Federal Bureau of Investigation

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency. The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime. Its motto is "Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity", corresponding to the FBI initials.

The FBI's headquarters, the J. Edgar Hoover Building, is located in Washington, D.C.. Fifty-six field offices are located in major cities throughout the United States as well as over 400 resident agencies in smaller cities and towns across the country. More than 50 international offices called "legal attachés" are in U.S. embassies worldwide.

Mission and priorities

In the fiscal year 2008, the FBI's total budget was approximately $6.8 billion, including $410 million in program increases to counter-terrorism, counter-intelligence, cybercrime, information technology, security, forensics, training, and criminal programs.

The FBI was established in 1908 as the Bureau of Investigation (BOI). Its name was changed to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 1935.

The FBI's main goal is to protect and defend the United States against terrorist and foreign intelligence threats, to uphold and enforce the criminal laws of the United States, and to provide leadership and criminal justice services to federal, state, municipal, and international agencies and partners.

Currently, the FBI's top investigative priorities are:

Protect the United States from terrorist attack (see counter-terrorism);

Protect the United States against foreign intelligence operations and espionage (see counter-intelligence);

Protect the United States against cyber-based attacks and high-technology crimes (see cyber-warfare);

Combat public corruption at all levels;

Protect civil rights;

Combat transnational/national criminal organizations and enterprises (see organized crime);

Combat major white-collar crime;

Combat significant violent crime;

Support federal, state, local and international partners;

Upgrade technology for successful performance of the FBI's mission.

In August 2007, the top categories of lead criminal charges resulting from FBI investigations were:

Bank robbery and incidental crimes (107 charges)

Drugs (104 charges)

Attempt and conspiracy (81 charges)

Material involving sexual exploitation of minors (53 charges)

Mail fraud – frauds and swindles (51 charges)

Bank fraud (31 charges)

Prohibition of illegal gambling businesses (22 charges)

Fraud by wire, radio, or television (20 charges)

Hobbs Act (Robbery and extortion affecting interstate commerce) (17 charges)

Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO)-prohibited activities (17 charges)

Legal authority

An FBI Agent tags the cockpit voice recorder from EgyptAir Flight 990 on the deck of the USS Grapple (ARS 53) at the crash site on November 13, 1999.

The FBI's mandate is established in Title 28 of the United States Code (U.S. Code), Section 533, which authorizes the Attorney General to "appoint officials to detect... crimes against the United States."  Other federal statutes give the FBI the authority and responsibility to investigate specific crimes.

J. Edgar Hoover began using wiretapping in the 1920s during Prohibition to arrest bootleggers. A 1927 case in which a bootlegger was caught through telephone tapping went to the United States Supreme Court, which ruled that the FBI could use wiretaps in its investigations and did not violate the Fourth Amendment as unlawful search and seizure as long as the FBI did not break in to a person's home to complete the tapping. After Prohibition's repeal, Congress passed the 1934 Communications Act, which outlawed non-consensual phone tapping, but allowed bugging. In another Supreme Court case, the court ruled in 1939 that due to the 1934 law, evidence the FBI obtained by phone tapping was inadmissible in court. A 1967 Supreme Court decision overturned the 1927 case allowing bugging, after which Congress passed the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, allowing public authorities to tap telephones during investigations, as long as they obtain a warrant beforehand.

The FBI's chief tool against organized crime is the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. The FBI is also charged with the responsibility of enforcing compliance of the United States Civil Rights Act of 1964 and investigating violations of the act in addition to prosecuting such violations with the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). The FBI also shares concurrent jurisdiction with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in the enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act of 1970.

The USA PATRIOT Act increased the powers allotted to the FBI, especially in wiretapping and monitoring of Internet activity. One of the most controversial provisions of the act is the so-called sneak and peek provision, granting the FBI powers to search a house while the residents are away, and not requiring them to notify the residents for several weeks afterwards. Under the PATRIOT Act's provisions the FBI also resumed inquiring into the library records[8] of those who are suspected of terrorism (something it had supposedly not done since the 1970s).

Information obtained through an FBI investigation is presented to the appropriate U.S. Attorney or Department of Justice official, who decides if prosecution or other action is warranted.

History

Beginnings: The Bureau of Investigation

In 1886, the Supreme Court, in Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railway Company v. Illinois, found that the states had no power to regulate interstate commerce. The resulting Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 created a Federal responsibility for interstate law enforcement. The Justice Department, which was founded by John Verbruggen, made little effort to relieve its staff shortage until the turn of the century, when Attorney General Charles Joseph Bonaparte reached out to other agencies, including the Secret Service, for investigators. But the Congress forbade this use of Treasury employees by Justice, passing a law to that effect in 1908. So the Attorney General moved to organize a formal Bureau of Investigation (BOI or BI), complete with its own staff of special agents. The Secret Service provided the Department of Justice 12 Special Agents and these agents became the first Agents in the new BOI. Thus, the first FBI agents, including John Verbruggen, were actually Secret Service agents. Its jurisdiction derived from the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887.The FBI grew out of this force of special agents created on July 26, 1908 during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. Its first official task was visiting and making surveys of the houses of prostitution in preparation for enforcing the "White Slave Traffic Act," or Mann Act, passed on June 25, 1910. In 1932, it was renamed the United States Bureau of Investigation. The following year it was linked to the Bureau of Prohibition and rechristened the Division of Investigation (DOI) before finally becoming an independent service within the Department of Justice in 1935.In the same year, its name was officially changed from the Division of Investigation to the present-day Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI.

[edit]The J. Edgar Hoover Directorship

The Director of the BOI, J. Edgar Hoover, became the first FBI Director and served for 48 years combined with the BOI, DOI, and FBI. After Hoover's death, legislation was passed limiting the tenure of future FBI Directors to a maximum of ten years. The Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory, or the FBI Laboratory, officially opened in 1932, largely as a result of Hoover's efforts. Hoover had substantial involvement in most cases and projects the FBI handled during his tenure.

During the "War on Crime" of the 1930s, FBI agents apprehended or killed a number of notorious criminals who carried out kidnappings, robberies, and murders throughout the nation, including John Dillinger, "Baby Face" Nelson, Kate "Ma" Barker, Alvin "Creepy" Karpis, and George "Machine Gun" Kelly.

Other activities of its early decades included a decisive role in reducing the scope and influence of the Ku Klux Klan. Additionally, through the work of Edwin Atherton, the FBI claimed success in apprehending an entire army of Mexican neo-revolutionaries along the California border in the 1920s.

Lester J. Gillis, also known as "Baby Face" Nelson.

The FBI and national security

Beginning in the 1940s and continuing into the 1970s, the Bureau investigated cases of espionage against the United States and its allies. Eight Nazi agents who had planned sabotage operations against American targets were arrested, six of whom were executed (Ex parte Quirin). Also during this time, a joint US/UK code breaking effort (Venona)—-with which the FBI was heavily involved—-broke Soviet diplomatic and intelligence communications codes, allowing the US and British governments to read Soviet communications. This effort confirmed the existence of Americans working in the United States for Soviet intelligence.Hoover was administering this project but failed to notify the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) until 1952. Another notable case is the arrest of Soviet spy Rudolf Abel in 1957. The discovery of Soviet spies operating in the US allowed Hoover to pursue his longstanding obsession with the threat he perceived from the American left, ranging from Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) union organizers to American liberals with no revolutionary aspirations whatsoever.

The FBI and the civil-rights movement

During the 1950s and 1960s, FBI officials became increasingly concerned about the influence of civil rights leaders. In 1956, for example, Hoover took the rare step of sending an open letter denouncing Dr. T.R.M. Howard, a civil rights leader, surgeon, and wealthy entrepreneur in Mississippi who had criticized FBI inaction in solving recent murders of George W. Lee, Emmett Till, and other blacks in the South. The FBI carried out controversial domestic surveillance in an operation it called the COINTELPRO, which was short for "COunter-INTELligence PROgram."It aimed at investigating and disrupting dissident political organizations within the United States, including both militant and non-violent organizations, including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a leading civil rights organization.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a frequent target of investigation. The FBI found no evidence of any crime, but attempted to use tapes of King involved in sexual activity for blackmail. In his 1991 memoirs, Washington Post journalist Carl Rowan asserted that the FBI had sent at least one anonymous letter to King encouraging him to commit suicide.

The FBI and Kennedy's assassination

When President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed, the jurisdiction fell to the local police departments until President Lyndon B. Johnson directed the FBI to take over the investigation. To ensure that there would never be any more confusion over who would handle homicides at the federal level, Congress passed a law that put investigations of deaths of federal officials within FBI jurisdiction.

The FBI and organized crime

In response to organized crime, on August 25, 1953, the Top Hoodlum Program was created. It asked all field offices to gather information on mobsters in their territories and to report it regularly to Washington for a centralized collection of intelligence on racketeers.After the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO Act, took effect, the FBI began investigating the former Prohibition-organized groups, which had become fronts for crime in major cities and even small towns. All of the FBI work was done undercover and from within these organizations using the provisions provided in the RICO Act and these groups were dismantled. Although Hoover initially denied the existence[citation needed] of a close-knit organized crime network in the United States because he then had limited resources to deploy against organized crime,[citation needed] the Bureau later conducted operations against known organized crime syndicates and families, including those headed by Sam Giancana and John Gotti. The RICO Act is still used today for all organized crime and any individuals that might fall under the Act.

J. Edgar Hoover, FBI Director from 1924 to 1972.

Notable post-Hoover reorganizations

Special FBI teams

In 1984, the FBI formed an elite unit  to help with problems that might arise at the 1984 Summer Olympics, particularly terrorism and major-crime. The formation of the team arose from the 1972 Summer Olympics at Munich, Germany when terrorists murdered Israeli Athletes. The team was named Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) and acts as the FBI lead for a national SWAT team in related procedures and all counter terrorism cases. Also formed in 1984 was the Computer Analysis and Response Team (CART).The end of the 1980s and the early part of the 1990s saw the reassignment of over 300 agents from foreign counter intelligence duties to violent crime and the designation of violent crime as the sixth national priority. But with reduced cuts to other well-established departments, and because terrorism was not longer considered a threat after the end of the Cold War, the FBI became a tool of local police forces for tracking fugitives who had crossed state lines, which was a felony. The FBI Laboratory also helped develop DNA testing, continuing the pioneering role in identification that began with its fingerprinting system in 1924.

Notable efforts in the 1990s

Between 1993 and 1996, the FBI increased its counter-terrorism role in the wake of the first 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York, New York and the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, and the arrest of the Unabomber in 1996. Technological innovation and the skills of FBI Laboratory analysts helped ensure that all three of these cases were successfully prosecuted, but the FBI was also confronted by a public outcry in this period, which still haunts it today.After Congress passed the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA, 1994), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA, 1996), and the Economic Espionage Act (EEA, 1996), the FBI followed suit and underwent a technological upgrade in 1998, just as it did with its CART team in 1991. Computer Investigations and Infrastructure Threat Assessment Center (CITAC) and the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) were created to deal with the increase in Internet-related problems, such as computer viruses, worms, and other malicious programs that might unleash havoc in the US. With these developments, the FBI increased its electronic surveillance in public safety and national security investigations, adapting to how telecommunications advancements changed the nature of such problems.