Term Paper on "Secrets of the FBI"

Term Paper 15 pages (4925 words) Sources: 5 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

FBI and Witness Protection

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is perceived by the public primarily as a law enforcement agency, though more and more the public is also noting the role of the FBI in fighting terrorism and in keeping track of foreign nationals in the United States. Still, the public may not immediately recognize the fact that the FBI is, above all, a bureaucracy, a federal agency that is responsible for a number of important law enforcement actions every day, that is part of the legal establishment and that makes recommendations as well as requests of the Congress concerning the passage of laws, that may also help in the prosecution of legal cases in the federal system, that is indeed part of the larger bureaucratic umbrella of the Justice Department, and so on. The events of 9-11 increased the visibility of the FBI in terrorist cases even as they demonstrated the existing problems with the communication between the FBI, the CIA, and other law enforcement agencies throughout the country. The FBI has long had a sterling reputation for its role in law enforcement and especially for its technical expertise, with law enforcement across the nation depending on the FBI laboratory in Washington for analyzing evidence, matching fingerprints, and similar tasks. At the same time, the FBI has taken a beating at times, such as because of revelations about the way J. Edgar Hoover ran the agency when he was its head, FBI involvement in COINTELPRO, the counter intelligence program often directed at American citizens only exercising their rights, and especially because of cases like that of Robert Hanssen, the longtime FBI agent who was accused of passing secrets to Moscow over a period of some fifteen years. On a more day-to-day basis, the FBI has much to say about the placement of witnesses in federal protection, and this program, seen as necessary for the prosecution of certain types of cases (notably mob cases), often requires making deals with very bad people in order to prosecute even worse people. Many people see this program as too lenient on thieves and murders and object when the beneficiary is someone like Sammy "The Bull" Gravano, rewarded for testifying against mob boss John Gotti. Gravano was implicated in numerous murders, and he was later convicted on drug offenses after he left the witness protection program. Such cases raise the question of how the FBI decides who is given immunity and protection and whether these decisions are being made properly or even should be made at all.

Witness Protection

Kessler (2002) describes the nature of the FBI and gives much of its history since its founding in 1908. The agency began as a small unit within the Justice Department. At the time, crime was seen as a local matter, with the FBI intended to investigate only certain federal crimes. Kessler writes, "Despite the limitations on its power, questions arose very quickly about the extent of the bureau's authority and its methods" (Kessler, 2002, p. 10). Such questions would persist, often asked with reference to different powers the FBI would assume over the years. New concerns meant new authority for the FBI and new types of crime for the FBI to be investigating, as when fear of Communism expanded the role of the FBI beginning after World War I and continuing throughout the twentieth century and beyond. The FBI became a much more important bureau after Hoover took it over, and he built the organization into a truly professional law enforcement arm while at times pursuing his own ends through political pressure and other means. For the most part, though, the reputation of the FBI was enhanced under his leadership as the agency became better known to the public and represented a major protective body for the country.

At the same time, Hoover had certain blind spots that allowed some problems to gain more power than they need have had. Organized crime was long a point of contention in America, with some believing there was no such thing while others were convinced that there was. J. Edgar Hoover denied the existence of organized crime and maintained this position until the 1960s, when he was forced to admit that organized crime does exist and had a stranglehold in some areas of the country. Organized crime is defined as differing from other types of crime over the goods and services provided and because of the relationship between the criminal enterprise and its customers:

Organized crime supplies goods or services wanted by a large number of people -- desperately needed cash, narcotics, prostitution, the chance to gamble. These are its principle sources of income. They are consensual crimes for the most part, desired by the consuming public. This fact distinguishes the main activities of organized crime from most other crime (Clark, 1970, p. 68).

The public creates the demand for the "products" of organized crime, which means that law enforcement must work against the strong desires of a significant sector of the public to a great extent. For Hoover, though, denying the existence of organized crime was a way to deny that the FBI had allowed such a body of criminals to develop and also a way of not having to take on another major fight that might not be won that easily. America is a natural culture for organized crime for several reasons. For one thing, Americans often try to prohibit things that people want, such as gambling, drugs, money at high rates of interest, prostitution, and liquor. At the same time, American society realizes that it lacks the means and the will to enforce these prohibitions fully. Criminal enterprises enter the gap to supply what the public, or a sector of the public, demands. Furthermore, Americans often have tolerated conditions leaving millions of people with no significant rights they can enforce, seen in the fact that the poor may be victims of crime, with no power to do anything about it, leaving many seeing crime as acceptable and even natural in the landscape. People made to think this way often do not bother to report crime and so become the natural prey of organized crime. Finally, the nation often makes it easy for organized crime to operate by neglecting law enforcement (Clark, 1970, pp. 69-70), which was certainly the case when Hoover was failing to acknowledge that organized crime even existed.

The Mafia arrived in the United States in the nineteenth century, entering as part of the culture of the immigrants from Sicily. This aspect of organized crime is clearly less significant today than it was in the past. Gang wars in the 1920s and 1930s exceeded anything seen before World War II. Millions of Italians immigrated to America, and many of these came to escape the Mafia only to find it transplanted along with the rest of the community. The Mafia was historically a family affair, but the family tradition has weakened in the Mafia today as the strict discipline and tight organization of the mob have dissipated. The federal government plays a strong role in the control of organized crime, for the incidence of interstate activity is high among the families, and also because this is truly a national problem and not merely a local one. Jurisdiction is only one reason for the involvement of the federal government, with the other major reason being that the presence of any significant organized crime in a region necessarily means local criminal justice has been corrupted in some degree:

The major role of federal enforcement against organized crime is as a liberator of local law enforcement. Federal agents can strike at organized crime that has paralyzed local police. Federal action can place local law enforcement in control again (Clark, 1970, p. 77).

Organized crime affects the lives of every American, though most people do not realize this fact. Organized crime operates secretly, for one thing, and so affects the public indirectly because of the higher prices people must pay for goods and services that are in some way controlled by organized crime. According to the President's 1967 Commission on Law Enforcement, were organized crime to pay taxes on the money it made, everyone else in the country could pay less in taxes. The way organized crime is organized would also be one reason why breaking its grip required the cooperation of some criminals. The mob long been divided into groups or "families," each with its own boss, with underlings to carry out the orders of the boss and to report directly to him. The boss in each case would stake out his own territory and be paid a portion of the profits from all the criminal activity under his control. Secrecy is the watchword, and so written records are not kept as much of the collection and distribution of cash is handled informally. The crime families generally operated in the large cities, such as New York, Chicago, Miami, and Los Angeles, and while the families all… READ MORE

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