The FBI was created in 1908 as an arm of the Department of Justice, though it did not receive its current name until 1933.
Throughout the 1930s, the FBIs role expanded as President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked the Bureau to look into the activities of the United States subversives, and as a number of laws were passed by Congress that increased the types of federal crimes that fell within the FBIs purview. During World War II, the FBI was further authorized to investigate threats to national security.
The FBI was placed within the Justice Department, with additional reporting to the Director of National Intelligence. The FBI also collects, shares, and analyzes intelligence, both to support its own investigations and the investigations of its partners, and to better understand and counter the security threats facing the United States. The FBI provides these tools for complex intelligence identification and services to local, state, federal, and international law enforcement agencies.
Although a federal agency, the FBI is not a national police force, and law enforcement in the U.S. remains predominantly a responsibility of state and local governments. The FBIs core mission is to protect and defend the United States from terrorist, criminal, and foreign intelligence threats, uphold and enforce U.S. criminal laws, and provide criminal justice leadership and services to federal, state, municipal, and international agencies and partners. The FBI is also charged with ensuring compliance with the RICO Act and investigating violations of the act, as well as pursuing those violations through the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
Through its Uniform Crime Reporting Program, the Bureau publishes an annual comprehensive summary of criminal activity in the United States; it also publishes a special hate crimes report. It gathers evidence in most civil cases in which the United States is, or could become, a party, and it investigates individuals being considered for sensitive positions in the Federal Government. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the U.S. domestic intelligence and security services, and its primary federal law enforcement agency. Members of a 1976 Senate committee meeting in Washington, D.C., 1975.
After the 1995 Murrah Federal Building bombing in Oklahoma City, the FBI significantly increased its investigations into right-wing groups. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover continued to authorize investigations into Martin Luther King, Jr., and covert operations aimed at discrediting Kings standing with financial supporters, church leaders, government officials, and the media.