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3 Whistle-Blowers Get Time Magazine Honors

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From Associated Press

Three female whistle-blowers -- an FBI agent who wrote a memo blasting intelligence failures after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and two executives who exposed corporate corruption -- are Time magazine’s Persons of the Year for 2002.

In its issue reaching newsstands today, Time said Coleen Rowley, Cynthia Cooper and Sherron Watkins were selected “for believing -- really believing -- that the truth is one thing that must not be moved off the books, and for stepping in to make sure that it wasn’t.”

Time’s 2002 picks are unusual in that most people cited by the magazine in the past have been well-known public figures. Last year’s selection was New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, for his conduct in the aftermath of Sept. 11.

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“They were people who did right just by doing their jobs rightly -- which means ferociously, with eyes open and with the bravery the rest of us always hope we have and may never know if we do,” Time said of its 2002 choices.

Rowley, 48, was the FBI agent based in Minneapolis whose scathing memorandum to FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III in May said that agency headquarters ignored her pleas in the weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks to aggressively investigate Zacarias Moussaoui, now charged as an accomplice. In later Senate testimony, Rowley charged that the FBI was plagued by “careerism” and bureaucracy.

“Ordinary people do find themselves in those types of situations, and certainly government employees do,” Rowley said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” where the three honorees appeared in a group interview. “And it’s going to be beneficial to everyone to bring out the concerns earlier rather than later.”

Cooper, 38, was an internal auditor at WorldCom who alerted the telecommunications firm’s board of directors to $3.8 billion in accounting irregularities. A month later, WorldCom declared the biggest corporate bankruptcy in U.S. history. Investigators have since uncovered more than $9 billion in accounting fraud at WorldCom.

Watkins, 43, was a vice president of Enron who warned company Chairman Kenneth L. Lay in 2001 that the firm could collapse as a result of extensive false accounting. Enron also filed for bankruptcy, and Watkins resigned last month.

“It’s an amazing recognition.... It’s still sinking in,” Watkins said Sunday. “It is mind-boggling and amazing, because we are just ordinary average Americans.”

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In an earlier interview with Time, Rowley, Cooper and Watkins said some colleagues now hate them for exposing the mistakes of their bosses. “There is a price to be paid. There have been times that I could not stop crying,” Cooper said.

The women symbolized a critical struggle in the U.S. to restore trust in disgraced institutions, from business firms to the Roman Catholic Church, Time managing editor Jim Kelly said.

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