Federal Bureau of Investigation (nonfiction)
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States, and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, the FBI is also a member of the U.S. Intelligence Community and reports to both the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence. A leading U.S. counter-terrorism, counterintelligence, and criminal investigative organization, the FBI has jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crimes.
Although many of the FBI's functions are unique, its activities in support of national security are comparable to those of the British MI5 and the Russian FSB. Unlike the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which has no law enforcement authority and is focused on intelligence collection abroad, the FBI is primarily a domestic agency, maintaining 56 field offices in major cities throughout the United States, and more than 400 resident agencies in smaller cities and areas across the nation. At an FBI field office, a senior-level FBI officer concurrently serves as the representative of the Director of National Intelligence.
Despite its domestic focus, the FBI also maintains a significant international footprint, operating 60 Legal Attache (LEGAT) offices and 15 sub-offices in U.S. embassies and consulates across the globe. These foreign offices exist primarily for the purpose of coordination with foreign security services and do not usually conduct unilateral operations in the host countries. The FBI can and does at times carry out secret activities overseas, just as the CIA has a limited domestic function; these activities generally require coordination across government agencies.
The FBI was established in 1908 as the Bureau of Investigation, the BOI or BI for short. Its name was changed to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 1935. The FBI headquarters is the J. Edgar Hoover Building, located in Washington, D.C.
In the News
Fiction cross-reference
Nonfiction cross-reference
- COINTELPRO (nonfiction) - A series of covert, and at times illegal, projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations.
- DETCOM Program (nonfiction) - The DETCOM Program (also "Det-Com," "Detcom"), along with the COMSAB (or "COMmunist SABotage"[1]) Program formed part of the "Emergency Detention Program" (1946–1950) of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). As FBI historian Athan Theoharis described in 1978, "The FBI compiled other lists in addition to the Security Index. These include a "Comsab program" (concentrating on Communists with a potential for sabotage), and "Detcom program" (a "priority" list of individuals to be arrested), and a Communist Index (individuals about whom investigation did not "reflect sufficient disloyal information" but whom the bureau deemed to be 'of interest ... '.")
- Athan Theoharis (nonfiction) - American historian, professor of history emeritus at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. As well as his extensive teaching career, he is noteworthy as an expert on the Federal Bureau of Investigation, J. Edgar Hoover, and U.S. intelligence agencies, having written and edited a large number of books on these and related subjects.
External links:
- Federal Bureau of Investigation @ Wikipedia