever. For example, it stated that the FBI’s digital collection systems cannot reliably filter out “white noise” (acoustical or electrical noise) and unintelligible audio, which is collected but does not need to be reviewed. In addition, the FBI stated that in many counterintelligence cases it collects audio material that it stores and only translates if additional information points to those materials as containing significant information that should be reviewed. It also stated that it believes that most of the unreviewed counterintelligence backlog fell into these categories, although it could not quantify or verify these amounts.

  5. Conclusion Regarding Unreviewed Material
  6. In sum, this follow-up review found that the FBI’s collection of audio material continues to outpace its ability to review and translate that material. The amount of unreviewed FBI counterterrorism and counterintelligence audio material has increased since our July 2004 report. According to the FBI’s calculations, the backlog of unreviewed counterterrorism material has increased from 4,086 to 8,354 hours, which represents 1.5 percent of total counterterrorism audio collections. The amount of unreviewed counterintelligence material also has increased. While the FBI believes that most of the unreviewed materials may not need to be translated, it has no assurance that all this counterterrorism and counterintelligence material does not need to be reviewed or translated.

Hiring of Linguists

During the past year, the FBI has continued its efforts to add additional linguists. The number of FBI and contract linguists has increased from approximately 1,200 as of April 1, 2004, as reported in our July 2004 report, to 1,338 as of March 30, 2005.20 Moreover, Foreign Language Program funding has increased from $21.5 million in FY 2001 to $36.2 million in FY 2005. Funding for language analyst salaries and benefits also has increased from $30.7 million in FY 2001 to $34.8 million in FY 2005.

Foreign Language Program Funding in Millions - FY01: $21.5; FY02: $23.0; FY03: $28.5; FY04: $66.1 (see footnote 21); FY05: $36.2 (see footnote 22). Click on image to go to footnote 21 and 22.
Source: FBI Language Services Section

Language Analyst Salaries and Benefits in Millions - FY01: $30.7; FY02: $33.6 ; FY03: $37.0; FY04: $29.5; FY05 (projected): $34.8 (see footnote 23). Click on image to go to footnote 23.
Source: FBI Language Services Section

Changes to Organization and Structure

The organization and structure of the FBI’s Foreign Language Program has continued to evolve since our July 2004 audit. On October 1, 2004, responsibility for the Foreign Language Program was transferred from the Office of International Operations to the FBI’s Office of Intelligence. The Office of Intelligence became the Directorate of Intelligence on February 28, 2005.

According to FBI officials, the Foreign Language Program was transferred to the Directorate of Intelligence to strengthen FBI efforts to create a single program to manage all FBI activities that produce intelligence. The LSS now consists of three Translation and Deployment Units, an Operations Management Unit, and the National Virtual Translation Center.24 Linguists in field offices have been reassigned to field intelligence groups, which also supervise intelligence analysts.



Footnotes

  1. In this follow-up report, as in our July 2004 audit, we used the best available FBI data on the extent of unreviewed audio. The data we used is the same data that the FBI’s Language Services Section uses for its budget preparation, workforce planning, and performance measurement toward its strategic objective of 100 percent coverage of FBI collected intelligence. However, we agree with the FBI that because of the imprecision of the FBI’s workload reporting process, this data may result in statistics that may not be precisely accurate in describing the exact amount of total unreviewed material. In addition, the OIG did not audit the FBI numbers and we therefore can make no representation as to their accuracy.

  2. We accumulated the counterterrorism amounts from the FBI’s monthly counterterrorism FISA surveys to develop the total counterterrorism audio collection. To calculate the counterintelligence totals, we subtracted the counterterrorism monthly FISA data from the FBI’s quarterly workload surveys of counterintelligence and counterterrorism material.

  3. As noted in our July 2004 report, the volume of counterterrorism and counterintelligence material collected by the FBI was much higher in FY 2003 than in FY 2001.

  4. Text collection includes faxes, e-mail, and other electronic data files.

  5. The percent of total collection provides a comparison of the workload of total audio hours versus total text pages. These percentages were calculated using the FBI's resource planning standard for audio and text — that is, one full-time linguist can review 1,000 hours of audio or 50,000 pages of text a year. For example, to obtain the FY 2003 figures of 84 percent for audio and 16 percent for text: (1) divide 1,458,394 pages of text collection by 50 to arrive at 29,168; (2) add 153,179 and 29,168 to arrive at 182,347; (3) divide 153,179 by 182,347 to arrive at 84 percent for audio; and (4) divide 29,168 by 182,347 to arrive at 16 percent for text.

  6. Although we used this new method in our follow-up review, we believe the method we used in our July 2004 audit also provided an accurate assessment of the overall amount of unreviewed FBI FISA material.

  7. See classified Appendices 3 and 4 for additional details on the monthly audio accrued backlog.

  8. Classified Appendix 3 contains more details on the backlog within each priority level.

  9. The FBI’s linguist workforce consists of contract linguists and full time permanent language analysts. Contract linguists are compensated through the FBI’s Foreign Language Program Budget. Language analyst salaries and benefits are funded separately.

  10. The final FY 2004 funding for the Foreign Language Program was $66,139,002. We reported a projected budget for FY 2004 of slightly less than $70 million. FY 2004 funding included $38.5 million from a supplemental appropriations bill in FY 2003. Only $9.3 million of this funding recurred in FY 2005.

  11. Originally we reported a projected budget of $45.1 million for FY 2005. The reason for the difference is a combination of legislatively mandated rescissions and the fact that the projected budget included “critical unfunded” budget items.

  12. As of March 25, 2005, the FBI had 406 language analysts on board. The estimated current spending for compensation and benefits for these language analysts is $28.8 million. Projected spending for FY 2005 is for the FBI’s funded staffing level of 490 language analysts.

  13. Each Translation and Deployment Unit is responsible for a subset of languages and directs the FBI’s linguist resources to support priority FBI matters throughout all field offices, headquarters divisions, and Legats. The Operations Management Unit develops, implements and ensures compliance with administrative and operational policies, procedures, and guidelines for Foreign Language Program personnel throughout the FBI. It also manages the quality control program. The National Virtual Translation Center provides language support and translators for the Intelligence Community. The FBI acts as the Center’s Executive Agent and provides staffing and logistics support.



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