Founded in 1908 by 10 ex-Secret Service employees, the FBI has become one of the most renowned intelligence agencies across the world. Their mission is to protect the United States from domestic criminals, with specialized bureaus working on separate aspects of the crime spectrum. Since its inception, the FBI has been of great service to protecting the safety of America, especially demonstrated through their fight against terrorism, public corruption and their support for the growth of counterintelligence.
After 9/11, the FBI held terrorism as the foremost of their priorities for the coming years. The organization has devoted billions of dollars and a significant amount of time in preventing even the possibility of a terror attack in the future. In terms of jurisdiction, the FBI holds jurisdiction over anything that happens on federal soil, meaning that they mainly deal with domestic terrorism, but help international groups such as the CIA and Interpol with foreign terrorist organizations as well. According to the FBI’s website, the term ‘domestic terrorism’ is defined as violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups to further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial or environmental nature (“Terrorism” 3, 2016). In simple terms, domestic terrorism amounts to violent acts of crime meant to envoke fear in the people being targeted. The FBI has been comitted to remaining agile in its approach to the terrorism threat, stating that “the threat landscape has expanded considerably” with “international terrorism remaining a serious threat” (“Terrorism” 5, 2016). They have determined that many factors have contributed to the evolution of the terrorism threat on both the international and domestic fronts, such as lone offenders, individuals that often radicalize online and mobilize to violence quickly, and the internet and social media, through which violent extremists have developed an extensive presence on the Internet through messaging platforms and online images, videos and publications (“Terrorism” 6-7, 2016). In short, after 9/11, terrorism has moved to the Internet, taking to online platforms to spread terror on a massive scale never achievable before. This has resulted in more lone offenders, making it hard to pin down terror organizations. A prominent example of domestic terrorism that the FBI worked to prevent was the disruption of a plot to attack military and Jewish targets in Los Angeles, California during July of 2005 (“Terrorism 2002/2005” 19, 2010). They identified that the bombings were an action conducted by a Muslim covert organization, Jam’iyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh (“Authentic Assembly of Islam”, 2016) and the three men directly responsible for the attack were sentenced in court a few months later (“Terrorism 2002/2005” 19, 2010). By catching the men who were in charge of this mission, the Bureau was able to take down the covert organization as well, stopping future acts of terrorism organized by them from happening again.
Another sector of crime in which the FBI specializes in is public corruption. Corruption has led many people to lose faith in the government, and more importantly the people who are representing them. The FBI works to eliminate corruption on a public scale and directly impacts those who are often the victims of the actions being taken by corrupt officials, more often than not, the working class. According to the FBI’s Public Corruption website, it can affect everything from how well the borders are secured to how verdicts are handed down in court with estimates stating that public corruption costs the U.S. government and the public billions of dollars each year (“Public Corruption” 1, 2016). The Bureau’s Public Corruption program focuses on “investigating violations of federal law by public officials” at all levels as well as “overseeing the nationwide investigation of allegations of fraud related to the federal government” through “addressing environmental crime, election fraud and other matters (“Public Corruption” 2, 2016). In 2008, the International Corruption Unit was instituted to oversee the increasing number of investigations involving global fraud against the U.S. government (“Public Corruption” 3, 2016). The success that the FBI has achieved in combating corruption has been higher than that of any other law enforcement agency, largely in part to the “cooperation and coordination from a number of federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies to combat public corruption” (“Public Corruption” 5, 2016). By working directly with local police, it allowed for them to provide significant information regarding insider information that would help to crack down on corrupt individuals. One of the most famous public corruption cases that the FBI helped to tackle was Operation Illwind, which refers to a major multi-agency investigation into defense procurement fraud in June of 1988 (“Operation Illwind” 1, 2016). In the case, some Defense Department employees had taken bribes from businesses in exchange for “inside information on procurement bids which helped some of the nation’s largest military contractors win lucrative weapons system deals” (“Operation Illwind” 2, 2016). In order to crack the case, they worked with the Naval Investigative Service (NIS), Defense Criminal Intelligence Service, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations and the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Division to conduct searches on the offices of defense contractors, consultants, and government officials, all of which yielded a mountain evidence (“Operation Illwind” 7, 2016). The scandal shocked the nation so much that the Procurement Integrity Act (revised 1996) added new rules governing federal procurement were put into place (“Operation Illwind” 9, 2016). It was also a groundbreaking case for the Bureau, especially in its usage of authorized electronic surveillance to crack down on white-collar crime, being known as the largest and most successful investigation of public corruption in U.S. history.
Counterintelligence is another area in which the FBI has experience handling cases. Tying into the FBI agency as a whole, support for the growth of counterintelligence is the main method of protection of their intelligence program from an opposing intelligence source. Such counterintelligence goes hand in hand with cybersecurity, a rampant issue in the day and age of the internet. The FBI has been responsible for “identifying and neutralizing ongoing national security threats from foreign intelligence services” and is the lead agency for “exposing, preventing, and investigating intelligence activities on U.S. soil, and the Counterintelligence Division uses its full suite of investigative and intelligence capabilities to combat counterintelligence threats” (“Counterintelligence”, 2016). The overall goals of the Counterintelligence Division is to “protect the secrets of the U.S. Intelligence Community,… nation’s critical assets,… counter the activities of foreign spies,” and “keep weapons of mass destruction from falling into the wrong hands” (“Counterintelligence” 4, 2016). Economic espionage, in particular, is a problem that costs the American economy hundreds of billions of dollars per year and puts national security at risk. By definition, it “knowingly benefits any foreign government, foreign instrumentality, or foreign agent” and has historically targeted defense-related and high-tech industries (“Counterintelligence”, 2016). A famous example of a counterintelligence case is Aldrich Ames, who was arrested by the FBI in Arlington, Virginia on espionage charges on February 21, 1994 (“Aldrich Ames” 1, 2016). He was a veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who had been spying for the Russians since 1985, along with his wife Rosario Ames (“Aldrich Ames” 2, 2016). In this particular case, the CIA and the FBI worked together and learned that Russian officials who had been recruited by them were being arrested and executed, prompting the FBI to open an investigation (“Aldrich Ames ” 4, 2016). FBI special agents conducted intensive physical and electronic surveillance of Ames during a 10-month investigation, and followed his contacts through as well, eventually ending in his arrest in February 1984 (“Aldrich Ames” 6, 2016). With the FBI agents’ persistence, they were able to catch many people who were selling the United States’ secrets to foreign countries, and saved the country from potentially devastating consequences.
In conclusion, the FBI has made major contributions to the preservation of the safety of America, especially through its fight against terrorism, public corruption and commitment to counterintelligence. Through their hard work, the agents working for the FBI have helped to save many lives and protect others from the potential looming threats.
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Written by: Shreya Bhardwaj
Date Published: 03/22/2021
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Sources:
“Terrorism.” FBI, FBI, 3 May 2016, www.fbi.gov/investigate/terrorism.
“Terrorism 2002/2005.” FBI, FBI, 21 May 2010, www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/terrorism-2002-2005.
“Public Corruption.” FBI, FBI, 3 May 2016, www.fbi.gov/investigate/public-corruption.
“Operation Illwind.” FBI, FBI, 18 May 2016, www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/operation-illwind.
“Counterintelligence.” FBI, FBI, 3 May 2016, www.fbi.gov/investigate/counterintelligence.
“Aldrich Ames.” FBI, FBI, 18 May 2016, www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/aldrich-ames.
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