BY ALYSSA BLUHM
MURPHY NEWS SERVICE
Coleen Rowley is at the limit.
With 5,000 Facebook friends, she has to wait for people to delete her from their profiles before she can add new friends. She is popular—online and in the activism community—but there was a time when Rowley did not have as much support as she does now.
Rowley was working in Minneapolis as a legal counsel for the FBI in 2002 when she wrote a memo to the then-FBI director Robert Mueller, revealing that the FBI had access to information that could have prevented the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Her memo included the fact that the FBI ignored information about Zacarias Moussaoui, who was taking flight classes in Eagan, Minn., and was later convicted for his involvement in the attacks.
“If they had done anything with Moussaoui they could have prevented 9/11,” Rowley said. “I was crucified for that memo.”
Rowley’s memo did not contain classified information and she had only sent it to internal staff, yet it still managed to capture the attention of the New York Times—and her coworkers.
“I went from being one of the most respected people in the office to mud overnight,” she said.
Office politics didn’t keep Rowley from being nominated Person of the Year by TIME magazine in 2002, however. She initially turned down the award, claiming another agent in the FBI had played a larger role in uncovering the Moussaoui story than she. But when TIME called back suggesting the story be about the year’s three biggest whistleblowers—including one woman from Enron, and another from WorldCom—Rowley finally accepted.
“That angle appealed to me, because talking about my work is more important,” she said.
Growing up, Rowley always fit in among her peers. In her small hometown of New Hampton, Iowa, she only had about 100 other students in her class to deal with, anyway.
“Early on I became known as the brain in the class. My friends were considered the popular girls, but I wasn’t,” Rowley said.
Rowley worked as a lifeguard and taught swimming lessons at the local pool over her summers in high school and college. She worked during the school year at her friend’s father’s drugstore and attended every Friday night football game with her cheerleader friends. If Facebook had existed at the time, Rowley might have been at the limit then, too.
“We were never bored,” she said.
Rowley’s high school allowed girls to run track for the first time during her sophomore year in 1970. She joined the team and was running the mile by her senior year.
“This was the time when things were changing for women. No one even knew girls could run,” Rowley said, with a laugh.
Rowley graduated as the valedictorian of her class in 1973 and went on to study French at Wartburg College in Iowa with what was almost a full-ride scholarship. It was then that she finally relaxed a bit, she said, with the help of a study abroad trip to Paris.
But when Rowley moved to Wartburg, she realized the college didn’t have a women’s track team. That was one limit Rowley could not accept.
“One day I went up to the boys’ team coach and asked if we could start a girls’ team. He said, ‘Sure!’” Rowley said. The coach didn’t need any convincing to start the team—he just needed a demand for it. After recruiting about 10 other women, the team was formed. The women’s team at Wartburg is now among the top-ranked in the nation.
“When I look at the team now I think, ‘Oh my gosh, I started that!’” she said. Rowley has participated in several marathons and triathlons since her college days, including the Boston Marathon.
After completing her French degree, Rowley decided she didn’t want to be stuck teaching French for the rest of her life. She instead pursued a law degree at the University of Iowa with the intention of joining the FBI.
Coleen met her husband Ross Rowley one Valentine’s Day during her time at law school. The two had gone to the same party with different dates.
“When I first met her she was always running, she worked at the law library and she was in school,” Ross said. “She still has that much energy today, even though her knees and legs are catching up.” His wife sleeps for about five hours each night without ever needing a nap during the day, he said.
Rowley’s interest in the FBI grew out of a period in her youth when James Bond-esque storylines were glamorized by pop culture—the TV show “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” was particularly inspiring to her. But her dreams were cut short after writing a letter to the FBI while she was in middle school.
The FBI responded to Rowley’s letter with a packet of information about the agency that included a “99 Facts about the FBI” factsheet. Among them was the fact that women, due to their inability to dominate in challenging situations, could not join the FBI.
“I thought, ‘Well, that’s stupid. But that will change,’” Rowley said.
She was right. After completing the bar exam in 1980 she was hired by the FBI, where she was among few female agents.
For about a decade Rowley moved all over the country for various assignments for the FBI. She began in Omaha working on fraud schemes and was transferred to Jackson, Mississippi, to recruit for the FBI. For about six years in the late 1980s Rowley was stationed in New York City, where she learned Italian and Sicilian in order to transcribe conversations overheard on wiretaps on the Italian mafia.
Rowley transferred to Minneapolis in the early ‘90s to be close to her Iowa roots. While she worked as her family’s breadwinner, her husband was a stay-at-home father. In 2004, at the age of 50, Rowley qualified for a pension and retired from the FBI.
Retiring early didn’t stop Rowley from being busy, though. Since then she has raised four children, run for office, lost the race, become a babysitter for her grandchildren alongside her husband, and joined myriad local activist groups. Rowley is active with Women Against Military Madness, Tackling Torture at the Top, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, and Military Families Speak Out—and that’s just a few.
“She’s one-of-a-kind. I’m in awe of how she can go on forever. She’s brilliant,” fellow Tackling Torture at the Top member Patty Guerrero said. “I never feel like she’s gloating about her intelligence. You never see her ego—she’s so intent and pure in her actions.”
Rowley was involved recently in a protest against Condoleezza Rice’s speech on the University of Minnesota campus for Rice’s involvement in directing torture at Guantanamo Bay during the George W. Bush Administration.
Rowley often commutes to the Twin Cities from her home in Apple Valley to participate in similar activities, but she also keeps her activism going online. She uses Facebook to share news and events with her 5,000 friends, and she writes for the Huffington Post and occasionally for other news sources about issues such as torture and NSA surveillance. Since leaving the FBI, Rowley hasn’t strayed from trying to keep the government in check.
“That comes from an inner strength,” Guerrero said. “She’s not afraid to stand up against all the things we don’t want to see in this world … It takes some genius and courage to move in the opposite direction of the government.”
“When she puts her heart and mind into things it can be difficult to change her. She can be stubborn,’” Ross said.
But for Rowley, being too stubborn to accept limits is what keeps her going. She has long left the FBI, but she is still fights the same battle she started in 2002.
“I thought we were supposed to be on the side of justice,” she said. “Wouldn’t we want to reduce terrorism if we can?”
Alyssa Bluhm is studying journalism at the University of Minnesota.