Federal Bureau of Investigation ::: Project ETERNITY

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is a Federal police force which is the principal investigative arm of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). Title 28, United States Code (U.S. Code), Section 533, which authorizes the Attorney General to "appoint officials to detect... crimes against the United States," and other federal statutes give the FBI the authority and responsibility to investigate specific crimes. At present, the FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crimes and thus has the broadest investigative authority of any federal law enforcement agency. The FBI Top Ten Most Wanted Fugitives has been used since 1949 to notify the public of wanted fugitives.

Mission

The mission of the FBI is to uphold the law through the investigation of violations of federal criminal law; to protect the United States from foreign intelligence and terrorist activities; to provide leadership and law enforcement assistance to federal, state, local, and international agencies; and to perform these responsibilities in a manner that is responsive to the needs of the public and is faithful to the United States Constitution.

Information obtained through an FBI investigation is presented to the appropriate U. S. Attorney or DOJ official, who decides if prosecution, or other action, is warranted. Top priority has been assigned to the five areas that affect society the most: counterterrorism, drugs/organized crime, foreign counterintelligence, violent crimes, and white-collar crimes.

The FBI has had a mixed history, both in upholding the law, and sometimes in breaking it. The force of Special Agents has grown over the years, and now exceeds 11,000 out of a total workforce of 17,000. Many of these Special Agents are stationed in foreign countries, and work in US Embassies as "Legal Attaches", or as they are know in the FBI: LEGATS. Both new and veteran agents are routinely trained at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. The FBI also maintains a force of 1,000 uniformed Security police officers in the FBI Police for protecting the J Edgar Hoover Building, FBI Academy at MCB Quantico and the New York Field Office.

The Strategic Information and Operation Center is the FBI command center.

Present mission of the FBI

As of June 2002, the FBI's official top priority is counter-terrorism. The USA PATRIOT Act granted the FBI increased powers, especially in wiretapping and monitoring of internet activity. One of the most controversial provisions of the act is the so-called "sneak and peek" provision, granting the FBI powers to search a house while the residents are away, and not requiring them to notify the residents for several weeks afterwards. Under the PATRIOT Act's provisions the FBI also resumed inquiring into the library records of those it suspected of terrorism, something it had supposedly not done since the 1970s. The bureau is also charged with the responsibility of enforcing compliance of the United States Civil Rights Act of 1964 and investigating violations of The Act in addition to prosecuting such violations with the United States Department of Justice, (DOJ). The FBI also shares concurrent jurisdiction with the DEA in the enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act of 1970.

FBI Top 10 Most Wanted Fugitives

The FBI maintains a public list of the people it regards as the ten most wanted fugitives. The list itself has no particular ranking. It is commonly posted in public places such as post offices, making it effective in expediting the capture of those listed. Listed fugitives have been known to turn themselves in upon becoming aware of their listing. As of October 29, 2004, 479 fugitives have been listed, and 450 captured, 147 of them due to public assistance.

The current most wanted fugitives include (after #1, these fugitives are listed in no particular order):

1. Usama Bin Laden

Usama Bin Laden (a.k.a. Osama Bin Laden) is the leader of Al-Qaeda, is wanted in connection with the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks upon the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and United Airlines Flight 93 that went down near Shanksville, Pennsylvania that killed nearly 3000.

Osama is also wanted in connection with the August 7, 1998 bombings of the United States embassies in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi,Kenya. These attacks killed over 200 people. Osama and Al-Qaeda are also responsible for the October 12, 2000 attack on the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen, which killed 17. He is a suspect in many more terrorist attacks throughout the world.

2. Genero Espinosa Dorantes

Genero Espinosa Dorantes is wanted for his alleged participation in the burning, beating, torture, and murder of his four-year old stepson in Nashville, Tennessee, in February 2003.

3. Victor Manuel Genera

Victor Manuel Genera is wanted in connection with the armed robbery of approximately $7 million from a security company in Connecticut in 1983. He allegedly took two security employees hostage at gunpoint and then handcuffed, bound and injected them with an unknown substance in order to further disable them.

4. Richard Steve Goldberg

Richard Steve Goldberg is wanted for allegedly engaging in sexual activities with several female children under the age of ten in Long Beach, California, from January through May of 2001.

5. James J. Bulger

James J. Bulger is wanted for his role in numerous murders (18 counts) committed from the early 1970s through the mid-1980s in connection with his leadership of an organized crime group that allegedly controlled extortion, drug deals, and other illegal activities in the Boston, Massachusetts area. He has a violent temper and is known to carry a knife at all times.

6. Glen Stewart Godwin

Glen Stewart Godwin is being sought for his 1987 escape from Folsom State Prison in California, where he was serving a lengthy sentence for murder. Later in 1987, Godwin was arrested for drug trafficking in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. After being convicted, he was sent to a prison in Guadalajara. In April 1991, Godwin allegedly murdered a fellow inmate and then escaped five months later.

7. Diego Leon Montoya Sanchez

Diego Leon Montoya Sanchez is being sought in connection with the manufacture and distribution of multiple tons of cocaine, knowing or intending that it will be imported into the United States. Montoya is reputedly one of the principal leaders of the Colombian North Valley Drug Cartel. The North Valley Cartel is believed to be the most powerful and violent drug trafficking organization in Colombia. The cartel reportedly relies heavily for protection on illegal armed groups, taking help from right-wing paramilitaries as well as leftist rebels.

8. Robert William Fisher

Robert William Fisher is wanted for allegedly killing his wife and two young children and then blowing up the house in which they all lived in Scottsdale, Arizona in April of 2001.

9. Donald Eugene Webb

Donald Eugene Webb is wanted in connection with the murder on December 4, 1980, of the police chief in Saxonburg, Pennsylvania who was shot twice at close range after being brutally beaten about the head and face with a blunt instrument.

10. Michael Alfonso

Captured

History of the FBI

The FBI originated from a force of Special Agents created on July 26, 1908 by Attorney General Charles Joseph Bonaparte during the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. At first it was named the Bureau of Investigation (BOI) and it did not become the FBI until 1935.

Under J. Edgar Hoover, who became director of the Bureau on May 10, 1924, the agency spent much of its energy on investigating political activists who were not accused of any crime (eg, Albert Einstein as a socialist). When Franklin Delano Roosevelt was president, Hoover had to be reminded that liberalism not only was not a crime, but was the politics of the incumbent president and his administration.

The FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory (better known as the FBI Crime Lab) officially opened on November 24, 1932.

Hoover's investigation of Martin Luther King was also notorious--the FBI found no evidence of any crime, but attempted to use tapes of King involved in sexual activity for blackmail.

In the 1990s, it turned out that the FBI's crime lab had repeatedly done shoddy work. In some cases, the technicians, given evidence that actually cleared a suspect, reported instead that it proved the suspect guilty. Many cases had to be reopened when this pattern of errors was discovered.

Bureau of Investigation (BOI) Directors (1908–1935)

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Directors (1936 present)

On July 1, 1932, the Bureau was renamed the United States Bureau of Investigation. One year later, on July 1, 1933 it was linked with the Bureau of Prohibition and became known as the Division of Investigation. Finally, in 1935, the bureau was renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). After J. Edgar Hoover's death, the FBI imposed a policy limiting the tenure of future FBI directors to a maximum of ten years.

The FBI Directors from this period on are:

Publications of the FBI

Literature

See also

External links

Category:U.S. Dept. of Justice

Category:U.S. intelligence agencies

Category:United States Federal law enforcement agencies

Copyrights