General overview of the FBI in the US security mission
The headquarters of Federal Bureau of Intelligence are located at Washington D.C. Its staff is spread all over United States with field offices being set up in major cities and resident agencies being set up within towns. It is also served internationally by having offices within United States embassies available all over the world (Edward, 546)
Federal Bureau of Intelligence has various mission and priorities to undertake. For instance, the budget of FBI in 2008 amounted to about 7billion with some of this allocation being directed towards some activities such as information technology, forensics, security allocations and cyber crime. It also allocated some of this to curb terrorism and intelligence.
FBI was started as the Bureau of Investigation in 1908. It acquired this name until 1935 when it was transformed to its current name Federal Bureau of Investigation. Federal Bureau of Investigation has certain goal to achieve. Terrorist has been on the horizon together with foreign intelligence threats. The main goal of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is to defend and protect United States from these vices. They also enforce criminal laws in order to achieve justices within federal (David, 12). There are various priorities which FBI has set to address protecting civil rights, compacting violent crime, corruption and white collar crimes, protecting United States against terrorist and foreign intelligence threats and checking on cyber warfare. It also participates in combating criminal enterprises and organizations and upgrading of technology. The priorities of FBI are mostly directed to the protection of United States against foreign intelligence threats and terrorist. Information technology is an area of major concern for this agency and that is why they check on cyber warfare. Upgrading their technology enables them to counter both terrorist and foreign intelligences dangers which are issues of major concern in United States.
Federal Bureau of Investigation has been involved in various activities in the past. For instance in 2007, it was involved in certain activities such as mail and bank frauds, drug trafficking cases, robbery and also fraud by wire. These investigations were carried out in coordination with the United States government. The working criteria of Federal Bereau of Investigation are covered in the U.S code. Crimes which are committed towards United States are controlled by this body whose officials are appointed by the Attorney General of United States (Cook, 23). Investigation of specific crimes by Federal Bureau investigation is also covered by the U.S statues. These statutes provide authority and responsibility to this body to interrogate specific crimes which are committed against United States.
In the recent past, FBI has been involved in some controversial issues which have led to the intervention of the Supreme Court. Wire tapping was introduced to facilitate the arresting of bootleggers. This was first used by Hoover in 1920. There was a case which was taken to the Supreme Court challenging FBI for using wiretapping in arresting bootleggers. The Supreme Court took side with FBI arguing that there was no violation since FBI did not partake the tapping in somebodys house. There were certain Acts which were brought forth by Congress to facilitate the work of FBI. Bugging was allowed in the communication act which was passed by congress in 1934 (Davis, 14). There were subsequent rulings by the Supreme Court which led to bugging being allowed in investigations. Public authorities were given the go ahead to tap telephones in the eve of investigations so long as they were allowed by having a warrant. This was covered in the Omnibus Crime Control and Streets act.
Organized crimes are normally dealt with by FBI which has been given the mandate in the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. This act enables FBI to investigate any organized crime. FBI is also concerned with the protection of civil rights. It does this by enforcing the correspondence of the Civil Rights Act which was passed in 1964. FBI is responsible for investigating any violation of this act and it is also involved in the prosecution of the violation. The prosecution is achieved by working hand in hand with the United States Department of Justice (Tiefer, 216). FBI undertakes investigation involving drug trafficking. They achieve this being guided by the Substance Act which was passed in 1970.
Powers of FBI were enriched through the USA Patriot Act which gave more powers to this body. The increased powers involved dealing with crimes of internet activity and wire tapping. There are some critical provisions which are provided in the Act. This critical provision which is referred to as sneak and peeks allows FBI to carry out investigation in the absence of the residents. FBI is protected in this act not to inform the residents about the investigation. The Act also accords FBI to opening new files for suspect of terrorism from archived records. After investigation, FBI hands over its investigation report to an official in the department who decide the prosecution process (Gelbspan, 29). The Attorney decides on the go ahead after receiving the investigation report from FBI.
FBI has been involved in several matters of national security. Since 1940 up to few years ago, the FBI has conducted several investigations involving espionage which were done against United States. There have been various arrests of people who have tried to sabotage the national security. For instance, there was the arrest of Nazi agents. These had the plan of sabotaging the American operations. Amongst the arrested agents, six were executed. The soviet saga led the heavy participation of FBI to break Soviet communications. This was done in collaboration of United States and United Kingdom. The FBI which was fully involved on the contribution to the tapping of the Soviet communication codes. The participation of Americans in the soviet intelligence was revealed. There are also notable arrests in which the FBI had a hand in, such as the arrest of Rudolf Abel who was a Soviet spy. The obsession of the Soviet came into being after the notification of the Soviet Spies in United States (Powers, Finnegan, 62). This was furthered by Hoover. Hoover led the FBI to ensure that all these spies were put at stake.
The influence of civil rights movement also came to the concern of FBI. Civil rights leaders who led various movements in criticizing the FBI actions were seized. These movements were mostly active between 1950s and 1960s. Howard, who was one of the civil rights leaders found himself cornered after he was denounced by Hoover for his allegations of the FBI inaction. The FBI was involved in disrupting dissident political movements and non violent institutions. This was facilitated in the program they referred to it as Counter Intelligence Program. FBI disrupted the operation of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference which was amongst the forefront civil right institutions (McKnight, 54). FBI also targeted some prominent people for investigation such as Martin Luther King of which they even used some false allegation towards him due to lack of evidence of any crime.
FBI has been involved in investigation of assassination of prominent people. FBI was accorded the mandate to investigate the assassination of John F Kennedy. This directive came from Lyndon Johnson who served as a president. It led to the passing of the law which defined clearly who was responsible in dealing with homicides. FBI was given the responsibility of carrying out investigations on deaths of federal officials (Cook, 57). From this time henceforth, FBI has been responsible of investigating the deaths of government officials.
Investigation of organized crime has also been of major concern. Top Hoodlum program was introduced in 1953 to enable tackle organized crime. This program geared at collecting of data of any mobsters of which it was to be centralized for analysis. This was to be facilitated by field officers. The field officers had to identify any organized crime within their territories and report them to the central offices. The passing of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act enabled FBI to counter the crime groups which were behind crimes in major cities and even small towns. The operations of FBI were one undercover. Being guided by the RICO act, FBI managed to dismantle all organized crime groups (Athan, 681). The lack of resources to deploy to counter the organized crime groups made Hoover to deny the presence of such groups in the United States. FBI carried out operations later to counter the organized crime. Some of the leaders of these groups were arrested such as John Gotti and Sam Giancana. The Act which was passed in 1953 is still in operation for organized crime.
FBI has been involved fully in addressing terrorism. To counter terrorism during the summer Olympics which were undertaken in 1984, an elite unit was formed. The formation of this unit was as a result of the previous killings of Israel Athletes during the summer Olympics which were held in Germany. Terrorists were behind the murder. The unit was referred to as Hostage Rescue Team. Computer Analysis and Response unit was also formed the same year. The reduced cases of terrorism after cold war, led FBI to line up with the local police forces. They participated in tracking fugitives who had gone beyond state boundaries. FBI also used finger printing system to track criminals and also DNA testing (Keen, 32).
As a conclusion, the September 11 attacks were a wakening ground for FBI operations. This occurred as a test to Mueller who had taken offer as the director three days prior to the attacks. He advocated for restructuring of FBI operations. Robert Mueller made tackling every federal crime a priority. The priorities included countering of terrorism, cyber security dangers and countering foreign intelligence threats. Countering of crime was also a priority. Such crimes include white collar crime, violent crime, high technology crimes amongst other crimes committed against United States.
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