A Century of Surveillance: An Interactive Timeline Of FBI Investigations (muckrock.com)

"Over a century of fear and filing cabinets" at the FBI has been exposed through six years of Freedom of Information Act requests. And now MuckRock founder (and long-time Slashdot reader) v3rgEz writes: MuckRock recently published its 100th look into historical FBI files, and to celebrate they've also compiled a timeline of the FBI's history. It traces the rise and fall of J. Edgar Hoover as well as some of the Bureau's more questionable investigations into famous figures ranging from Steve Jobs to Hannah Arendt. Read the timeline, or browse through all of MuckRock's FBI FOIA work.
The FBI interviewed 29 people about Steve Jobs (after he was appointed to the President's Export Council in 1991), with several citing his "past drug use," and several individuals also saying Jobs would "distort reality."

Comments

Re:They don't investigate the real threats

[PopeRatzo]

They should also investigate foreign threats operating in the US

They can't, because the biggest foreign threat is about to become their boss.

Re:Yet not Trump?

[slickwillie]

Seems like Trump is uniquely qualified to run the (trillions in debt) USA.

You've underestimated them very badly.

[mmell]

The FBI is as stupid as the dullest of them - and as keen as the smartest among them. They may be somewhat malign, but they are not "clowns", and they (arguably) provide a net good. I suspect that the vast majority of FBI agents are well-intentioned, highly educated professionals. Their collective mistakes tend to be real lulus, and they've made more than a few of them; it seems to me wiser to seek to improve them than it is to denigrate and antagonize them.

To rephrase: if the FBI isn't the premier law enforcement agency we would desire, it'll be more effective to improve them than it is to replace them - and regardless of their blunders, we really can't do without them.