Federal Bureau of InvestigationThe Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the primary investigative arm of the
United States Department of Justice (DOJ), serving as both a
federal criminal investigative body and a domestic
intelligence agency. At present, the FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of
federal crimes, making the FBI the de-facto lead law enforcement agency of the United States government.
[1] The
motto of the bureau is "Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity".
In fiscal year 2006, the FBI's total budget was approximately $8.7 billion, including $495 million in program increases to enhance counter-terrorism, counterintelligence, cyber crime, information technology, security, forensics, training, and criminal programs.
It was established in 1908 as the Bureau of Investigation (BOI), and the name was changed to the FBI in 1935.
The FBI Headquarters are in
Washington, D.C., and the FBI also has 56
field offices located in major cities throughout the United States as well as over 400 resident agencies in smaller cities and towns across the nation, and more than 50 international offices, called "Legal Attaches", in U.S.
embassies worldwide.
Mission and prioritiesThe mission of the FBI 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."
[1]Currently, the FBI's top investigative priorities are:
[2]
- 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; and
- Upgrade technology for successful performance of the FBI's mission.
In March 2007, the top categories of lead criminal charges resulting from FBI investigations were:
[3]
- Bank robbery and incidental crimes (137 charges)
- Attempt and conspiracy (102 charges)
- Drugs (96 charges)
- Material involving sexual exploitation of minors (68 charges)
- Bank fraud (65 charges)
- Mail fraud - frauds and swindles (60 charges)
- Fraud by wire, radio, or television (40 charges)
- Firearms; Unlawful acts (29 charges)
- Conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud US (27 charges)
- Assaults within maritime and territorial jurisdictions (21 charges)
- Hobbs Act (21 charges)
Legal authorityThe 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."
[4] Other federal statutes give the FBI the authority and responsibility to investigate specific crimes.
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
[5] of those who are suspected of
terrorism (something it had supposedly not done since the 1970s).
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.
Information obtained through an FBI investigation is presented to the appropriate US Attorney or Department of Justice (DOJ) official, who decides if prosecution or other action is warranted.
HistoryWith the US Supreme Court's 1886 rejection of the states' right to enforce interstate commerce as a violation of the Constitution's commerce clause in
Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railroad Company v. Illinois, 118 U.S. 557, 7 S. Ct. 4, 30 L. Ed. 244, and the 1887 passage of the
Interstate Commerce Act, the
Federal government suddenly found itself with a new obligation to enforce activities between the states. The
Department of Justice, which had hired few permanent investigators since its establishment in 1870, 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 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), complete with its own staff of special agents. Its jurisdiction derived from the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887.
[6] [7] 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' 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 the FBI in 1935.
[6]The director of the old BOI,
J. Edgar Hoover, became the first FBI director and served for nearly 48 years. 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 so-called "war on crime" of the 1930s, FBI agents apprehended or killed a number of notorious criminals who carried out a number of kidnappings, robberies, and murders throughout the nation, including
John Dillinger,
"Baby Face" Nelson,
Kate "Ma" Barker,
Alvin "Creepy" Karpis, and
George "Machine Gun" Kelly. While this campaign, as well as the campaign to build-up the FBI, was carried out in response to a national crime wave, most historians now believe that if there was a crime wave at all, it was grossly exaggerated during the
Great Depression.
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.
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.
[8] 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.
[9] 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.
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 called
COINTELPRO.
[10] 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.
[11]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.
[12]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.
[13] 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.
After the
Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO Act) took effect, the FBI began investigating the former Prohibition organized groups, which by now 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 of a close-knit
organized crime network in the United States, 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.
In 1984, the FBI formed an elite
SWAT[14] team 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 SWAT related procedures and all counter terrorism cases. Also formed in 1984 was the Computer Analysis and Response Team (CART).
[15] 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,
[15] 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.
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.
[16]After Congress passed the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA, 1994), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPA, 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.
Within months of the
September 11, 2001 attacks, FBI Director
Robert Mueller, who was only sworn in three days before the attacks, called for a re-engineering of FBI structure and operations. In turn, he made countering every federal crime a top priority, including the prevention of terrorism, countering foreign intelligence operations, addressing cyber security threats, other high-tech crimes, protecting civil rights, combating public corruption, organized crime, white-collar crime, and major acts of violent crime.
[17]OrganizationThe FBI is headquartered at the
J. Edgar Hoover Building in
Washington, D.C., with 56 field offices
[18] in major cities across the United States. The FBI also maintains over 400 resident agencies across the United States, as well as over 50 legal attachés at United States
embassies and
consulates. Many specialized FBI functions are located at facilities in
Quantico, Virginia, as well as in
Clarksburg, West Virginia. The FBI is in process of moving its Records Management Division, which processes
FOIA requests, to
Winchester, Virginia.
[19]The
FBI Laboratory, established with the formation of the BOI,
[20] did not appear in the J. Edgar Hoover Building until its completion in 1974. The lab serves as the primary lab for most DNA, biological, and physical work. Public tours of FBI headquarters ran through the FBI laboratory workspace before the move to the J. Edgar Hoover Building. The services the lab conducts include Chemistry, Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), Computer Analysis and Response, DNA Analysis, Evidence Response, Explosives, Firearms and Tool marks, Forensic Audio, Forensic Video, Image Analysis, Forensic Science Research, Forensic Science Training, Hazardous Materials Response, Investigative and Prospective Graphics, Latent Prints, Materials Analysis, Questioned Documents, Racketeering Records, Special Photographic Analysis, Structural Design, and Trace Evidence.
[21] The services of the FBI Laboratory are used by many state, local, and international agencies free of charge. The lab also maintains a second lab at the FBI Academy.
The
FBI Academy, located in
Quantico, Virginia, is home to the communications and computer laboratory the FBI utilizes. It is also where new agents are sent for training to become FBI Special Agents. Going through the twenty-one week course is required for every Special Agent.
[22] It was first opened for use in 1972 on 385 acres (1.6 km²) of woodland. The Academy also serves as a classroom for state and local law enforcement agencies who are invited onto the premiere law enforcement training center. The FBI units that reside at Quantico are the Field and Police Training Unit, Firearms Training Unit, Forensic Science Research and Training Center, Technology Services Unit (TSU), Investigative Training Unit, Law Enforcement Communication Unit, Leadership and Management Science Unit's (LSMU), Physical Training Unit, New Agents' Training Unit (NATU), Practical Applications Unit (PAU), the Investigative Computer Training Unit and the "College of Analytical Studies."
The
Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division,
[23] located in
Clarksburg, West Virginia. It is the youngest division of the FBI only being formed in 1991 and opening in 1995.
The complex itself is the length of three football fields. Its purpose is to provide a main repository for information. Under the roof of the CJIS are the programs for the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR), Fingerprint Identification, Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS), NCIC 2000, and the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). Many state and local agencies use these systems as a source for their own investigations and contribute to the database using secure communications. FBI provides these tools of sophisticated identification and information services to local, state, federal, and international law enforcement agencies.
The FBI often works in conjunction with other Federal agencies, including the
United States Coast Guard and
Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) in
seaport security,
[24] and the
National Transportation Safety Board in investigating
airplane crashes and other critical incidents.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is the only other agency with the closest amount of investigative power. In the wake of the
September 11, 2001 attacks, the FBI maintains a role in most federal criminal investigations.
The FBI is organized in the following manner:
National Security BranchCounterintelligence Division
Counterterrorism Division
Directorate of Intelligence
Criminal Investigations BranchCriminal Investigative Division
Cyber Division
Law Enforcement Services BranchCriminal Justice Information Services Division
Critical Incident Response Group
Laboratory Division
Office of International Operations
Office of Law Enforcement Coordination
Operational Technology Division
Training & Development Division
Administration BranchAdministrative Services Division
Facilities & Logistics Services Division
Finance Division
Records Management Division
Security Division
Office of the Chief Information officerInformation Technology Operations Division
Office of IT Policy & Planning
Office of IT Program Management
Office of IT Systems Development
BOI and FBI directorsFBI Directors are appointed by the
President of the United States. They must be confirmed by the
United States Senate and serve ten-year terms.
J. Edgar Hoover, appointed by
Calvin Coolidge in 1924, was by far the longest-serving FBI Director, serving until his death in 1972. In 1968, Congress passed legislation as part of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act
Pub.L. 90-351,
June 19,
1968, 82
Stat. 197 that specified a 10-year term limit for future FBI Directors, as well as requiring Senate confirmation of appointees. As the incumbent, this legislation did not apply to Hoover, only to his successors. The current FBI Director is
Robert Mueller, who was appointed in 2001 by
George W. Bush.
The FBI director is responsible for the day-to-day operations at the FBI. Along with his deputies, the director makes sure cases and operations are handled correctly. The director also is in charge of making sure the leadership in any one of the FBI
field offices are manned with qualified agents. Before the
Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act was passed in the wake of the
September 11, 2001 attacks, the FBI director would brief the
President of the United States on any issues that arise from within the FBI. Since then, the director now reports to the
Director of National Intelligence (DNI) who in turn reports to the President.
Hiring processWhile the exact process and details are classified, the process of becoming an employee of the FBI is arduous. At a minimum, FBI employees require a Top Secret (TS)
security clearance, and in many instances, employees need a higher level,
TS/SCI clearance.
[25] In order to get a security clearance, all potential FBI personnel must pass a series of
Single Scope Background Investigations (SSBI), which are conducted by the
Office of Personnel Management.
[26] Special Agents candidates also have to pass a rigorous Physical Fitness Test (PFT) that includes a 300-meter run, one-minute sit-ups, maximum push-ups, and a 1.5-mile (2.4 km) run. There is also a random drug test all FBI personnel have to pass in order to become an agent. In addition to the drug test, there is a polygraph test personnel have to pass, with questions including possible drug use. After potential special agent candidates are cleared with TS clearance and the
Form SF-312 non-disclosure agreement is signed, they attend the FBI training facility located on
Marine Corps Base Quantico in
Virginia. Candidates spend approximately 21 weeks at the
FBI Academy, where they receive over 500 classroom hours and over 1000 simulated law enforcement hours to train. Upon graduation, new FBI Special Agents are placed all around the country and the world, depending on their areas of expertise. Professional support staff works out of one of the many support buildings the FBI maintains. However, any Agent or Support staff member can be transferred to any location for any length of time if their skills are deemed necessary at one of the FBI
field offices or one of the 400 resident agencies the FBI maintains.
As of
October 31,
2006, the FBI had a total of 30,762 employees. That includes 12,659 special agents and 18,009 support staff, such as intelligence analysts, language specialists, scientists, information technology specialists, and other professionals.
Crime statisticsThe
Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) compile data from over 17,000 law enforcement agencies across the country. They provide detailed data regarding the volume of crimes to include arrest, clearance (or closing a case), and law enforcement officer information. The UCR focuses its data collection on violent crimes, hate crimes, and property crimes.
[29] Created in the 1920s, the UCR system has not proven to be as uniform as its name implies. The UCR data only reflect the most serious offense in the case of connected crimes and has a very restrictive definition of rape.
Since about 93% of the data submitted to the FBI is in this format, the UCR stands out as the publication of choice as most states require law enforcement agencies to submit this data.
Preliminary Annual Uniform Crime Report for 2006 was released on
June 4,
2006. The report shows violent crime offenses rose 1.3%, but the number of property crime offenses decreased 2.9% compared to 2005.
[30]National Incident Based Reporting SystemThe National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS)
crime statistics system aims to address limitations inherent in UCR data. The system used by law enforcement agencies in the United States for collecting and reporting data on crimes. Local, state, and federal agencies generate NIBRS data from their records management systems. Data is collected on every incident and arrest in the Group A offense category. The Group A offenses are comprised of 46 specific crimes grouped in 22 offense categories. Specific facts about these offenses are gathered and reported in the NIBRS system. In addition to the Group A offenses, eleven Group B offenses are reported with only the arrest information. The NIBRS system is in greater detail than the summary-based UCR system. As of 2004, 5,271 law enforcement agencies submitted NIBRS data. That amount represents 20% of the United States population and 16% of the crime statistics data collected by the FBI.
Media portrayalThe FBI has been frequently depicted in popular media since the 1930s. The Bureau has participated to varying degrees, which has included direct involvement in the creative process itself in order to present the FBI in a favourable light, to providing consultation on operations and closed cases.
[31]CriticismThe FBI has endured public criticism and internal conflict in the past decade. As the FBI attempts to modernize technologically to take on a greater
counter-terrorism role, there have been times where the FBI is scrutinized.
Most of the recent controversies in the FBI have been involved with "terrorist" organizations or "operational" mishaps. In the early and late 1990s, its role in the
Ruby Ridge and
Waco incidents caused an uproar over the tactics that were used. During the
1996 Summer Olympics in
Atlanta, Georgia, the FBI was also criticized for its investigation on the
Centennial Olympic Park bombing. It has recently settled a dispute with
Richard Jewell, who was a private security guard at the venue, along with the media organizations,
[32] from leaking his name during the investigation. In the 1990s, it turned out that the fingerprint unit of the FBI's crime lab had repeatedly done shoddy work. In some cases, the technicians, given evidence that actually cleared a suspect, reported instead that it proved the suspect guilty. Many cases had to be reopened when this pattern of errors was discovered.
In 2000, the FBI began the Trilogy project to upgrade its outdated
IT infrastructure. This project, originally scheduled to take three years and cost around $380 million, ended up going far over budget and behind schedule.
[33] Efforts to deploy modern computers and networking equipment were generally successful, but attempts to develop new investigation software, outsourced to
SAIC, were a disaster.
Virtual Case File, or VCF, as the software was known, was plagued by poorly defined goals, and repeated changes in management.
[34] In January 2005, more than two years after the software was originally planned for completion, the FBI officially abandoned the project. At least $100 million (and much more by some estimates) was spent on the project, which was never operational. The FBI has been forced to continue using its decade-old Automated Case Support system, which is considered woefully inadequate by
IT experts. In March 2005, the FBI announced it is beginning a new, more ambitious software project code-named Sentinel expected for completion by 2009.
[35]In February 2001,
Robert Hanssen was caught selling information to the Russians. It was later learned that Hanssen, who had reached a high position within the FBI, had been selling intelligence since as early as 1979. He pleaded guilty to
treason and received a
life sentence in 2002, but the incident led many to question the security practices employed by the FBI. There was also a claim that Robert Hanssen might have contributed information that led to the
September 11, 2001 attacks.
[36]The
9/11 Commission's final report on
July 22,
2004 stated that the FBI and
CIA were both partially to blame for not pursuing intelligence reports which could have prevented the September 11, 2001 attacks. In its most condemning assessment, the report concluded that the country had "not been well served" by either agency and listed numerous recommendations for changes within the FBI.
[37] While the FBI has acceded to most of the recommendations, including oversight by the new
Director of National Intelligence, some former members of the 9/11 Commission publicly criticized the FBI in October 2005, claiming it was resisting any meaningful changes.
[38]On
July 8,
2007 the
Washington Post published excerpts from
UCLA Professor
Amy Zegart's book
Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and the Origins of 9/11[39]. The article reported that government documents show the
CIA and
FBI missed 23 potential chances to disrupt the terrorist attacks of
September 11, 2001. The primary reasons for these failures included: agency cultures resistant to change and new ideas; inappropriate incentives for promotion; and a lack of cooperation between the
FBI,
CIA and the rest of the
United States Intelligence Community. The article went on to also blame the
FBI's decentralized structure which prevented effective communication and cooperation between different
FBI offices. The article also claimed that the
FBI has still not evolved into an effective counterterrorism or counterintelligence agency, due in large part to deeply ingrained cultural resistance to change within the FBI. For example,
FBI personnel practices continue to treat all staff other than Special Agents as support staff, categorizing Intelligence Analysts alongside the
FBI's auto mechanics and janitors.
[40]A March 2007 report by the inspector general of the Justice Department described the FBI's "widespread and serious misuse" of
national security letters, a form of administrative subpoena used to demand records and data pertaining to individuals. The report said that between 2003 and 2005 the FBI had issued more than 140,000 national security letters, many involving people with no obvious connections to terrorism.
[41]Faulty Bullet Lead Analysis TestimonyFor over 40 years, the FBI crime lab in Quantico believed lead in bullets had unique chemical signatures, and that by breaking them down and analyzing them, it was possible to match bullets, not only to a single batch of ammunition coming out of a factory, but to a single box of bullets. The National Academy of Sciences conducted an 18 month independent review of comparative bullet lead analysis. In 2003, its National Research Council published a report calling into question 30 years of FBI testimony. It found the model the FBI used for interpreting results was deeply flawed and that the conclusion that bullet fragments could be matched to a box of ammunition so overstated, that it was misleading under the rules of evidence. One year later, the FBI decided to stop doing bullet lead analysis.
Of over 2500 cases using this analysis, there are potentially hundreds or thousands where FBI lab technicians provided forensic testimony at criminal trials. In each case, the testimony was wrong and misleading. The U.S. Government has a legal obligation to notify defendants about any information that might help prove their innocence, even after they have been convicted.
Only the FBI can identify the cases in which bullet lead analysis was performed, yet it has resisted releasing that information.
As a result of the 60 Minutes-Washington Post investigation in November, 2007, (two years later) the bureau said it will identify, review and release all of the pertinent cases, and notify prosecutors about cases in which faulty testimony was given.
[42]FBI Knowingly Assisted In Wrongful Conviction of MurderProtecting an informant, the FBI allowed four innocent men to be convicted of murder in March 1965. Three of the men were sentenced to death (which was later reduced to life in prison). The fourth defendant was sentenced to life in prison, where he spent three decades.
[43]In July, 2007, U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner in Boston found the bureau helped convict the four men of the March 1965 gangland murder of Edward "Teddy" Deegan. The U.S. Government was ordered to pay $100 million in damages to the four defendants.
[44]FBI files on specific personsIt is possible to obtain a copy of an FBI file on yourself, on a living person who gives you permission to do so, or on a deceased individual through the U.S.
Freedom of Information Act. The FBI has generated files on numerous celebrities including
Elvis Presley,
Frank Sinatra,
John Denver,
Groucho Marx,
MC5,
Lou Costello,
Sonny Bono,
Mickey Mantle, and
Gene Autry.
[45]See alsoState level organizationsState Bureau of InvestigationSimilar agencies of other nationsBundeskriminalamt,
AustriaBundeskriminalamt,
GermanyCentral Bureau of Investigation,
IndiaRoyal Canadian Mounted PoliceCanadian Security Intelligence ServiceSerious Organised Crime Agency (UK)
Federal Agency of Investigation (Mexico)Australian Federal PolicePolicia Federal ArgentinaFederal Security Service of the Russian FederationNational Bureau of Investigation (Philippines)Notable personsEdwin Atherton left the service and founded Atherton & Dunn private investigations firm
Richard Miller (first FBI Special Agent to be convicted of espionage)Moses Powell (first black man to train FBI agents in hand-to-hand combat)External linksOfficial FBI websiteFBI Organizational ChartOriginal Bureau of Investigation Document Online: William Randolph HearstODMP listing of Fallen FBI Agents 1925–2007Church Committee Report, Vol. 6, "Federal Bureau of Investigation." 1975 congressional inquiry into American intelligence operations.
