Editing Federal Bureau of Investigation (section)

=== J. Edgar Hoover as FBI director ===
[[File:Hoover-JEdgar-LOC.jpg|thumb|J. Edgar Hoover, FBI director from 1924 to 1972]]

[[J. Edgar Hoover]] served as FBI director from 1924 to 1972, a combined 48 years with the BOI, DOI, and FBI. He was chiefly responsible for creating the Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory, or the [[FBI Laboratory]], which officially opened in 1932, as part of his work to professionalize investigations by the government. Hoover was substantially involved in most major cases and projects that the FBI handled during his tenure. But as detailed below, his tenure as Bureau director proved to be highly controversial, especially in its later years. After Hoover's death, Congress passed legislation that limited the tenure of future FBI directors to ten years.

Early homicide investigations of the new agency included the [[Osage Indian murders]]. During the "War on Crime" of the 1930s, FBI agents apprehended or killed a number of notorious criminals who committed kidnappings, bank robberies, and murders throughout the nation, including [[John Dillinger]], [[Baby Face Nelson|"Baby Face" Nelson]], [[Ma Barker|Kate "Ma" Barker]], [[Alvin Karpis|Alvin "Creepy" Karpis]], and [[Machine Gun Kelly (gangster)|George "Machine Gun" Kelly]].

Other activities of its early decades focused on the scope and influence of the [[white supremacist]] group [[Ku Klux Klan]], a group with which the FBI was evidenced to be working in the [[Viola Liuzzo]] lynching case. Earlier, through the work of [[Edwin Atherton]], the BOI claimed to have successfully apprehended an entire army of Mexican neo-revolutionaries under the leadership of General [[Enrique Estrada]] in the mid-1920s, east of San Diego, California.

Hoover began using [[Telephone tapping|wiretapping]] in the 1920s during [[Prohibition in the United States|Prohibition]] to arrest bootleggers.<ref name="hnn">{{cite news |title=Civil Rights: Let 'Em Wiretap! |last=Greenberg |first=David |author-link=David Greenberg (historian) |date=October 22, 2001 |publisher=History News Network |url=http://hnn.us/articles/366.html |access-date=February 15, 2011 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110301212237/http://hnn.us/articles/366.html |archive-date=March 1, 2011}}</ref> In the 1927 case ''[[Olmstead v. United States]]'', in which a bootlegger was caught through telephone tapping, the [[Supreme Court of the United States|United States Supreme Court]] ruled that FBI wiretaps did not violate the [[Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourth Amendment]] as unlawful search and seizure, as long as the FBI did not break into a person's home to complete the tapping.<ref name="hnn" /> After Prohibition's repeal, [[United States Congress|Congress]] passed the [[Communications Act of 1934]], which outlawed non-consensual phone tapping, but did allow bugging.<ref name="hnn" /> In the 1939 case ''Nardone v. United States'', the court ruled that due to the 1934 law, evidence the FBI obtained by phone tapping was inadmissible in court.<ref name="hnn" /> After ''[[Katz v. United States]]'' (1967) overturned ''Olmstead'', Congress passed the [[Omnibus Crime Control Act]], allowing public authorities to tap telephones during investigations, as long as they obtained warrants beforehand.<ref name="hnn" />

==== National security ====
Beginning in the 1940s and continuing into the 1970s, the bureau investigated cases of [[espionage]] against the United States and its allies. Eight [[Nazism|Nazi]] agents who had planned [[sabotage]] operations against American targets were arrested, and six were executed (''[[Ex parte Quirin]]'') under their sentences. Also during this time, a joint US/UK code-breaking effort called "The [[Venona project|Venona Project]]"—with which the FBI was heavily involved—broke Soviet diplomatic and intelligence communications codes, allowing the US and British governments to read Soviet communications. This effort confirmed the existence of Americans working in the United States for Soviet intelligence.<ref name="nsa">{{cite web |last=Benson |first=Robert L. |url=http://www.nsa.gov/publications/publi00039.cfm |title=The Venona Story |publisher=National Security Agency |access-date=June 18, 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060614231955/http://www.nsa.gov/publications/publi00039.cfm<!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archive-date=June 14, 2006}}</ref> Hoover was administering this project, but he failed to notify the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] (CIA) of it until 1952. Another notable case was the arrest of Soviet spy [[Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher|Rudolf Abel]] in 1957.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Romerstein |first1=Herbert |last2=Breindel |first2=Eric |title=The Venona Secrets, Exposing Soviet Espionage and America's Traitors |publisher=Regnery Publishing, Inc. |year=2001 |isbn=0-89526-225-8 |page=209}}</ref> The discovery of Soviet spies operating in the US motivated Hoover to pursue his longstanding concern with the threat he perceived from the [[American Left]].

==== Japanese American internment ====
In 1939, the Bureau began compiling a [[FBI Index#Custodial Detention Index|custodial detention list]] with the names of those who would be taken into custody in the event of war with Axis nations. The majority of the names on the list belonged to [[Issei]] community leaders, as the FBI investigation built on an existing [[Office of Naval Intelligence|Naval Intelligence]] index that had focused on [[Japanese American]]s in Hawaii and the West Coast, but many [[Internment of German Americans|German]] and [[Internment of Italian Americans|Italian]] nationals also found their way onto the [[FBI Index]] list.<ref>{{cite web |last=Kashima |first=Tetsuden |url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Custodial_detention_/_A-B-C_list/ |title=Custodial detention / A-B-C list |publisher=Densho Encyclopedia |access-date=August 21, 2014 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141020034626/http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Custodial_detention_/_A-B-C_list/ |archive-date=October 20, 2014}}</ref> Robert Shivers, head of the Honolulu office, obtained permission from Hoover to start detaining those on the list on December 7, 1941, while bombs were still falling over [[Attack on Pearl Harbor|Pearl Harbor]].<ref name=Niiya-FBI>{{cite web |last=Niiya |first=Brian |url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Federal%20Bureau%20of%20Investigation/ |title=Federal Bureau of Investigation |publisher=Densho Encyclopledia |access-date=August 21, 2014 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141020035117/http://encyclopedia.densho.org/Federal%20Bureau%20of%20Investigation/ |archive-date=October 20, 2014}}</ref>{{Better source needed|date=May 2019}} Mass arrests and searches of homes, in most cases conducted without warrants, began a few hours after the attack, and over the next several weeks more than 5,500 Issei men were taken into FBI custody.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/history/ |title=About the Incarceration |publisher=Densho Encyclopedia |access-date=August 21, 2014 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140813044546/http://encyclopedia.densho.org/history/ |archive-date=August 13, 2014}}</ref> 

On February 19, 1942, President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt|Franklin Roosevelt]] issued [[Executive Order 9066]], authorizing the removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast. FBI Director Hoover opposed the subsequent mass removal and confinement of Japanese Americans authorized under Executive Order 9066, but Roosevelt prevailed.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://encyclopedia.densho.org/J._Edgar_Hoover/ |website=Densho Encyclopedia |title=J. Edgar Hoover |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141106032500/http://encyclopedia.densho.org/J._Edgar_Hoover/ |archive-date=November 6, 2014}}</ref> The vast majority went along with the subsequent exclusion orders, but in a handful of cases where Japanese Americans refused to obey the new military regulations, FBI agents handled their arrests.<ref name=Niiya-FBI /> The Bureau continued surveillance on Japanese Americans throughout the war, conducting background checks on applicants for resettlement outside camp, and entering the camps, usually without the permission of [[War Relocation Authority]] officials, and grooming informants to monitor dissidents and "troublemakers". After the war, the FBI was assigned to protect returning Japanese Americans from attacks by hostile white communities.<ref name=Niiya-FBI />

==== Sex deviates program ====
According to Douglas M. Charles, the FBI's "sex deviates" program began on April 10, 1950, when J. Edgar Hoover forwarded to the White House, to the U.S. Civil Service Commission, and to branches of the armed services a list of 393 alleged federal employees who had allegedly been arrested in Washington, D.C., since 1947, on charges of "sexual irregularities". On June 20, 1951, Hoover expanded the program by issuing a memo establishing a "uniform policy for the handling of the increasing number of reports and allegations concerning present and past employees of the United States Government who assertedly [sic] are sex deviates". The program was expanded to include non-government jobs. According to [[Athan Theoharis]], "In 1951 he [Hoover] had unilaterally instituted a Sex Deviates program to purge alleged homosexuals from any position in the federal government, from the lowliest clerk to the more powerful position of White house aide." On May 27, 1953, [[Executive Order 10450]] went into effect. The program was expanded further by this executive order by making all federal employment of homosexuals illegal. On July 8, 1953, the FBI forwarded to the U.S. Civil Service Commission information from the sex deviates program. Between 1977 and 1978, 300,000 pages in the sex deviates program, collected between 1930 and the mid-1970s, were destroyed by FBI officials.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/fbi-history/1950-1959 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171204172602/http://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/fbi-history/1950-1959 |title=FBI and Homosexuality: 1950–1959  |archive-date=December 4, 2017 |website=OutHistory}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/fbi-history/1970-1979 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180605032719/http://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/fbi-history/1970-1979 |title=FBI and Homosexuality: 1970–1979  |archive-date=June 5, 2018 |website=OutHistory}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/fbi-history/2010-2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171204171135/http://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/fbi-history/2010-2019 |title=FBI and Homosexuality: 2010–2019  |archive-date=December 4, 2017 |website=OutHistory}}</ref>

==== Civil rights movement ====
During the 1950s and 1960s, FBI officials became increasingly concerned about the influence of civil rights leaders, whom they believed either had communist ties or were unduly influenced by communists or "[[fellow traveler]]s". In 1956, for example, Hoover sent an open letter denouncing Dr. [[T. R. M. Howard]], a civil rights leader, surgeon, and wealthy entrepreneur in Mississippi who had criticized FBI inaction in solving recent murders of [[George W. Lee]], [[Emmett Till]], and other blacks in the South.<ref>David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito, ''Black Maverick: T.R.M. Howard's Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power'' (Urbana: [[University of Illinois Press]], 2009), 148, 154–59.</ref> The FBI carried out controversial [[surveillance|domestic surveillance]] in an operation it called the [[COINTELPRO]], from "COunter-INTELligence PROgram".<ref name="coinpro">{{cite web |url=http://www.monitor.net/monitor/9905a/jbcointelpro.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20000118104808/http://www.monitor.net/monitor/9905a/jbcointelpro.html |archive-date=January 18, 2000 |title=A Short History of FBI COINTELPRO |publisher=Monitor.net |access-date=June 6, 2006 |last=Cassidy |first=Mike M. |date=May 26, 1999}}</ref> It was to investigate and disrupt the activities of dissident political organizations within the United States, including both militant and non-violent organizations. Among its targets was the [[Southern Christian Leadership Conference]], a leading civil rights organization whose clergy leadership included the Rev. Dr. [[Martin Luther King Jr.]].<ref name="latimes">{{cite news |url=http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0308-27.htm |title=A Break-In to End All Break-Ins |newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]] |access-date=June 6, 2006 |last=Jalon |first=Allan M. |date=April 8, 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060620040020/http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0308-27.htm |archive-date=June 20, 2006}}</ref>

[[File:Mlk-uncovered-letter.png|thumb|The "[[FBI–King suicide letter|suicide letter]]",<ref name="suicide letter">{{cite news |last=Gage |first=Beverly |date=November 11, 2014 |title=What an Uncensored Letter to M.L.K. Reveals |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/magazine/what-an-uncensored-letter-to-mlk-reveals.html |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=January 9, 2015 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150107190622/http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/magazine/what-an-uncensored-letter-to-mlk-reveals.html |archive-date=January 7, 2015}}</ref> mailed anonymously to King by the FBI ]]
The FBI frequently investigated King. In the mid-1960s, King began to criticize the Bureau for giving insufficient attention to the use of terrorism by white supremacists. Hoover responded by publicly calling King the most "notorious liar" in the United States.<ref>Taylor Branch, Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963–1965 (Simon and Schuster, 1999), p. 524–529</ref> In his 1991 memoir, ''[[The Washington Post|Washington Post]]'' journalist [[Carl Rowan]] asserted that the FBI had sent at least one anonymous letter to King encouraging him to commit suicide.<ref name="washingtonpost">{{cite news |url=http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030502.html |title=Was Martin Luther King, Jr. a plagiarist? |newspaper=The Washington Post |access-date=June 6, 2006 |author-link=Cecil Adams |last=Adams |first=Cecil M. |date=May 2, 2003 |url-status=live |archive-url=http://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/20110718163413/http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030502.html |archive-date=July 18, 2011}}</ref> Historian [[Taylor Branch]] documents an anonymous November 1964 "suicide package" sent by the Bureau that combined a letter to the civil rights leader telling him "You are done. There is only one way out for you." with audio recordings of King's sexual indiscretions.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CUI6tY9RJUYC |title=Taylor Branch, Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963–1965 (Simon and Schuster, 1999) p. 527-529 |isbn=978-1-4165-5870-5 |last1=Branch |first1=Taylor |date=April 16, 2007|publisher=Simon and Schuster }}</ref>

In March 1971, the residential office of an FBI agent in [[Media, Pennsylvania]], was burgled by a group calling itself the [[Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI]]. Numerous files were taken and distributed to a range of newspapers, including ''[[The Harvard Crimson]]''.<ref name="'70s 2">{{cite book |title=How We Got Here: The '70s |last=Frum |first=David |author-link= David Frum |year=2000 |publisher=Basic Books |location=New York, New York |isbn=0-465-04195-7 |page=[https://archive.org/details/howwegothere70sd00frum/page/40 40] |url=https://archive.org/details/howwegothere70sd00frum/page/40}}</ref> The files detailed the FBI's extensive [[COINTELPRO]] program, which included investigations into lives of ordinary citizens—including a black student group at a Pennsylvania military college and the daughter of Congressman [[Henry S. Reuss]] of [[Wisconsin]].<ref name="'70s 2" /> The country was "jolted" by the revelations, which included assassinations of political activists, and the actions were denounced by members of the Congress, including House Majority Leader [[Hale Boggs]].<ref name="'70s 2" /> The phones of some members of the Congress, including Boggs, had allegedly been tapped.<ref name="'70s 2" />

==== Kennedy's assassination ====
When President [[John F. Kennedy]] was shot and killed, the jurisdiction fell to the local police departments until President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] directed the FBI to take over the investigation.<ref name="history_postwar">{{cite web |url=https://www.fbi.gov/libref/historic/history/postwar.htm |title=Postwar America: 1945–1960s |publisher=Federal Bureau of Investigation |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150106195659/http://www2.fbi.gov/libref/historic/history/postwar.htm |archive-date=January 6, 2015}}</ref> To ensure clarity about the responsibility for investigation of homicides of federal officials, Congress passed a law in 1965 that included investigations of such deaths of federal officials, especially by homicide, within FBI jurisdiction.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/14/us/jfk-assassination-5-things/ |title=5 things you might not know about JFK's assassination |publisher=CNN |date=March 31, 2014 |first1=Tricia |last1=Escobedo |access-date=November 11, 2015 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151116120144/http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/14/us/jfk-assassination-5-things |archive-date=November 16, 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Public Law 89-141 – Chapter 84.– PRESIDENTIAL ASSASSINATION, KIDNAPPING, AND ASSAULT |url=http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-79/pdf/STATUTE-79-Pg580.pdf |access-date=September 20, 2017 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170922155440/https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-79/pdf/STATUTE-79-Pg580.pdf |archive-date=September 22, 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/part-I/chapter-84 |title=18 U.S. Code Chapter 84 – PRESIDENTIAL AND PRESIDENTIAL STAFF ASSASSINATION, KIDNAPPING, AND ASSAULT |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303031714/https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/part-I/chapter-84 |archive-date=March 3, 2016}}</ref>