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margin: 0 0 0.5em 0.5em; text-align:left; border: 1px solid #800000; width:175px;"> <tbody><tr> <td style="font-size: 95%; text-align:center; color:White; background-color:#800000"><b>It's the</b><br /><a href="/wiki/Law" title="Law"><font size="4" color="White"><b>Law</b></font></a> </td></tr> <tr> <td style="background-color:#ffffff;" align="center"><a href="/wiki/Category:Law" title="Category:Law"><img alt="Icon law.svg" src="/w/images/thumb/f/f8/Icon_law.svg/100px-Icon_law.svg.png" decoding="async" width="100" height="100" srcset="/w/images/thumb/f/f8/Icon_law.svg/150px-Icon_law.svg.png 1.5x, /w/images/thumb/f/f8/Icon_law.svg/200px-Icon_law.svg.png 2x" data-file-width="200" data-file-height="200" /></a> </td></tr> <tr> <td style="font-size: 95%; color:White; background-color:#800000; text-align:center;"><b>To punish<br />and protect</b> </td></tr> <tr> <td style="font-size: 95%; background-color:#ffffff;"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Frivolous" title="Frivolous">Frivolous</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Quack_Miranda_Warning" title="Quack Miranda Warning">Quack Miranda Warning</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Civil_union" title="Civil union">Civil union</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Kangaroo_court" title="Kangaroo court">Kangaroo court</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Perjury" title="Perjury">Perjury</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Bush_v._Gore" title="Bush v. Gore">Bush v. Gore</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Terrorism_Acts" title="Terrorism Acts">Terrorism Acts</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Johnson_Amendment" title="Johnson Amendment">Johnson Amendment</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Foundation_for_Individual_Rights_and_Expression" title="Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression">Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Mariam_Yahia_Ibrahim_Ishag" title="Mariam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag">Mariam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Evidence" title="Evidence">Evidence</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Yellowstone" title="Yellowstone">Yellowstone</a></li></ul> <div class="vte plainlinks" style="font-size:smaller; text-align:center;"><a href="/wiki/Template:Law" title="Template:Law">v</a> - <a href="/wiki/Template_talk:Law" title="Template talk:Law">t</a> - <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Law&action=edit">e</a></div> </td></tr></tbody></table> <p>The <a href="/wiki/United_States" title="United States">United States</a> <b>Federal Bureau of Investigation</b> (<b>FBI</b>) is a <a href="/wiki/Law_enforcement" title="Law enforcement">law enforcement</a> agency that functions as a federal police, counterintelligence and domestic intelligence agency within the United States. The FBI is a division of the Justice Department, and its agents are armed federal officers with police powers. </p> <div id="toc" class="toc" role="navigation" aria-labelledby="mw-toc-heading"><input type="checkbox" role="button" id="toctogglecheckbox" class="toctogglecheckbox" style="display:none" /><div class="toctitle" lang="en" dir="ltr"><h2 id="mw-toc-heading">Contents</h2><span class="toctogglespan"><label class="toctogglelabel" for="toctogglecheckbox"></label></span></div> <ul> <li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1"><a href="#Mission"><span class="tocnumber">1</span> <span class="toctext">Mission</span></a></li> <li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2"><a href="#History"><span class="tocnumber">2</span> <span class="toctext">History</span></a></li> <li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-3"><a href="#FBI_and_counter-intelligence"><span class="tocnumber">3</span> <span class="toctext">FBI and counter-intelligence</span></a></li> <li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-4"><a href="#FBI_vs_celebrities"><span class="tocnumber">4</span> <span class="toctext">FBI vs celebrities</span></a></li> <li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-5"><a href="#FBI_Records_Vault_.28.22The_Vault.22.29"><span class="tocnumber">5</span> <span class="toctext">FBI Records Vault ("The Vault")</span></a></li> <li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-6"><a href="#The_FBI_in_popular_culture"><span class="tocnumber">6</span> <span class="toctext">The FBI in popular culture</span></a></li> <li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-7"><a href="#See_also"><span class="tocnumber">7</span> <span class="toctext">See also</span></a></li> <li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-8"><a href="#External_links"><span class="tocnumber">8</span> <span class="toctext">External links</span></a></li> <li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-9"><a href="#References"><span class="tocnumber">9</span> <span class="toctext">References</span></a></li> </ul> </div> <h2><span class="mw-headline" id="Mission">Mission</span><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation&action=edit&section=1" title="Edit section: Mission">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></h2> <p>The FBI's mission is to "Protect the American People and uphold the Constitution of the United States." Their priorities are:<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-1">[1]</a></sup> </p> <ol><li>Protect the U.S. from terrorist attack</li> <li>Protect the U.S. against foreign intelligence, espionage, and cyber operations</li> <li>Combat significant cyber criminal activity</li> <li>Combat public corruption at all levels</li> <li>Protect <a href="/wiki/Civil_rights" title="Civil rights">civil rights</a></li> <li>Combat transnational criminal organizations and enterprises</li> <li>Combat significant white-collar crime</li> <li>Combat significant violent crime</li></ol> <p>Moreover, the FBI has immediate jurisdiction over all bank robberies, which they take seriously, except in LA, where they're too numerous to keep track of. </p> <h2><span class="mw-headline" id="History">History</span><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation&action=edit&section=2" title="Edit section: History">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></h2> <p>The FBI has its roots in the US Secret Service, which was founded in 1865 as a subsidiary of the Department of the Treasury to prevent mass counterfeiting. After the <a href="/wiki/American_Civil_War" title="American Civil War">American Civil War</a>, the federal government found itself with greatly expanded powers to make and enforce laws, what with the whole occupation of the confederacy going on and the need to enforce the 13th-15th amendments. This led to the founding of the Department of Justice in 1870, and the expansion of the Attorney General's role from a mere advisor to a full-time cabinet member and the federal government's chief prosecutor. Perhaps the DoJ's biggest accomplishment in the following years was cracking down on the first iteration of the <a href="/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan" title="Ku Klux Klan">Ku Klux Klan</a> in the early 1870s, and the enforcement of anti-monopoly and civil rights legislation. </p><p>Eventually, in the 1900s, a scandal erupted when a congressional probe discovered that most of the investigations of federal crimes by all departments in the US government were performed by Secret Service detectives, violating appropriations set by the House of Representatives. What's remarkable is that, rather than being about the implications of creating a police state that spied on its own people, most of the congressional opposition to this practice was that it violated the <a href="/wiki/Separation_of_powers" title="Separation of powers">separation of powers</a> between the executive and legislative branches.<sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-2">[2]</a></sup> Congress banned the practice in 1908, basically requiring departments to either perform their own investigations or hire private investigators. Attorney General Charles Bonaparte acquiesced, and created a bureau in the DoJ staffed with professional investigators. While the same people in the House of Representatives tried to limit said practice, <a href="/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt" title="Theodore Roosevelt">Theodore Roosevelt</a> (who was about to leave office) objected and convinced the Senate that the only reason the House opposed these actions was to prevent investigations of themselves, and that it unjustly limited the autonomy of the executive branch. Thus the "Bureau of Investigations" was born. </p><p>Then, in the 1920s the US government experimented with alcohol <a href="/wiki/Prohibition" title="Prohibition">prohibition</a>. Naturally this led to a soaring crime rate and the government needed a more effective policing organization. During the prohibition era, a young bureaucrat named J. Edgar Hoover found that he could build a career in law enforcement, and began running the FBI as his own private fiefdom. He took the reins in the 1920s and only left the agency when he died in the 1970s. In the 1930s, heavily armed bank-robbing outlaws, such as Bonnie and Clyde or John Dillinger, became a serious problem in the country, and the FBI became famous for its attempts at suppressing the crime wave. The outlaws also became famous for outwitting the feds, until their bodies started turning up with lead poisoning. During <a href="/wiki/World_War_II" title="World War II">World War II</a> the Bureau had a few successes stopping potential German spies and saboteurs. Hoover gained much power during the war years, which was very addictive, and in the 1950s the Bureau began fighting <strike><a href="/wiki/Civil_rights" title="Civil rights">civil rights</a> marchers</strike> <a href="/wiki/Communism" title="Communism">communists</a>. </p> <h2><span class="mw-headline" id="FBI_and_counter-intelligence">FBI and counter-intelligence</span><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation&action=edit&section=3" title="Edit section: FBI and counter-intelligence">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></h2> <table style="margin: auto; border-collapse:collapse; border-style:none; background-color:transparent;" class="cquote"> <tbody><tr> <td><div style="padding:4px 50px;position:relative;"><span style="position:absolute;left:10px;top:-6px;z-index:1;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif;font-weight:bold;color:#B2B7F2;font-size:36px">“</span><span style="position:absolute;right:10px;bottom:-20px;z-index:1;font-family:'Times New Roman',serif;font-weight:bold;color:#B2B7F2;font-size:36px">”</span>It will enhance the <a href="/wiki/Paranoia" title="Paranoia">paranoia</a> endemic in these circles and will further serve to get the point across there is an F.B.I. agent behind every mailbox.</div> </td></tr> <tr> <td style="padding:4px 10px 8px;font-size:smaller;line-height:1.6em;text-align:right;"><cite style="font-style:normal;position:relative;z-index:2">—Leaked FBI memo from 1971<sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-3">[3]</a></sup></cite> </td></tr></tbody></table> <p>The FBI is supposed to be the major counter-intelligence branch of the US government. However, it has previously performed the job fairly badly. Major Soviet spies within the US were able to go about their business for a long time despite obvious red flags. For example, one CIA officer under Soviet employ was able to buy a house with cash, despite being very far down the pay scale. In another major case, that of Robert Hanssen, the FBI spent years searching for him, never realizing he was one of their own agents, even <i>putting him in charge of finding double agents</i>. </p><p>Many believe that the FBI, also charged with being the country's preeminent law enforcement agency, does not have the proper culture to engage in effective counter-intelligence. Recently, there have been calls to take counter-intelligence out of the FBI's portfolio, and instead build an agency similar to Britain's MI5. However, as past US history has shown, if this was done, soon the FBI would probably start doing counter-intelligence again, and there would be yet more duplication within the intelligence community. </p> <h2><span class="mw-headline" id="FBI_vs_celebrities">FBI vs celebrities</span><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation&action=edit&section=4" title="Edit section: FBI vs celebrities">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></h2> <p>The FBI, particularly in the Hoover years, was famous for its occasionally eccentric pursuit of celebrities and literary and artistic figures. A considerable amount of historical study has been conducted on this. However, because the FBI received and kept large amounts of correspondence, often from very strange people, the existence of a long FBI file on somebody does not indicate that they were considered a criminal or that Hoover had anything against them. </p> <ul><li><b>James Baldwin</b>, a gay African-American author, was the subject of a 1,884-page FBI file. Like Baldwin's writing the file has itself become the object of significant literary analysis, notably in William J. Maxwell's <i>F.B. Eyes: How J Edgar Hoover's Ghostreaders Framed African American Literature</i>.<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-4">[4]</a></sup> Baldwin's record - or at least part of it - is now available on the FBI website.<sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-5">[5]</a></sup> Other writers were subject of files including 260 pages on black writer Richard Wright and 110 pages on Truman Capote, but Baldwin's was particularly extensive.<sup id="cite_ref-6" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-6">[6]</a></sup></li></ul> <ul><li><b>Eleanor Roosevelt</b> (wife of President <a href="/wiki/Franklin_Roosevelt" class="mw-redirect" title="Franklin Roosevelt">Franklin Roosevelt</a>) was not an obvious threat to the US, but according to her biographer Blanche Cook, her record was "one of the largest individual files that Hoover compiled".<sup id="cite_ref-7" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-7">[7]</a></sup> It is claimed that this was largely because of her interest in human rights, and consequent suspicion that she was a communist or communist stooge.<sup id="cite_ref-8" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-8">[8]</a></sup></li></ul> <ul><li><b><a href="/wiki/Elvis_Presley" class="mw-redirect" title="Elvis Presley">Elvis Presley</a></b> was the subject of a 683-page file. However most of this concerned potential and actual crimes against Presley, such as death threats, major thefts, and fraud, as well as comments from members of the public who believed Elvis was a threat to public morals. It does not appear that the FBI considered Presley to be a significant threat to the nation.<sup id="cite_ref-9" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-9">[9]</a></sup></li></ul> <ul><li><b><a href="/wiki/John_Lennon" title="John Lennon">John Lennon</a></b> <i>was</i> considered a threat to the US government, and the INS attempted to have him deported in the early 1970s; Lennon's legal team managed to resist this. Lennon's FBI file is the subject of a book by Jon Wiener. Wiener reported that the FBI also attempted to have Lennon arrested for drug possession, which would have been grounds for deportation, although drug possession was not normally something the FBI would investigate. The FBI also mentioned in the files their desire to "neutralise" Lennon; this is taken by some people as indicating plans to assassinate Lennon but Wiener reckons it merely indicates a desire to get Lennon to shut up and cease his activism. Lennon sued the FBI to find out if they were wiretapping him, but they denied that any wire taps had been authorised (of course, some people take this to mean that there were unauthorised wiretaps against Lennon).<sup id="cite_ref-10" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-10">[10]</a></sup></li></ul> <ul><li><b><a href="/wiki/Martin_Luther_King" class="mw-redirect" title="Martin Luther King">Martin Luther King</a></b> was subject of a lengthy FBI file, including rumors of affairs, "drunken sex orgies", an illegitimate child, and secret communist sympathies; most was based off of hearsay and rumour.<sup id="cite_ref-11" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-11">[11]</a></sup></li></ul> <h2><span id="FBI_Records_Vault_("The_Vault")"></span><span class="mw-headline" id="FBI_Records_Vault_.28.22The_Vault.22.29">FBI Records Vault ("The Vault")</span><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation&action=edit&section=5" title="Edit section: FBI Records Vault ("The Vault")">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></h2> <p>See <a href="/wiki/CIA#Electronic_Reading_Room" title="CIA">CIA § Electronic Reading Room</a> for considerations about this and similar programs. </p> <h2><span class="mw-headline" id="The_FBI_in_popular_culture">The FBI in popular culture</span><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation&action=edit&section=6" title="Edit section: The FBI in popular culture">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></h2> <ul><li>The coolest and most unlikely FBI agents ever are named Cooper and Mulder.</li> <li>The FBI hired a mad scientist who almost destroyed the universe (and another) on several occasions.</li> <li>Feds are the mortal enemies of TV cops-which isn't saying much, as police dramas are apt to portray anyone who isn't a homicide detective as corrupt and/or incompetent. Federal agents lie somewhere between Internal Affairs and DEA on the evildoer scale.</li> <li>The FBI's only use for the local police in Reno is to send them for coffee. And they even did <i>that</i> badly.</li></ul> <h2><span class="mw-headline" id="See_also">See also</span><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation&action=edit&section=7" title="Edit section: See also">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></h2> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Conservapedia:FBI_Incident" title="Conservapedia:FBI Incident">Conservapedia:FBI Incident</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Law_enforcement" title="Law enforcement">Law enforcement</a></li></ul> <h2><span class="mw-headline" id="External_links">External links</span><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation&action=edit&section=8" title="Edit section: External links">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></h2> <ul><li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.fbi.govwayback.com/">The FBI website before Trump had it censored</a></li></ul> <h2><span class="mw-headline" id="References">References</span><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation&action=edit&section=9" title="Edit section: References">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></h2> <div class="references-small" style="-moz-column-count:2; -webkit-column-count:2; column-count:2; font-size:80%;"> <div class="mw-references-wrap mw-references-columns"><ol class="references"> <li id="cite_note-1"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><a href="#cite_ref-1">↑</a></span> <span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.fbi.gov/about/mission">Mission and Priorities</a>, United States Federal Bureau of Investigation.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-2"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><a href="#cite_ref-2">↑</a></span> <span class="reference-text">'<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.fbi.gov/history/history-publications-reports/the-birth-of-the-federal-bureau-of-investigation">The Birth of the Federal Bureau of Investigation</a>', John F. Fox, 2003.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-3"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><a href="#cite_ref-3">↑</a></span> <span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/article/50-years-after-the-famous-FBI-office-burglary-16001070.php">50 years after FBI office burglary, San Rafael man admits role</a> by Matthias Gafni (March 7, 2021) <i>The San Francisco Chronicle</i>.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-4"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><a href="#cite_ref-4">↑</a></span> <span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/65641-why-james-baldwin-s-fbi-file-was-1-884-pages.html">Why James Baldwin's FBI File Was 1,884 Pages</a>, Publishers Weekly, 2015</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-5"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><a href="#cite_ref-5">↑</a></span> <span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://vault.fbi.gov/james-baldwin">FBI Records: The Vault— James Arthur Baldwin</a>, fbi.gov.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-6"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><a href="#cite_ref-6">↑</a></span> <span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://theintercept.com/2015/08/15/fbi-spy-james-baldwin/">Why did the FBI spy on James Baldwin</a>, The Intercept</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-7"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><a href="#cite_ref-7">↑</a></span> <span class="reference-text">Blanche Cook, <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.paperlessarchives.com/eroose.html">quoted on PaperlessArchives.com</a></span> </li> <li id="cite_note-8"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><a href="#cite_ref-8">↑</a></span> <span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www2.gwu.edu/~erpapers/teachinger/q-and-a/q31.cfm">Question: Why is Eleanor Roosevelt's FBI file so large?</a>, Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project, George Washington University</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-9"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><a href="#cite_ref-9">↑</a></span> <span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://vault.fbi.gov/Elvis%20Presley%20/">FBI Records: The Vault— Elvis Presley</a>, fbi.gov.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-10"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><a href="#cite_ref-10">↑</a></span> <span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130401193">Uncovering the 'truth' behind Lennon's FBI files</a>, NPR</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-11"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><a href="#cite_ref-11">↑</a></span> <span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41871956">Explosive Martin Luther King document amid JFK files</a>, BBC, 4 November 2017.</span> </li> </ol></div></div>    </div></div><div class="printfooter">Retrieved from "<a dir="ltr" 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