Coleen Rowley (born December 20, 1954) is an American former FBI special agent and whistleblower, and was a Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) candidate for Congress in Minnesota's 2nd congressional district, one of eight congressional districts in Minnesota in 2006. She lost the general election to Republican incumbent John Kline. Rowley is well known for testifying as to concerns regarding the FBI ignoring information of a suspected terrorist during 9/11, which led to a two-year investigation by the Department of Justice. Early life and education Rowley grew up in New Hampton, Iowa, and graduated valedictorian of her high school class in 1973. Her father was a letter carrier for 31 years. She received her B.A. degree in French and with honors from Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa, in 1977. In 1980, she received her J.D. degree from the University of Iowa College of Law and passed the Iowa bar exam that summer. Career FBI In January 1981, Rowley became a special agent with the FBI and was assigned to the Omaha, Nebraska, and Jackson, Mississippi, divisions. Beginning in 1984, she spent six years working in the New York City field office on investigations involving Italian organized crime and Sicilian heroin. During this time she served three temporary assignments in the U.S. embassy in Paris and the consulate in Montreal. In 1990, she was transferred to the FBI's Minneapolis field office, where she became chief division counsel. There she taught constitutional law to FBI agents and police officers, and oversaw the Freedom of Information, Asset Forfeiture Program, Victim-Witness and community outreach programs. After the September 11 attacks in 2001, Rowley wrote a paper for FBI Director Robert Mueller documenting how FBI HQ personnel in Washington, D.C., had mishandled and failed to take action on information provided by the Minneapolis, Minnesota, Field Office regarding its investigation of suspected terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui. Moussaoui had been suspected of being involved in preparations for a suicide-hijacking similar to the December 1994 "Eiffel Tower" hijacking of Air France 8969. Failures identified by Rowley may have left the U.S. vulnerable to the September 11, 2001, attacks. Rowley was one of many agents frustrated by the events that led up to the attacks, writing:During the early aftermath of September 11th, when I happened to be recounting the pre–September 11th events concerning the Moussaoui investigation to other FBI personnel in other divisions or in FBIHQ, almost everyone's first question was "Why?—Why