DEA Seeks Ebonics Experts

Justice requests linguists to 'translate' wiretaps
By Nick McMaster,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 23, 2010 2:26 PM CDT
DEA Seeks Ebonics Experts
An anti-narcotic police officer stands among bags of seized cocaine during a presentation to the press at a police base in Lima, Friday, May 7, 2010.   (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)

Fluent in Ebonics? The Justice Department may have a job for you. It put out a call for 2,100 linguists fluent in 114 languages in May, and plans to hire up to nine Ebonics specialists to help the DEA's Atlanta field division catch drug traffickers. They'll "translate" wiretaps of suspected traffickers, or, in agency legalese, decipher “telephonic monitoring of court ordered nonconsensual intercepts, consensual listening devices, and other media.”

Less exotically, the Atlanta office also needs 144 linguists fluent in Spanish, reports the Smoking Gun. (More DEA stories.)

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