FBI agent strikes at bureaucracy

FROM THE ARCHIVE

Facebook Twitter Email
FRIDAY, JUNE 7, 2002

The FBI agent whose critical and pointed letter to Director Robert S. Mueller III sparked a media and political storm appeared before a Senate committee on Thursday.

Coleen Rowley, general counsel of the FBI's Minneapolis office, is often described as a whistleblower but she characterized her views as ones widely held by agents and former law enforcement. She attacked the FBI's bureaucracy and technological ineptness as major impediments to fighting crime and terrorism.

She also criticized the "culture" of the FBI in which there is a "pecking order" which prohibits lower-level persons from speaking above their rank. She told the Senate Judiciary Committee that a climate of fear has developed which prevents people from being pro-active.

She also charged that some higher-level officials take action based on selfish motives. She drew a line between these types of decisions and "mistakes" which she said everyone makes. But the FBI's culture tends to punish the latter and not the former, she said.

Mueller testified prior to Rowley. He refused to answer questions about the pending reorganization and creation of the Department of Homeland Security.

Rowley's office handled the Leonard Peltier case and the so-called Pine Ridge Death List, detailing unsolved deaths of American Indians during the 1970s, distributed in Indian Country in the summer of 2000. The Minneapolis branch covers reservations in South Dakota, North Dakota and Minneapolis.

Get the Story:
FBI Whistle-Blower Assails Bloated Bureaucracy (The Washington Post 6/7)
cc: America (The Washington Post 6/7)
An Agent Not in the Inner Circle Who Seems Upbeat, Polite and Sensible (The New York Times 7/7)
Whistle-Blower Recounts Faults Inside the F.B.I. (The New York Times 7/7)
Username: indianz.com, Password: indianz.com

Relevant Documents:
Full Hearing Transcript | Prepared Statement by Mueller