The Federal Bureau Of Investigation(FBI) work under the jurisdiction of the United States Department Of Justice. The FBI is the principal federal law enforcement agency of the United States Of America and is also a counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and criminal investigative organization. The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is the head of the FBI. The FBI headquarters is the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, D.C. The mission of the FBI is: Protect the American people and uphold the Constitution of the United States. Two of the top priorities of the FBI are to combat significant violent crime, and to protect civil rights. The FBI operates Legal Attache (LEGAT) offices in U.S. embassies and consulates around the world. The FBI was started in 1908 but at that time the organization was known as the Bureau Of Investigation. The bureau did not change it’s name to Federal Bureau Of Investigation until 1935.
J. Edgar Hoover who had a combined 48 years with the BOI and FBI served as the director of the FBI from 1924 to 1972. Hoover was primarily responsible for creating the Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory, or the FBI Laboratory, which officially opened in 1932. During the 1930s the FBI apprehended or killed many notorious criminals, including Kate “Ma” Barker.
Kate Barker was the mother of several American criminals who ran the Barker–Karpis Gang from 1931 to 1935. Barker’s hideout was discovered by the FBI on January 8, 1935; she was killed in a shootout with federal agents one week later.
The FBI investigated espionage against the United State and its allies from the 1940s to the 1970s. During this time eight nazi agents were arrested and six of these agents were executed. On August 25, 1953 the FBI created the Top Hoodlum Program; the program was initiated to collect information on mobsters in their territories and report it back to Washington for a centralized collection of intelligence on racketeers.
When President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963 local police departments handled the investigation until Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson ordered the FBI to take over the investigation.
The FBI formed an elite unit in 1982. The mission of this unit was to assist with security at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, California. The inspiration for this unit came from the Munich Massacre which occurred at the 1972 Olympic games in Munich, West Germany. The Munich Massacre was when a Palestinian terrorist group known as Black September, stormed into the Olympic Village and killed two Israeli athletes, and took nine others hostage.
In the 90s the FBI increased its role in counterterrorism because of incidents such as the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and the Oklahoma CIty bombing in 1995.
The FBI formed the National Domestic Communications Assistance Center (NDCAC) in 2012. The role of the NDCAC is to assist federal, state, and local law enforcement with technical knowledge regarding communication services, technologies, and electronic surveillance.
The FBI has been serving the citizens of the United States since the early 1900s and will continue to protect the American people in the years to come.
