“Many of Edmonds’ core allegations relating to the co-worker [Melek Can Dickerson] were supported by either documentary evidence or witnesses,” the report said. “We believe that the F.B.I. should have investigated the allegations more thoroughly.”

The F.B.I. had justified firing Edmonds on the grounds that she had a “disruptive effect,” the report went on. However, “this disruption related primarily to Edmonds’ aggressive pursuit of her allegations of misconduct, which the F.B.I. did not believe were supported and which it did not adequately investigate. In fact, as we described throughout our report, many of her allegations had basis in fact,” the report read. “We believe … that the F.B.I. did not take them seriously enough, and that her allegations were, in fact, the most significant factor in the F.B.I.’s decision to terminate her services.”

Meanwhile, Edmonds had new lawyers: the A.C.L.U.’s Ann Beeson, who is leading the challenge to the state-secrets privilege, and Mark Zaid, a private attorney who specializes in national-security issues. Zaid has filed a $10 million tort suit, citing the threats to Edmonds’s family, her inability to look after her real-estate and business interests in Turkey, and a series of articles in the Turkish press that have vilified her.

In July 2004, a federal district court had ruled in favor of the government’s use of the state-secrets privilege. Like Ashcroft’s declaration, its opinion contained no specific facts. Next came a bizarre hearing in the D.C. appeals court in April 2005. The room was cleared of reporters while Beeson spoke for 15 minutes. Then Beeson and Edmonds were also expelled to make way for the Department of Justice lawyers, who addressed the judges in secret. Two weeks later, the court rejected Edmond’s appeal, without expanding on the district court’s opinion. At press time, she was set to file a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court. If the court agrees to take the case, the government’s reasons for its actions may finally be forced into the open; legal experts say the Supreme Court has never allowed secret arguments.

A week after the April appeal hearing, Edmonds gathered more than 30 whistle-blowers from the F.B.I., C.I.A., National Security Agency, Department of Homeland Security, and other agencies to brief staffers from the House and Senate. Among the whistle-blowers were Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times in 1971, and Coleen Rowley, the F.B.I. agent from Minneapolis who complained that Washington ignored local agents who in August 2001 had raised concerns about a flight student named Zacharias Moussoui, who has since admitted being an al-Qaeda terrorist.

Many of those present had unearthed apparent breaches of national security; many aid their careers had been wrecked as a result. At a press conference after the briefings, Congressman Edward Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, praised Edmonds and her colleagues as “national heroes,” pledging that he would introduce a bill to make it a crime for any agency manager to retaliate against such individuals. Afterward, the whistle-blowers mingled over hors d’oeuvres and explored their common ground and experiences. By July, they are working to formalize their not-for-profit campaign group, the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition. “When they took on Sibel,” says Mike German, who is now the coalition’s congressional liaison, “they made the wrong woman mad.”

“I’m going to keep pushing this as long as I can, but I’m not going to get obsessional,” Edmonds says. “There are other things I want to do with my life. But the day the Iranians tried to arrest me, my father told me, “Sibel, you only live your life once. How do you choose to live? According to your principles, or in fear?” I have never forgotten those words.”