The FBI Under Fire
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T H E CQResearcherPUBLISHED BY CONGRESSIONAL QUARTERLY INC. The FBI Under Fire How serious are the bureau’s recent problems? or decades, the FBI has ruffled feathers as it sought to balance tough law enforcement with sensitivity toward civil liberties. But today’s bureau operates in a climate vastly altered from Fthe days when agents in J. Edgar Hoover’s virtually unchecked empire could burglarize homes and keep files on political opponents. With stepped-up scrutiny from I N Congress and the press, the modern FBI under Louis THIS ISSUE S Freeh has demonstrated new willingness to admit its THE ISSUES ........................... 315 I BACKGROUND ..................... 322 mistakes. Currently, the bureau is under fire for, among D CHRONOLOGY ..................... 323 other things, alleged misconduct in its famous forensics E CURRENT SITUATION ........... 327 lab and possible political favoritism toward the White AT ISSUE ................................ 329 House. The FBI’s defenders, nonetheless, say the agency’s OUTLOOK............................. 330 record-high budgets are needed more than ever to fight BIBLIOGRAPHY .................... 332 high-tech criminals in globalized drug-running, terrorism, THE NEXT STEP .................... 333 espionage and organized crime. CQ April 11, 1997 • Volume 7, No. 14 • Pages 313-336 Formerly Editorial Research Reports THE FBI UNDER FIRE T H E THE ISSUES OUTLOOK CQ Researcher April 11, 1997 • Does the FBI lab need FBI Ethics Volume 7, No. 13 315 major reforms? 330 FBI Director Louis J. • Can the FBI be trusted Freeh has added new EDITOR with expanded powers? ethics courses to FBI Sandra Stencel training and expanded MANAGING EDITOR the Office of Professional Thomas J. Colin BACKGROUND Responsibility ASSOCIATE EDITORS Flawed First Steps Sarah M. Magner 322 The bureau’s free-wheel- 330 Global Reach Richard L. Worsnop ing early years confirmed Efforts by Freeh to the fears of critics who become more active STAFF WRITERS overseas have raised Charles S. Clark thought it would degener- Mary H. Cooper ate into a secret police concerns, even as some Kenneth Jost operation. observers are speculating David Masci that Freeh may step down. EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Making Enemies Vanessa E. Furlong 324 Local law enforcement often viewed the FBI as SIDEBARS AND PUBLISHED BY stingy about sharing GRAPHICS Congressional Quarterly Inc. information and too eager to horn in on their cases. Love-Hate Relations With CHAIRMAN 318 Hollywood Andrew Barnes Hoover’s Secrets The FBI doesn’t always like VICE CHAIRMAN 325 Critics revealed that its pop-culture image. Andrew P. Corty Hoover kept secret files FBI Tours End With a PRESIDENT AND PUBLISHER on celebrities and politi- 320 Robert W. Merry cians and spied on anti- Bang Tours include a peek into Vietnam War protesters. EXECUTIVE EDITOR the lab, and more. David Rapp Post-Hoover Era Chronology 326 After Hoover’s death in 323 Key events since 1908. 1972, the bureau updated Copyright 1997 Congressional Quarterly Inc., All Rights Reserved. CQ does not convey any license, its methods, maintained At Issue right, title or interest in any information — includ- political neutrality and 329 Is the FBI lab too secretive? ing information provided to CQ from third parties — transmitted via any CQ publication or electronic tackled global crime transmission unless previously specified in writing. problems. FOR MORE No part of any CQ publication or transmission may be republished, reproduced, transmitted, down- INFORMATION loaded or distributed by any means whether elec- CURRENT SITUATION tronic or mechanical without prior written permis- Bibliography sion of CQ. Unauthorized reproduction or trans- 332 mission of CQ copyrighted material is a violation Political Independence? Selected sources used. of federal law carrying civil fines of up to $100,000 327 For two years, Republicans and serious criminal sanctions or imprisonment. have been blasting the FBI The Next Step 333 Additional articles from Bibliographic records and abstracts included in for being too cozy with the The Next Step section of this publication are the current periodicals. copyrighted material of UMI, and are used with White House. permission. Freedom of The CQ Researcher (ISSN 1056-2036). Formerly 328 Editorial Research Reports. Published weekly Information (48 times per year, not printed Jan. 3, May 30, Last summer’s ‘‘Filegate’’ Aug. 29, Oct. 31) by Congressional Quarterly controversy produced a Inc., 1414 22nd St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20037. Annual subscription rate for libraries, surge in requests for FBI businesses and government is $340. Additional files under the Freedom rates furnished upon request. Periodicals post- age paid at Washington, D.C., and additional of Information Act. mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The CQ Researcher, 1414 22nd St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20037. COVER: FBI DIRECTOR LOUIS J. FREEH (REUTERS) 314 CQ Researcher The FBI Under Fire BY CHARLES S. CLARK cumstances. THE ISSUES Freeh also reminds his inquisitors of the FBI’s recent successes — the arrests of suspect Timothy McVeigh whole generation of people in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, like me grew up believing the of Unabomber suspect Ted Kaczynski, ‘‘A FBI could do no wrong,’’ Sen. of CIA spy Aldrich Ames and of the Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, declared Muslim terrorists who bombed the in an impassioned speech on the Sen- World Trade Center in 1993. And there ate floor recently. ‘‘Now, that confi- was last year’s arrest of the Mountain- dence, that trust, has been shaken.’’ 1 eer Militia, which was planning to The conservative lawmaker’s wrath blow up the FBI’s fingerprint analysis was triggered by the steady drumbeat facility in West Virginia. 3 of allegations last winter of corruption But the FBI still takes heat for and mismanagement in the FBI’s world- unsolved cases, such as the still famous forensics laboratory. Each year mysterious crash last summer of TWA the 65-year-old lab helps police depart- Flight 800 into Long Island Sound ments and prosecutors from around the and the terrorist bombing of the U.S. country to analyze more than a half- donations (see p. 327). Air Force barracks in Saudi Arabia. million pieces of evidence — from paint The way the agency has handled And the arrest of Earl Edwin Pitts, the chips to blood droplets and shoe prints. the mud on its image says much highest FBI official ever accused of An FBI lab analyst-turned-whistle- about today’s FBI. During Hoover’s spying, sullied the bureau’s image, blower has charged that evaluations of 48-year reign, the agency was loath though the sting operation that evidence by the lab were subject to ma- to admit a mistake. Contrast that with nabbed him was praised. nipulation by FBI officials. Critics de- the mea culpas by Director Louis J. During the Clinton administration, ride the secretive facility as ‘‘the last Freeh. Since he took over the bureau the FBI’s annual budget (currently redoubt of Hooverism,’’ after the in September 1993, he has continued $2.8 billion) has grown by 25 percent. bureau’s iron-fisted founding director, to answer for the FBI’s conduct in, Freeh has persuaded Congress to pay J. Edgar Hoover. among other things, the 1992 shootout for 3,600 new employees (among Controversy over the lab prompted at a tax-resister’s isolated cabin in Ruby them more than 1,000 agents), and he the 63-year-old Grassley to warn that Ridge, Idaho, which killed a federal has moved 500 agents out of head- the ‘‘integrity of the American crimi- agent, an unarmed woman and her quarters and into the field. He is beef- nal justice system is at stake.’’ But it teenage son. ing up the fingerprint operation (re- is not the only problem that has beset The FBI’s performance was ‘‘terribly cently criticized for being slow in the FBI in recent days. flawed,’’ Freeh told a congressional performing naturalization background Last June came revelations that the panel in 1995, referring not only to the checks). He is hiring staff to trim the FBI acceded to Clinton White House deaths but also to slanted reports on FBI’s backlog of 16,000 Freedom of security officers when they improp- the FBI’s conduct and his own ‘‘blind Information Act requests (see p. 328). erly sought and obtained FBI back- spot’’ in later promoting his friend Larry And he is setting up two new com- ground files on 900 Republican Potts, who was criticized for his role in puter systems intended to streamline former White House staffers. Then in the controversial affair. 2 the collection and retrieval of nation- July, the FBI’s investigation of a fatal ‘‘I am not saying that I approve wide information on crime. bombing during the Olympics in of ’’ the gunshot that killed Vicky Critics, however, see remnants of Atlanta was marred when security Weaver, Freeh told the lawmakers. ‘‘I what they view as arrogance from the guard Richard Jewell was identified am not trying to justify it. I am Hoover era (nearly 6,200 current FBI to news media as the prime suspect, certainly not saying that in a future employees worked under Hoover). only to be exonerated later. similar set of circumstances, FBI ‘‘Hoover was so focused on protecting Most recently, the politically neu- agents or law enforcement officers his own position in government that in tral FBI became embroiled with the could take such a shot. But on a funny way he actually had a rather White House in a clash of conflicting careful balance,’’ he said, the shot narrow understanding of what a police statements over Chinese campaign was ‘‘constitutional’’ under the cir- agency could do,’’ says Marcus Raskin, April 11, 1997 315 THE FBI UNDER FIRE a distinguished fellow at the left-lean- FBI veterans say today’s agents ‘‘But under Freeh, the corruption and ing Institute for Policy Studies.