1. Background: According to Maria Carter in an article in Central Michigan Life (2005), Colleen Rowley is a retired FBI agent who wrote a memo to the Director of the FBI criticizing the Bureau for ignoring critical leads prior to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Rowley, the chief legal adviser in the FBI's Minneapolis field office, said she wrote her letter because she was concerned that the FBI was trying to cover up mistakes it had before September 11, 2001.
Rowley became the center of attention about questions regarding the government's handling of intelligence after her memo became public. She alleged that the FBI refused to permit her to seek a warrant to examine the contents of terrorism suspect Zacarias Moussaoui's computer. The Director of the FBI was forced to concede to a Congressional oversight committee that the FBI did not adequately respond to internal memos and strong evidence about a potential terrorist attack prior to September 11, 2001 (Carter, 2005).
According to an article by Janet Wiscombe in Workforce Management (2002), Rowley became a whistleblower when she wrote her memo to the Director accusing certain headquarters officials of trying to preserve their careers rather than getting out the truth before the attack and covering up their mistakes after the fact. She suggested that the Director of the FBI and other senior officials of "a delicate and subtle shading/skewing of facts."
Wiscombe also writes about Jeff Wigand. In 1995, Wigand disclosed the tobacco industry's darkest secrets. The former research scientist and head of research and development for Brown & Williamson broke a confidentiality agreement when he agreed to be interviewed on the television show 60 Minutes about the fact that his employer knew that cigarettes and other tobacco products were highly addictive and cause serious health related problems and chose to sacrifice public health for corporate profits for decades. A...