TEXT
ONLY VERSION
Origins
(1908 - 1910) | Early
Days (1910 - 1921) | The "Lawless" Years
(1921 - 1933)
The New Deal (1933 - late 1930s) | World
War II Period (late 1930s - 1945)
Postwar America (1945 - 1960s) | The
Vietnam War Era (1960s - mid1970s)
Aftermath of Watergate (1970s) | The
Rise of International Crime (1980s)
The End of the Cold War (1989 - 1993) | Rise
of a Wired World (1993-2001)
Change of Mandate (2001-Present)
ORIGINS
The FBI originated from
a force of Special Agents created in 1908 by Attorney
General Charles Bonaparte during the Presidency of
Theodore Roosevelt. The two men first met when they
both spoke at a meeting of the Baltimore Civil Service
Reform Association. Roosevelt, then Civil Service
Commissioner, boasted of his reforms in federal law
enforcement. It was 1892, a time when law enforcement
was often political rather than professional. Roosevelt
spoke with pride of his insistence that Border Patrol
applicants pass marksmanship tests, with the most
accurate getting the jobs. Following Roosevelt on
the program, Bonaparte countered, tongue in cheek,
that target shooting was not the way to get the best
men. "Roosevelt should have had the men shoot
at each other, and given the jobs to the survivors."
Roosevelt and Bonaparte
both were "Progressives." They shared the
conviction that efficiency and expertise, not political
connections, should determine who could best serve
in government. Theodore Roosevelt became President
of the United States in 1901; four years later, he
appointed Bonaparte to be Attorney General. In 1908,
Bonaparte applied that Progressive philosophy to
the Department of Justice by creating a corps of
Special Agents. It had neither a name nor an officially
designated leader other than the Attorney General.
Yet, these former detectives and Secret Service men
were the forerunners of the FBI.
Today, most Americans
take for granted that our country needs a federal
investigative service, but in 1908, the establishment
of this kind of agency at a national level was highly
controversial. The U.S. Constitution is based on "federalism:" a
national government with jurisdiction over matters
that crossed boundaries, like interstate commerce
and foreign affairs, with all other powers reserved
to the states. Through the 1800s, Americans usually
looked to cities, counties, and states to fulfill
most government responsibilities. However, by the
20th century, easier transportation and communications
had created a climate of opinion favorable to the
federal government establishing a strong investigative
tradition.
The impulse among the
American people toward a responsive federal government,
coupled with an idealistic, reformist spirit, characterized
what is known as the Progressive Era, from approximately
1900 to 1918. The Progressive generation believed
that government intervention was necessary to produce
justice in an industrial society. Moreover, it looked
to "experts" in all phases of industry
and government to produce that just society.
President Roosevelt personified
Progressivism at the national level. A federal investigative
force consisting of well-disciplined experts and
designed to fight corruption and crime fit Roosevelt's
Progressive scheme of government. Attorney General
Bonaparte shared his President's Progressive philosophy.
However, the Department of Justice under Bonaparte
had no investigators of its own except for a few
Special Agents who carried out specific assignments
for the Attorney General, and a force of Examiners
(trained as accountants) who reviewed the financial
transactions of the federal courts. Since its beginning
in 1870, the Department of Justice used funds appropriated
to investigate federal crimes to hire private detectives
first, and later investigators from other federal
agencies. (Federal crimes are those that were considered
interstate or occurred on federal government reservations.)
By 1907, the Department
of Justice most frequently called upon Secret Service "operatives" to
conduct investigations. These men were well-trained,
dedicated -- and expensive. Moreover, they reported
not to the Attorney General, but to the Chief of
the Secret Service. This situation frustrated Bonaparte,
who wanted complete control of investigations under
his jurisdiction. Congress provided the impetus for
Bonaparte to acquire his own force. On May 27, 1908,
it enacted a law preventing the Department of Justice
from engaging Secret Service operatives.
The following month,
Attorney General Bonaparte appointed a force of Special
Agents within the Department of Justice. Accordingly,
ten former Secret Service employees and a number
of Department of Justice peonage (i.e., compulsory
servitude) investigators became Special Agents of
the Department of Justice. On July 26, 1908, Bonaparte
ordered them to report to Chief Examiner Stanley
W. Finch. This action is celebrated as the beginning
of the FBI.
Both Attorney General
Bonaparte and President Theodore Roosevelt, who completed
their terms in March 1909, recommended that the force
of 34 Agents become a permanent part of the Department
of Justice. Attorney General George Wickersham, Bonaparte's
successor, named the force the Bureau of Investigation
on March 16, 1909. At that time, the title of Chief
Examiner was changed to Chief of the Bureau of Investigation.
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EARLY
DAYS
When the Bureau was established,
there were few federal crimes. The Bureau of Investigation
primarily investigated violations of laws involving
national banking, bankruptcy, naturalization, antitrust,
peonage, and land fraud. Because the early Bureau
provided no formal training, previous law enforcement
experience or a background in the law was considered
desirable.
The first major expansion
in Bureau jurisdiction came in June 1910 when the
Mann ("White Slave") Act was passed, making
it a crime to transport women over state lines for
immoral purposes. It also provided a tool by which
the federal government could investigate criminals
who evaded state laws but had no other federal violations.
Finch became Commissioner of White Slavery Act violations
in 1912, and former Special Examiner A. Bruce Bielaski
became the new Bureau of Investigation Chief.
Over the next few years,
the number of Special Agents grew to more than 300,
and these individuals were complemented by another
300 Support Employees. Field offices existed from
the Bureau's inception. Each field operation was
controlled by a Special Agent in Charge who was responsible
to Washington. Most field offices were located in
major cities. However, several were located near
the Mexican border where they concentrated on smuggling,
neutrality violations, and intelligence collection,
often in connection with the Mexican revolution.
With the April 1917 entry
of the United States into World War I during Woodrow
Wilson's administration, the Bureau's work was increased
again. As a result of the war, the Bureau acquired
responsibility for the Espionage, Selective Service,
and Sabotage Acts, and assisted the Department of
Labor by investigating enemy aliens. During these
years Special Agents with general investigative experience
and facility in certain languages augmented the Bureau.
William J. Flynn, former
head of the Secret Service, became Director of the
Bureau of Investigation in July 1919 and was the
first to use that title. In October 1919, passage
of the National Motor Vehicle Theft Act gave the
Bureau of Investigation another tool by which to
prosecute criminals who previously evaded the law
by crossing state lines. With the return of the country
to "normalcy" under President Warren G.
Harding in 1921, the Bureau of Investigation returned
to its pre-war role of fighting the few federal crimes.
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THE "LAWLESS" YEARS
The years from 1921 to
1933 were sometimes called the "lawless years" because
of gangsterism and the public disregard for Prohibition,
which made it illegal to sell or import intoxicating
beverages. Prohibition created a new federal medium
for fighting crime, but the Department of the Treasury,
not the Department of Justice, had jurisdiction for
these violations.
Attacking crimes that
were federal in scope but local in jurisdiction called
for creative solutions. The Bureau of Investigation
had limited success using its narrow jurisdiction
to investigate some of the criminals of "the
gangster era." For example, it investigated
Al Capone as a "fugitive federal witness." Federal
investigation of a resurgent white supremacy movement
also required creativity. The Ku Klux Klan (KKK),
dormant since the late 1800s, was revived in part
to counteract the economic gains made by African
Americans during World War I. The Bureau of Investigation
used the Mann Act to bring Louisiana's philandering
KKK "Imperial Kleagle" to justice.
Through these investigations
and through more traditional investigations of neutrality
violations and antitrust violations, the Bureau of
Investigation gained stature. Although the Harding
Administration suffered from unqualified and sometimes
corrupt officials, the Progressive Era reform tradition
continued among the professional Department of Justice
Special Agents. The new Bureau of Investigation Director,
William J. Burns, who had previously run his own
detective agency, appointed 26-year-old J. Edgar
Hoover as Assistant Director. Hoover, a graduate
of George Washington University Law School, had worked
for the Department of Justice since 1917, where he
headed the enemy alien operations during World War
I and assisted in the General Intelligence Division
under Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, investigating
suspected anarchists and communists.
After Harding died in
1923, his successor, Calvin Coolidge, appointed replacements
for Harding's cronies in the Cabinet. For the new
Attorney General, Coolidge appointed attorney Harlan
Fiske Stone. Stone then, on May 10, 1924, selected
Hoover to head the Bureau of Investigation. By inclination
and training, Hoover embodied the Progressive tradition.
His appointment ensured that the Bureau of Investigation
would keep that tradition alive.
When Hoover took over,
the Bureau of Investigation had approximately 650
employees, including 441 Special Agents who worked
in field offices in nine cities. By the end of the
decade, there were approximately 30 field offices,
with Divisional headquarters in New York, Baltimore,
Atlanta, Cincinnati, Chicago, Kansas City, San Antonio,
San Francisco, and Portland. He immediately fired
those Agents he considered unqualified and proceeded
to professionalize the organization. For example,
Hoover abolished the seniority rule of promotion
and introduced uniform performance appraisals. At
the beginning of the decade, the Bureau of Investigation
established field offices in nine cities. He also
scheduled regular inspections of the operations in
all field offices. Then, in January 1928, Hoover
established a formal training course for new Agents,
including the requirement that New Agents had to
be in the 25-35 year range to apply. He also returned
to the earlier preference for Special Agents with
law or accounting experience.
The new Director was
also keenly aware that the Bureau of Investigation
could not fight crime without public support. In
remarks prepared for the Attorney General in 1925,
he wrote, "The Agents of the Bureau of Investigation
have been impressed with the fact that the real problem
of law enforcement is in trying to obtain the cooperation
and sympathy of the public and that they cannot hope
to get such cooperation until they themselves merit
the respect of the public." Also in 1925, Agent
Edwin C. Shanahan became the first Agent to be killed
in the line of duty when he was murdered by a car
thief.
In the early days of
Hoover's directorship, a long held goal of American
law enforcement was achieved: the establishment of
an Identification Division. Tracking criminals by
means of identification records had been considered
a crucial tool of law enforcement since the 19th
century, and matching fingerprints was considered
the most accurate method. By 1922, many large cities
had started their own fingerprint collections.
In keeping with the Progressive
Era tradition of federal assistance to localities,
the Department of Justice created a Bureau of Criminal
Identification in 1905 in order to provide a centralized
reference collection of fingerprint cards. In 1907,
the collection was moved, as a money-saving measure,
to Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary, where it was
staffed by convicts. Understandably suspicious of
this arrangement, police departments formed their
own centralized identification bureau maintained
by the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
It refused to share its data with the Bureau of Criminal
Investigation. In 1924, Congress was persuaded to
merge the two collections in Washington, D.C., under
Bureau of Investigation administration. As a result,
law enforcement agencies across the country began
contributing fingerprint cards to the Bureau of Investigation
by 1926.
By the end of the decade,
Special Agent training was institutionalized, the
field office inspection system was solidly in place,
and the National Division of Identification and Information
was collecting and compiling uniform crime statistics
for the entire United States. In addition, studies
were underway that would lead to the creation of
the Technical Laboratory and Uniform Crime Reports.
The Bureau was equipped to end the "lawless
years."
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THE
NEW DEAL
The 1929 stock market
crash and the Great Depression brought hard times
to America. Hard times, in turn, created more criminals--and
also led Americans to escape their troubles through
newspapers, radio, and movies.
To combat the crime wave,
President Franklin D. Roosevelt influenced Congress
in his first administration to expand federal jurisdiction,
and his Attorney General, Homer Cummings, fought
an unrelenting campaign against rampant crime. One
case highlighting the rampant crime included the
swindling and murder of members of the Osage Indian
tribe in Oklahoma for the rights to their oil fields.
Noting the widespread
interest of the media in this war against crime,
Hoover carried the message of FBI work through them
to the American people. For example, in 1932, the
first issue of the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin -
then called Fugitives Wanted by Police, was
published. Hoover became as adept at publicizing
his agency's work as he was at administering it.
Prior to 1933, Bureau Agents had developed an esprit
de corps, but the public considered them interchangeable
with other federal investigators. Three years later,
mere identification with the FBI was a source of
special pride to its employees and commanded instant
recognition and respect from the public. By the end
of the decade, the Bureau had field offices in 42
cities and employed 654 Special Agents and 1141 Support
Employees.
During the early and
mid-1930s several crucial decisions solidified the
Bureau's position as the nation's premier law enforcement
agency. Responding to the kidnapping of the Lindbergh
baby, in 1932, Congress passed a federal kidnapping
statute. Then in May and June 1934, with gangsters
like John Dillinger evading capture by crossing over
state lines, it passed a number of federal crime
laws that significantly enhanced the Bureau's jurisdiction.
In the wake of the Kansas City Massacre, Congress
also gave Bureau Agents statutory authority to carry
guns and make arrests.
The Bureau of Investigation
was renamed the United States Bureau of Investigation
on July 1, 1932. Then, beginning July 1, 1933, the
Department of Justice experimented for almost two
years with a Division of Investigation that included
the Bureau of Prohibition. Public confusion between
Bureau of Investigation Special Agents and Prohibition
Agents led to a permanent name change in 1935 for
the agency composed of Department of Justice's investigators:
the Federal Bureau of Investigation was thus born.
Contributing to its forensic
expertise, the Bureau established its Technical Laboratory
in 1932. Journalist Rex Collier called it "a
novel research laboratory where government criminologists
will match wits with underworld cunning." Originally
the small laboratory operated strictly as a research
facility. However, it benefitted from expanded federal
funding, eventually housing specialized microscopes
and extensive reference collections of guns, watermarks,
typefaces, and automobile tire designs.
In 1935, the FBI National
Academy was established to train police officers
in modern investigative methods, since at that time
only a few states and localities provided formal
training to their peace officers. The National Academy
taught investigative techniques to police officials
throughout the United States, and starting in the
1940s, from all over the world.
The legal tools given
to the FBI by Congress, as well as Bureau initiatives
to upgrade its own professionalism and that of law
enforcement, resulted in the arrest or demise of
all the major gangsters by 1936. By that time, however,
Fascism in Adolph Hitler's Germany and Benito Mussolini's
Italy, and Communism in Josef Stalin's Soviet Union
threatened American democratic principles. With war
on the horizon, a new set of challenges faced the
FBI.
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WORLD
WAR II PERIOD
Germany, Italy, and Japan
embarked on an unchecked series of invasions during
the late 1930s. Hitler and Mussolini supported the
Spanish Falangists in their successful civil war
against the "Loyalist" Spanish government
(1937-39). Although many Europeans and North Americans
considered the Spanish Civil War an opportunity to
destroy Fascism, the United States, Great Britain,
and France remained neutral; only Russia supported
the Loyalists. To the shock of those who admired
Russia for its active opposition to Fascism, Stalin
and Hitler signed a nonaggression pact in August
1939. The following month Germany and Soviet Russia
seized Poland. A short time later, Russia overran
the Baltic States. Finland, while maintaining its
independence, lost western Karelia to Russia. Great
Britain and France declared war on Germany, which
formed the "Axis" with Japan and Italy--and
World War II began. The United States, however, continued
to adhere to the neutrality acts it had passed in
the mid-1930s.
As these events unfolded
in Europe, the American Depression continued. The
Depression provided as fertile an environment for
radicalism in the United States as it did in Europe.
European Fascists had their counterparts and supporters
in the United States in the German-American Bund,
the Silver Shirts, and similar groups. At the same
time, labor unrest, racial disturbances, and sympathy
for the Spanish Loyalists presented an unparalleled
opportunity for the American Communist Party to gain
adherents. The FBI was alert to these Fascist and
Communist groups as threats to American security.
Authority to investigate
these organizations came in 1936 with President Roosevelt's
authorization through Secretary of State Cordell
Hull. A 1939 Presidential Directive further strengthened
the FBI's authority to investigate subversives in
the United States, and Congress reinforced it by
passing the Smith Act in 1940, outlawing advocacy
of violent overthrow of the government.
With the actual outbreak
of war in 1939, the responsibilities of the FBI escalated.
Subversion, sabotage, and espionage became major
concerns. In addition to Agents trained in general
intelligence work, at least one Agent trained in
defense plant protection was placed in each of the
FBI's 42 field offices. The FBI also developed a
network of informational sources, often using members
of fraternal or veterans' organizations. With leads
developed by these intelligence networks and through
their own work, Special Agents investigated potential
threats to national security.
Great Britain stood virtually
alone against the Axis powers after France fell to
the Germans in 1940. An Axis victory in Europe and
Asia would threaten democracy in North America. Because
of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, the American Communist Party
and its sympathizers posed a double-edged threat
to American interests. Under the direction of Russia,
the American Communist Party vigorously advocated
continued neutrality for the United States.
In 1940 and 1941, the
United States moved further and further away from
neutrality, actively aiding the Allies. In late 1940,
Congress reestablished the draft. The FBI was responsible
for locating draft evaders and deserters.
Without warning, the
Germans attacked Russia on June 22, 1941. Thereafter,
the FBI focused its internal security efforts on
potentially dangerous German, Italian, and Japanese
nationals as well as native-born Americans whose
beliefs and activities aided the Axis powers.
The FBI also participated
in intelligence collection. Here the Technical Laboratory
played a pioneering role. Its highly skilled and
inventive staff cooperated with engineers, scientists,
and cryptographers in other agencies to enable the
United States to penetrate and sometimes control
the flow of information from the belligerents in
the Western Hemisphere.
Sabotage investigations
were another FBI responsibility. In June 1942, a
major, yet unsuccessful, attempt at sabotage was
made on American soil. Two German submarines let
off four saboteurs each at Amagansett, Long Island,
and Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. These men had been
trained by Germany in explosives, chemistry, secret
writing, and how to blend into American surroundings.
While still in German clothes, the New York group
encountered a Coast Guard sentinel patrolling the
beach, who ultimately allowed them to pass. However,
afraid of capture, saboteur George Dasch turned himself
in--and assisted the FBI in locating and arresting
the rest of the team. The swift capture of these
Nazi saboteurs helped to allay fear of Axis subversion
and bolstered Americans' faith in the FBI.
Also, before U.S. entry
into the War, the FBI uncovered another major espionage
ring. This group, the Frederick Duquesne spy ring,
was the largest one discovered up to that time. The
FBI was assisted by a loyal American with German
relatives who acted as a double agent. For nearly
two years the FBI ran a radio station for him, learning
what Germany was sending to its spies in the United
States while controlling the information that was
being transmitted to Germany. The investigation led
to the arrest and conviction of 33 spies.
War for the United States
began December 7, 1941, when Japanese armed forces
attacked ships and facilities at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
The United States immediately declared war on Japan,
and the next day Germany and Italy declared war on
the United States. By 9:30 p.m., Eastern Standard
Time, on December 7, the FBI was in a wartime mode.
FBI Headquarters and the 54 field offices were placed
on 24-hour schedules. On December 7 and 8, the FBI
arrested previously identified aliens who threatened
national security and turned them over to military
or immigration authorities.
At this time, the FBI
augmented its Agent force with National Academy graduates,
who took an abbreviated training course. As a result,
the total number of FBI employees rose from 7,400
to over 13,000, including approximately 4,000 Agents,
by the end of 1943.
Traditional war-related
investigations did not occupy all the FBI's time.
For example, the Bureau continued to carry out civil
rights investigations. Segregation, which was legal
at the time, was the rule in the Armed Services and
in virtually the entire defense industry in the 1940s.
Under pressure from African-American organizations,
the President appointed a Fair Employment Practices
Commission (FEPC). The FEPC had no enforcement authority.
However, the FBI could arrest individuals who impeded
the war effort. The Bureau assisted the FEPC when
a Philadelphia transit workers' union went out on
strike against an FEPC desegregation order. The strike
ended when it appeared that the FBI was about to
arrest its leaders.
The most serious discrimination
during World War II was the decision to evacuate
Japanese nationals and American citizens of Japanese
descent from the West Coast and send them to internment
camps. Because the FBI had arrested the individuals
whom it considered security threats, FBI Director
Hoover took the position that confining others was
unnecessary. The President and Attorney General,
however, chose to support the military assessment
that evacuation and internment were imperative. Ultimately,
the FBI became responsible for arresting curfew and
evacuation violators.
While most FBI personnel
during the war worked traditional war-related or
criminal cases, one contingent of Agents was unique.
Separated from Bureau rolls, these Agents, with the
help of FBI Legal Attaches, composed the Special
Intelligence Service (SIS) in Latin America. Established
by President Roosevelt in 1940, the SIS was to provide
information on Axis activities in South America and
to destroy its intelligence and propaganda networks.
Several hundred thousand Germans or German descendants
and numerous Japanese lived in South America. They
provided pro-Axis pressure and cover for Axis communications
facilities. Nevertheless, in every South American
country, the SIS was instrumental in bringing about
a situation in which, by 1944, continued support
for the Nazis became intolerable or impractical.
Non-war acts were not
limited to civil rights cases. In 1940, the FBI Disaster
Squad was created when the FBI Identification Division
was called upon to identify some Bureau employees
who were on a flight which had crashed near Lovettsville,
Virginia.
In April 1945, President
Roosevelt died, and Vice President Harry Truman took
office as President. Before the end of the month,
Hitler committed suicide and the German commander
in Italy surrendered. Although the May 1945 surrender
of Germany ended the war in Europe, war continued
in the Pacific until August 14, 1945.
The world that the FBI
faced in September 1945 was very different from the
world of 1939 when the war began. American isolationism
had effectively ended, and, economically, the United
States had become the world's most powerful nation.
At home, organized labor had achieved a strong foothold;
African Americans and women, having tasted equality
during wartime labor shortages, had developed aspirations
and the means of achieving the goals that these groups
had lacked before the war. The American Communist
Party possessed an unparalleled confidence, while
overseas the Soviet Union strengthened its grasp
on the countries it had wrested from German occupation--making
it plain that its plans to expand Communist influence
had not abated. And hanging over the euphoria of
a world once more at peace was the mushroom cloud
of atomic weaponry.
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POSTWAR
AMERICA
In February 1946 Stalin
gave a public address in which he implied that future
wars were inevitable until Communism replaced capitalism
worldwide. Events in Europe and North America convinced
Congress that Stalin was well on his way to achieving
his goal. The Russian veto prevented the United Nations
from curbing Soviet expansion under its auspices.
Americans feared Communist
expansion was not limited to Europe. By 1947, ample
evidence existed that pro-Soviet individuals had
infiltrated the American Government. In June, 1945,
the FBI raided the offices of Amerasia, a magazine
concerned with the Far East, and discovered a large
number of classified State Department documents.
Several months later the Canadians arrested 22 people
for trying to steal atomic secrets. Previously, Americans
felt secure behind their monopoly of the atomic bomb.
Fear of a Russian bomb now came to dominate American
thinking. The Soviets detonated their own bomb in
1949.
Counteracting the Communist
threat became a paramount focus of government at
all levels, as well as the private sector. While
U.S. foreign policy concentrated on defeating Communist
expansion abroad, many U.S. citizens sought to defeat
the Communist threat at home. The American Communist
Party worked through front organizations or influenced
other Americans who agreed with their current propaganda
("fellow travelers").
Since 1917, the FBI and
its predecessor agencies had investigated suspected
acts of espionage and sabotage. In 1939 and again
in 1943, Presidential directives had authorized the
FBI to carry out investigations of threats to national
security. This role was clarified and expanded under
Presidents Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Any public
or private agency or individual with information
about subversive activities was urged to report it
to the FBI. A poster to that effect was distributed
to police departments throughout the country. At
the same time, it warned Americans to "avoid
reporting malicious gossip or idle rumors." The
FBI's authority to conduct background investigations
on present and prospective government employees also
expanded dramatically in the postwar years. The 1946
Atomic Energy Act gave the FBI "responsibility
for determining the loyalty of individuals ...having
access to restricted Atomic Energy data." Later,
executive orders from both Presidents Truman and
Eisenhower gave the FBI responsibility for investigating
allegations of disloyalty among federal employees.
In these cases, the agency requesting the investigation
made the final determination; the FBI only conducted
the investigation and reported the results. Many
suspected and convicted spies, such as Julius and
Ethel Rosenberg, had been federal employees. Therefore,
background investigations were considered to be just
as vital as cracking major espionage cases.
Despite the threats to
the United States of subversion and espionage, the
FBI's extended jurisdiction, and the time-consuming
nature of background investigations, the Bureau did
not surpass the number of Agents it had during World
War II--or its yearly wartime budget--until the Korean
War in the early 1950s. After the Korean War ended,
the number of Agents stabilized at about 6,200, while
the budget began a steady climb in 1957.
Several factors converged
to undermine domestic Communism in the 1950s. Situations
like the Soviet defeat of the Hungarian rebellion
in 1956 caused many members to abandon the American
Communist Party. However, the FBI also played a role
in diminishing Party influence. The Bureau was responsible
for the investigation and arrest of alleged spies
and Smith Act violators, most of whom were convicted.
Through Hoover's speeches, articles, testimony, and
books like Masters of Deceit, the FBI helped alert
the public to the Communist threat.
The FBI's role in fighting
crime also expanded in the postwar period through
its assistance to state and local law enforcement
and through increased jurisdictional responsibility.
On March 14, 1950, the FBI began its "Ten Most
Wanted Fugitives" List to increase law enforcement's
ability to capture dangerous fugitives. Advances
in forensic science and technical development enabled
the FBI to devote a significant proportion of its
resources to assisting state and local law enforcement
agencies.
A dramatic example of
aid to a state occurred after the midair explosion
of a plane over Colorado in 1955. The FBI Laboratory
examined hundreds of airplane parts, pieces of cargo,
and the personal effects of passengers. It pieced
together evidence of a bomb explosion from passenger
luggage, then painstakingly looked into the backgrounds
of the 44 victims. Ultimately, Agents identified
the perpetrator and secured his confession, then
turned the case over to Colorado authorities who
successfully prosecuted it in a state court.
At the same time, Congress
gave the FBI new federal laws with which to fight
civil rights violations, racketeering, and gambling.
These new laws included the Civil Rights Acts of
1960 and 1964; the 1961 Crimes Aboard Aircraft Act;
an expanded Federal Fugitive Act; and the Sports
Bribery Act of 1964.
Up to this time, the
interpretation of federal civil rights statutes by
the Supreme Court was so narrow that few crimes,
however heinous, qualified to be investigated by
federal agents.
The turning point in
federal civil rights actions occurred in the summer
of 1964, with the murder of voting registration workers
Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney
near Philadelphia, Mississippi. At the Department
of Justice's request, the FBI conducted the investigation
as it had in previous, less-publicized racial incidents.
The case against the perpetrators took years to go
through the courts. Only after 1966, when the Supreme
Court made it clear that federal law could be used
to prosecute civil rights violations, were seven
men found guilty. By the late 1960s, the confluence
of unambiguous federal authority and local support
for civil rights prosecutions allowed the FBI to
play an influential role in enabling African Americans
to vote, serve on juries, and use public accommodations
on an equal basis.
Other civil rights investigations
included the assasination of Martin Luther King,
Jr., with the arrest of James Earl Ray, and the murder
of Medger Evers, Mississippi Field Secretary of the
NAACP, with the arrest of Byron De La Beckwith who,
after two acquittals, was finally found guilty in
1994.
Involvement of the FBI
in organized crime investigations also was hampered
by the lack of possible federal laws covering crimes
perpetrated by racketeers. After Prohibition, many
mob activities were carried out locally, or if interstate,
they did not constitute major violations within the
Bureau's jurisdiction.
An impetus for federal
legislation occurred in 1957 with the discovery by
Sergeant Croswell of the New York State Police that
many of the best known mobsters in the United States
had met together in upstate New York. The FBI collected
information on all the individuals identified at
the meeting, confirming the existence of a national
organized-crime network. However, it was not until
an FBI Agent persuaded mob insider Joseph Valachi
to testify that the public learned firsthand of the
nature of La Cosa Nostra, the American "mafia."
On the heels of Valachi's
disclosures, Congress passed two new laws to strengthen
federal racketeering and gambling statutes that had
been passed in the 1950s and early 1960s to aid the
Bureau's fight against mob influence. The Omnibus
Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 provided
for the use of court-ordered electronic surveillance
in the investigation of certain specified violations.
The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations
(RICO) Statute of 1970 allowed organized groups to
be prosecuted for all of their diverse criminal activities,
without the crimes being linked by a perpetrator
or all-encompassing conspiracy. Along with greater
use of Agents for undercover work by the late 1970s,
these provisions helped the FBI develop cases that,
in the 1980s, put almost all the major traditional
crime family heads in prison.
By the end of the 1960s,
the Bureau employed 6,703 Special Agents and 9,320
Support Personnel in 58 field offices and twelve
Legal Attache offices.
A national tragedy produced
another expansion of FBI jurisdiction. When President
Kennedy was assassinated, the crime was a local homicide;
no federal law addressed the murder of a President.
Nevertheless, President Lyndon B. Johnson tasked
the Bureau with conducting the investigation. Congress
then passed a new law to ensure that any such act
in the future would be a federal crime.
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THE
VIETNAM WAR ERA
President Kennedy's assassination
introduced the violent aspect of the era known as
the "Sixties." This period, which actually
lasted into the mid-1970s, was characterized by idealism,
but also by increased urban crime and a propensity
for some groups to resort to violence in challenging
the "establishment."
Most Americans objecting
to involvement in Vietnam or to other policies wrote
to Congress or carried peace signs in orderly demonstrations.
Nevertheless, in 1970 alone, an estimated 3,000 bombings
and 50,000 bomb threats occurred in the United States.
Opposition to the war
in Vietnam brought together numerous anti-establishment
groups and gave them a common goal. The convergence
of crime, violence, civil rights issues, and potential
national security issues ensured that the FBI played
a significant role during this troubled period.
Presidents Johnson and
Nixon and Director Hoover shared with many Americans
a perception of the potential dangers to this country
from some who opposed its policies in Vietnam. As
Hoover observed in a 1966 PTA Magazine article, the
United States was confronted with "a new style
in conspiracy--conspiracy that is extremely subtle
and devious and hence difficult to understand...a
conspiracy reflected by questionable moods and attitudes,
by unrestrained individualism, by nonconformism in
dress and speech, even by obscene language, rather
than by formal membership in specific organizations."
The New Left movement's "romance
with violence" involved, among others, four
young men living in Madison, Wisconsin. Antiwar sentiment
was widespread at the University of Wisconsin (UW),
where two of them were students. During the very
early morning of August 24, 1970, the four used a
powerful homemade bomb to blow up Sterling Hall,
which housed the Army Math Research Center at UW.
A graduate student was killed and three others were
injured.
That crime occurred a
few months after National Guardsmen killed four students
and wounded several others during an antiwar demonstration
at Kent State University. The FBI investigated both
incidents. Together, these events helped end the "romance
with violence" for all but a handful of hardcore
New Left revolutionaries. Draft dodging and property
damage had been tolerable to many antiwar sympathizers.
Deaths were not.
By 1971, with few exceptions,
the most extreme members of the antiwar movement
concentrated on more peaceable, yet still radical
tactics, such as the clandestine publication of The
Pentagon Papers. However, the violent Weathermen
and its successor groups continued to challenge the
FBI into the 1980s.
No specific guidelines
for FBI Agents covering national security investigations
had been developed by the Administration or Congress;
these, in fact, were not issued until 1976. Therefore,
the FBI addressed the threats from the militant "New
Left" as it had those from Communists in the
1950s and the KKK in the 1960s. It used both traditional
investigative techniques and counterintelligence
programs ("Cointelpro") to counteract domestic
terrorism and conduct investigations of individuals
and organizations who threatened terroristic violence.
Wiretapping and other intrusive techniques were discouraged
by Hoover in the mid-1960s and eventually were forbidden
completely unless they conformed to the Omnibus Crime
Control Act. Hoover formally terminated all "Cointelpro" operations
on April 28, 1971.
FBI Director J. Edgar
Hoover died on May 2, 1972, just shy of 48 years
as the FBI Director. He was 77. The next day his
body lay in state in the Rotunda of the Capitol,
an honor accorded only 21 other Americans.
Hoover's successor would
have to contend with the complex turmoil of that
troubled time. In 1972, unlike 1924 when Attorney
General Harlan Fiske Stone selected Hoover, the President
appointed the FBI Director with confirmation by the
Senate. President Nixon appointed L. Patrick Gray
as Acting Director the day after Hoover's death.
After retiring from a distinguished Naval career,
Gray had continued in public service as the Department
of Justice's Assistant Attorney General for the Civil
Division. As Acting Director, Gray appointed the
first women as Special Agents since the 1920s.
Shortly after Gray became
Acting Director, five men were arrested photographing
documents at the Democratic National Headquarters
in the Watergate Office Building in Washington, D.C.
The break-in had been authorized by Republican Party
officials. Within hours, the White House began its
effort to cover up its role, and the new Acting FBI
Director was inadvertently drawn into it. FBI Agents
undertook a thorough investigation of the break-in
and related events. However, when Gray's questionable
personal role was revealed, he withdrew his name
from the Senate's consideration to be Director. He
was replaced hours after he resigned on April 27,
1973, by William Ruckleshaus, a former Congressman
and the first head of the Environmental Protection
Agency, who remained until Clarence Kelley's appointment
as Director on July 9, 1973. Kelley, who was Kansas
City Police Chief when he received the appointment,
had been an FBI Agent from 1940 to 1961.
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THE
AFTERMATH OF WATERGATE
Three days after Director
Kelley's appointment, top aides in the Nixon Administration
resigned amid charges of White House efforts to obstruct
justice in the Watergate case. Vice President Spiro
T. Agnew resigned in October, following charges of
tax evasion. Then, following impeachment hearings
that were broadcast over television to the American
public throughout 1974, President Nixon resigned
on August 9, 1974. Vice President Gerald R. Ford
was sworn in as President that same day. In granting
an unconditional pardon to ex-President Nixon one
month later, he vowed to heal the nation.
Director Kelley similarly
sought to restore public trust in the FBI and in
law enforcement. He instituted numerous policy changes
that targeted the training and selection of FBI and
law enforcement leaders, the procedures of investigative
intelligence collection, and the prioritizing of
criminal programs. All of this was done while continuing
open investigations. One such case was the Patty
Hearst kidnapping investigation.
In 1974, Kelley instituted
Career Review Boards and programs to identify and
train potential managers. For upper management of
the entire law enforcement community, the FBI, in
cooperation with the International Association of
Chiefs of Police and the Major Cities Chief Administrators,
started the National Executive Institute, which provided
high-level executive training and encouraged future
operational cooperation.
Kelley also responded
to scrutiny by Congress and the media on whether
FBI methods of collecting intelligence in domestic
security and counterintelligence investigations abridged
Constitutional rights.
The FBI had traditionally
used its own criteria for intelligence collection,
based on executive orders and blanket authority granted
by attorney generals. After congressional hearings,
Attorney General Edward Levi established finely detailed
guidelines for the first time. The guidelines for
FBI foreign counterintelligence investigations went
into effect on March 10, 1976, and for domestic security
investigations on April 5, 1976 (The latter were
superseded March 21, 1983).
Kelley's most significant
management innovation, however, was implementing
the concept of "Quality over Quantity" investigations.
He directed each field office to set priorities based
on the types of cases most important in its territory
and to concentrate resources on those priority matters.
Strengthening the "Quality over Quantity" concept,
the FBI as a whole established three national priorities:
foreign counterintelligence, organized crime, and
white-collar crime. To handle the last priority,
the Bureau intensified its recruitment of accountants.
It also stepped up its use of undercover operations
in major cases.
During Kelley's tenure
as Director, the FBI made a strong effort to develop
an Agent force with more women and one that was more
reflective of the ethnic composition of the United
States. By the late 1970s nearly 8,000 Special Agents
and 11,000 Support Employees worked in 59 Field Offices
and 13 Legal Attache offices.
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THE
RISE OF INTERNATIONAL CRIME
In 1978, Director Kelley
resigned and was replaced by former federal Judge
William H. Webster. At the time of his appointment,
Webster was serving as Judge of the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He had previously
been a Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern
District of Missouri. Also in 1978, the FBI began
using laser technology in the Identification Division
to detect latent crime scene fingerprints.
In 1982, following an
explosion of terrorist incidents worldwide, Webster
made counterterrorism a fourth national priority.
He also expanded FBI efforts in the three others:
foreign counterintelligence, organized crime, and
white-collar crime. Part of this expansion was the
creation of the National Center for the Analysis
of Violent Crime.
The FBI solved so many
espionage cases during the mid-1980s that the press
dubbed 1985 "the year of the spy." The
most serious espionage damage uncovered by the FBI
was perpetrated by the John Walker spy ring and by
former National Security Agency employee William
Pelton.
Throughout the 1980s,
the illegal drug trade severely challenged the resources
of American law enforcement. To ease this challenge,
in 1982 the Attorney General gave the FBI concurrent
jurisdiction with the Drug Enforcement Administration
(DEA) over narcotics violations in the United States.
The expanded Department of Justice attention to drug
crimes resulted in the confiscation of millions of
dollars in controlled substances, the arrests of
major narcotics figures, and the dismantling of important
drug rings. One of the most publicized, dubbed "the
Pizza Connection" case, involved the heroin
trade in the United States and Italy. It resulted
in 18 convictions, including a former leader of the
Sicilian Mafia. Then Assistant U.S. Attorney Louis
J. Freeh, who was to be appointed FBI Director in
1993, was key to prosecutive successes in the case.
On another front, Webster
strengthened the FBI's response to white-collar crimes.
Public corruption was attacked nationwide. Convictions
resulting from FBI investigations included members
of Congress (ABSCAM), the judiciary (GREYLORD), and
state legislatures in California and South Carolina.
A major investigation culminating in 1988 unveiled
corruption in defense procurement (ILLWIND).
As the United States
faced a financial crisis in the failures of savings
and loan associations during the 1980s, the FBI uncovered
instances of fraud that lay behind many of those
failures. It was perhaps the single largest investigative
effort undertaken by the FBI to that date: from investigating
10 bank failures in 1981, it had 282 bank failures
under investigation by February 1987. Resources to
investigate fraud during the savings and loan crisis
were provided by the Financial Institution Reform,
Recovery and Enhancement Act.
In 1984, the FBI acted
as lead agency for security of the Los Angeles Olympics.
In the course of its efforts to anticipate and prepare
for acts of terrorism and street crime, it built
important bridges of interaction and cooperation
with local, state, and other federal agencies, as
well as agencies of other countries. It also unveiled
the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team as a domestic force
capable of responding to complex hostage situations
such as tragically occurred in Munich at the 1972
games.
Perhaps as a result of
the Bureau's emphasis on combatting terrorism, such
acts within the United States decreased dramatically
during the 1980s. In 1986, Congress had expanded
FBI jurisdiction to cover terrorist acts against
U.S. citizens outside the U.S. boundaries. Later,
in 1989, the Department of Justice authorized the
FBI to arrest terrorists, drug traffickers, and other
fugitives abroad without the consent of the foreign
country in which they resided.
Expanded resources were
not limited to "established" crime areas
like terrorism and violent crime. In 1984, the FBI
established the Computer Analysis and Response Team
(CART) to retrieve evidence from computers (Need
to put as subt. est 1984, full in 1991).
On May 26, 1987, Judge
Webster left the FBI to become Director of the Central
Intelligence Agency. Executive Assistant Director
John E. Otto became Acting Director and served in
that position until November 2, 1987. During his
tenure, Acting Director Otto designated drug investigations
as the FBI's fifth national priority.
On November 2, 1987,
former federal Judge William Steele Sessions was
sworn in as FBI Director. Prior to his appointment
as FBI Director, Sessions served as the Chief Judge
of the U.S. District Court for the Western District
of Texas. He had previously served as a District
Judge and as U.S. Attorney for that district.
Under Director Sessions,
crime prevention efforts, in place since Director
Kelley's tenure, were expanded to include a drug
demand reduction program. FBI offices nationwide
began working closely with local school and civic
groups to educate young people to the dangers of
drugs. Subsequent nationwide community outreach efforts
under that program evolved and expanded through such
initiatives as the Adopt-A-School/Junior G-Man Program.
The expansion in initiatives required a larger workforce
and by 1988, the FBI employed 9663 Special Agents
and 13651 Support Employees in 58 Field Offices and
15 Legal Attaches.
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THE
END OF THE COLD WAR
The dismantling of the
Berlin Wall in November 1989 electrified the world
and dramatically rang up the Iron Curtain on the
final act in the Cold War: the formal dissolution
of the Soviet Union, which occurred on December 25,
1991.
While world leaders scrambled
to reposition their foreign policies and redefine
national security parameters, the FBI responded as
an agency in January 1992 by reassigning 300 Special
Agents from foreign counterintelligence duties to
violent crime investigations across the country.
It was an unprecedented opportunity to intensify
efforts in burgeoning domestic crime problems--and
at the same time to rethink and retool FBI national
security programs in counterintelligence and counterterrorism.
In response to a 40-percent
increase in crimes of violence over the previous
10 years, Director Sessions had designated the investigation
of violent crime as the FBI's sixth national priority
program in 1989. By November 1991 the FBI had created "Operation
Safe Streets" in Washington, D.C.--a concept
of federal, state, and local police task forces targeting
fugitives and gangs. Therefore, it was now ready
to expand this operational assistance to police nationwide.
At the same time, the
FBI Laboratory helped change the face of violent
criminal identification. Its breakthrough use of
DNA technology enabled genetic crime-scene evidence
to positively identify--or rule out--suspects by
comparing their particular DNA patterns. This unique
identifier enabled the creation of a national DNA
Index, similar to the fingerprint index, which had
been implemented in 1924.
The FBI also strengthened
its response to white-collar crimes. Popularized
as "crime in the suites," these nonviolent
crimes had steadily increased as automation in and
deregulation of industries had created new environments
for fraud. Resources were, accordingly, redirected
to combat the new wave of large-scale insider bank
fraud and financial crimes; to address criminal sanctions
in new federal environmental legislation; and to
establish long-term investigations of complex health
care frauds.
At the same time, the
FBI reassessed its strategies in defending national
security, now no longer defined as the containment
of communism and the prevention of nuclear war.
By creating the National
Security Threat List, which was approved by the Attorney
General in 1991, it changed its approach from defending
against hostile intelligence agencies to protecting
U.S. information and technologies. It thus identified
all countries--not just hostile intelligence services--that
pose a continuing and serious intelligence threat
to the United States. It also defined expanded threat
issues, including the proliferation of chemical,
biological, and nuclear weapons; the loss of critical
technologies; and the improper collection of trade
secrets and proprietary information. As President
Clinton was to note in 1994, with the dramatic expansion
of the global economy "national security now
means economic security."
Two events occurred in
late 1992 and early 1993 that were to have a major
impact on FBI policies and operations. In August
1992, the FBI responded to the shooting death of
Deputy U.S. Marshal William Degan, who was killed
at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, while participating in a surveillance
of federal fugitive Randall Weaver. In the course
of the standoff, Weaver's wife was accidentally shot
and killed by an FBI sniper.
Eight months later, at
a remote compound outside Waco, Texas, FBI Agents
sought to end a 51-day standoff with members of a
heavily armed religious sect who had killed four
officers of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
Instead, as Agents watched in horror, the compound
burned to the ground from fires lit by members of
the sect. Eighty persons, including children, died
in the blaze.
These two events set
the stage for public and congressional inquiries
into the FBI's ability to respond to crisis situations.
On July 19, 1993, following
allegations of ethics violations committed by Director
Sessions, President Clinton removed him from office
and appointed Deputy Director Floyd I. Clarke as
Acting FBI Director. The President noted that Director
Sessions' most significant achievement was broadening
the FBI to include more women and minorities.
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RISE
OF A WIRED WORLD
Louis
J. Freeh was sworn in as Director of the FBI on
September 1, 1993. Freeh had served as an FBI Agent
from 1975 to 1981. He was appointed U.S. District
Court Judge for the Southern District of New York
in 1991 and served on that Court until he was nominated
to be Director of the FBI during the summer of
1993.
Director
Freeh began his tenure with a clearly articulated
agenda to respond to deepening and evolving crime
problems both at home and abroad. During the summer
of 1994, determined to forge strong, international
police partnerships, Director Freeh led a delegation
of high-level diplomatic and federal law enforcement
officials to meet with senior officials of 11 European
nations on international crime issues. At the outset,
Richard Holbrooke, US Ambassador to Germany, declared, "This
is the evolving American foreign policy. Law Enforcement
is at the forefront of our national interest in
this part of the world." On July 4, 1994,
Director Freeh officially announced the opening
of an FBI Legal Attaché Office in Moscow,
the old seat of Russian communism.
Subsequently,
the Bureau sharpened joint efforts against organized
crime, drug-trafficking, and terrorism, and it
expanded standardized training of international
police in investigative processes, ethics, leadership,
and professionalism, including in April 1995, the
opening of the first International Law Enforcement
Academy (ILEA) in Budapest, Hungary (pictured left).
The Bureau also expanded its international presence
by opening 21 new Legal Attaché offices
overseas.
The
Bureau also mounted aggressive programs in specific
criminal areas. During the years 1993 through 1996,
these efforts paid off in successful investigations
as diverse as the World Trade Center bombing in
New York City (1993); the bombing of the Murrah
Federal Building in Oklahoma City (1995); the UNABOMBER
Theodore Kaczynski (1996); and the arrests of Mexican
drug-trafficker Juan Garcia-Abrego (1996) and Russian
crime boss Vyacheslav Ivankov (1995). In response
to public outcry over the tragedies at Ruby Ridge,
Idaho, and Waco, Texas, the Bureau formed the Critical
Incident Response Group (CIRG) to deal more efficiently
with crisis situations.
As
computers and access to the Internet became commonplace
in homes across the United States, the FBI began
to put in place measures to address crime in cyberspace.
It created the Computer Investigations and Infrastructure
Threat Assessment Center (CITAC) to respond to
physical and cyber attacks against US infrastructure.
The FBI has also played a crucial role in the investigation
and prevention of computer crimes. In 1991, the
FBI's Computer Analysis and Response Teams (CART)
began to provide investigators with the technical
expertise necessary to obtain evidence from the
computers of suspects. In 1998, the FBI's National
Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) was created
to monitor the dissemination of computer viruses,
worms, and other malicious programs and to warn
government and business computer users of these
dangers. In addition, having begun in the FBI's
Baltimore Division in 1995, but branching out to
most FBI field offices, the Bureau's Innocent Images
Program has successfully identified and stopped
large numbers of pedophiles who have used the Internet
to purvey child pornography and to lure children
into situations where they could be harmed.
Between
1993 and 2001, the FBI's mission and resources
expanded to address the increasingly international
nature of crime in US localities. The FBI's budget
grew by more than $1.27 billion as the Bureau hired
5,029 new Agents and more than 4,000 new Support
Personnel. To prepare the FBI for both domestic
and foreign lawlessness in the 21st century, Director
Freeh spearheaded the effort by law enforcement
to ensure its ability to carry out court-authorized
electronic surveillance in major investigations
affecting public safety and national security in
the face of telecommunications advances. Important
legislation passed during this period included
the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement
Act (CALEA) of 1994, the Health Insurance Portability
and Accountability Act of 1996, and the Economic
Espionage Act of 1996. Director Freeh left the
Bureau in June 2001 for a position in the private
sector.
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CHANGE
OF MANDATE
On
September 4, 2001, former U.S. Attorney Robert
S. Mueller, III was sworn in as FBI Director (2001
to present) with a specific mandate to upgrade
the Bureau's information technology infrastructure,
to address records management issues, and to enhance
FBI foreign counterintelligence analysis and security
in the wake of the damage done by former Special
Agent and convicted spy Robert Hanssen.
Within
days of his entering on duty, however, the September
11 terrorist attacks were launched against New York
and Washington. Director Mueller led the FBI's massive
investigative efforts in partnership with all U.S.
law enforcement, the federal government, and allies
overseas. On October 26, 2001, President George W.
Bush signed into law the U.S. Patriot Act, which
granted new provisions to address the threat of terrorism,
and Director Mueller accordingly accepted on behalf
of the Bureau responsibility for protecting the American
people against future terrorist attacks. On May 29,
2002, the Attorney General issued revised investigative
guidelines to assist the Bureau's counterterrorism
efforts.
To
support the Bureau's change in mission and to meet
newly articulated strategic priorities, Director
Mueller called for a reengineering of FBI structure
and operations to closely focus the Bureau on prevention
of terrorist attacks, on countering foreign intelligence
operations against the U.S., and on addressing cybercrime-based
attacks and other high-technology crimes. In addition,
the Bureau remains dedicated to protecting civil
rights, combatting public corruption, organized crime,
white-collar crime, and major acts of violent crime.
The Bureau has also strengthened its support to federal,
county, municipal, and international law enforcement
partners and has dedicated itself to upgrading its
technological infrastructure to successfully meet
each of its priorities.
At
the start of the new millennium, the FBI stands dedicated
to its core values and "Bright Line" ethical
standards. Commitment to these values and standards
ensures that the FBI effectively carries out its
mission: Protect and defend the United States against
terrorist and foreign intelligence threats; uphold
and enforce the criminal laws of the United States;
and provide leadership and criminal justice services
to federal, state, municipal, and international agencies
and partners.
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