Abuse of Power ?

The F.B.I (Federal Bureau of Investigation) serves as both a federal criminal investigative organization and an internal intelligence agency. It has many important purposes to the United States of America, such as, being a counterterrorism agency, a counterintelligence agency, a security service, and being responsible for investigating crimes on sovereign Native American reservations in the United States. The F.B.I was established in 1908 as the Bureau of Investigation, but was later changed to F.B.I in 1935. The J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, D.C. is the F.B.I headquarters. J. Edgar Hoover was F.B.I Director from 1924 to 1972. Hoover was involved in almost every major case at the agency during his tenure. 

During the 1920’s and early 1930’s, known as the “War on Crime”, the F.B.I focused on apprehending or even killing many notorious criminals. Some of these criminals were John Dillinger, “Baby Face” Nelson, and George “Machine Gun” Kelly. These acts greatly boosted the popularity of the F.B.I, and put the agency more in the scope of the people. In other words, they were now more closely watched by the average population. During the 1920’s, Hoover used wiretapping during Prohibition to arrest bootleggers (Civil Rights). This caused some controversy throughout the country, but ultimately, the Supreme Court ruled that F.B.I wiretaps did not violate the Fourth Amendment as unlawful search and seizure. 

During the 1940’s through the 1970’s, one of the Bureau’s concerns were cases of espionage against the United States. Because of the Venona Project, the F.B.I was able to confirm that there were Americans in the United States working as Soviet Intelligence. This became known as an obsession to Hoover, and led to many arrests of suspected Soviets, and many arrests within the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA). During the Civil Rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s the F.B.I believe that many leaders of this cause were influenced by these Communistic values as well. One of the most well known leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King Jr. was frequently investigated by the F.B.I. It is known that the F.B.I at one point sent him an anonymous letter encouraging him to commit suicide (King). This should never happen from any countries Federal Agencies.