BIOS
COLEEN ROWLEY, FORMER FBI AGENT AND 9/11 WHISTLEBLOWER
Coleen Rowley grew up in a small town in northeast Iowa. She obtained a B.A. degree in French from Wartburg College, Waverly, Iowa and then attended the College of Law at the University of Iowa and graduated with honors in 1980 also passing the Iowa Bar Exam that summer.
In January of 1981, Rowley was appointed a Special Agent with the FBI and initially served in the Omaha, Nebraska and Jackson, Mississippi Divisions. In 1984 she was assigned to the New York Office and for over 6 years worked on Italian organized crime and Sicilian heroin drug investigations. During this time Rowley also served three separate temporary duty assignments in the Paris, France Embassy and Montreal Consulate.
In 1990 Rowley was transferred to Minneapolis where she assumed the duties of Principal Legal Advisor (now known as "Chief Division Counsel") which entailed oversight of the Freedom of Information, Forfeiture, Victim-Witness and Community Outreach Programs as well as providing regular legal and ethics training to FBI Agents of the Division and some outside police training.
In May of 2002 Rowley brought some of the pre 9-11 lapses to light and testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee about some of the endemic problems facing the FBI and the intelligence community. Rowley was one of three whistleblowers chosen as persons of the year by TIME magazine.
In April 2003, following an unsuccessful and highly criticized attempt to warn the Director and other administration officials about the dangers of launching the invasion of Iraq, Rowley stepped down from her (GS-14) legal position to go back to being a (GS-13) FBI Special Agent. She retired from the FBI at the end of 2004 and now speaks publicly to various groups, ranging from school children to business/professional/civic groups, on two different topics: ethical decision-making and "balancing civil liberties with the need for effective investigation."
In February 2005, a majority of Minnesota congresspersons and senators nominated Rowley to serve on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. This Board was mandated by recent federal intelligence reform legislation implementing the recommendations of the 9-11 Commission.
Rowley has authored a chapter in a book published by the Milton Eisenhower Foundation entitled, PATRIOTISM, DEMOCRACY AND COMMON SENSE: RESTORING AMERICA'S PROMISE AT HOME AND ABROAD.
MELISSA HILL, COMMUNITY ACTIVIST
Melissa Hill is a former Oregonian and current Minneapolis resident and grassroots activist. After being mass-arrested and seeing the police state in full force during the RNC, she became involved with the Community RNC Arrestee Support Structure (CRASS) as an advocate for the rights of the other 800+ arrestees. She is also currently helping organize the local rallies for End the Fed Minneapolis. More about CRASS at http://rncaftermath.org
NIGEL PARRY, ALTERNATIVE MEDIA ACTIVIST
Nigel Parry was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and completed a BA (Hons) in English and Psychology in London before moving to live in the Palestinian West Bank from 1994-1998, working at Birzeit University.
He has pioneered several key projects including the first alternative news website published by local residents of a warzone, and the Electronic Intifada, Electronic Iraq and Electronic Lebanon series of Middle East-related new media websites.
Nigel offers web and print design, PR/publicity and Internet consulting, through his company nigelparry.net and oversees the RNC '08 Report, a citizen's archive of materials relating to the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, MN, found at http://rnc08report.org.
Nigel is a songwriter who plays with a Minneapolis-based band, Pocket of Resistance -- found at http://pocketofresistance.net
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