The rise and fall of FBI domestic intelligence operations

Abstract

In recent years there has been a growing body of literature which has carefully documented the abuses of the US intelligence agencies [1]. For the most part, these works have been concerned with disclosure, and occasionally reform, but not generally theoretical knowledge. At the same time, there has emerged in the study of crime an "organizational perspective" which attempts to account for the crimes of large organizations by applying organizational theory [2]. In large part, this organizational perspective has been preoccupied with definitional and conceptual problems and has not successfully generated a comprehensive theory of organizational crime. Sherman alludes to this in his recent article: "Very little of the existing work on organizational deviance has attempted to explain why some organizations and not others engage in deviant conduct, or why some commit more deviant acts than others" [3]. The current state of affairs appears to be characterized by a plethora of case studies which are insulated from organizational theory, at least in any systematic way. There is a further problem with the organizational perspective as it has emerged in the literature. The organization is not consistently understood as part of a larger environmental context, particularly the political economy. Barnett's work on corporate crime and corporate capitalism is an important exception to this [4]. In this article I shall attempt to correct some of these problems with the organizational perspective by examining the relationship between organizational behavior, organizational structure, and aspects of the political economic environment of the organization. The specific organizational behavior of concern here is the political surveillance (i.e. domestic or political intelligence) of US residents by the federal government, most particularly by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. While the legality of domestic intelligence has varied over time, it has often led to illegal governmental operations. By examining this one type of organizational behavior, I shall attempt in a preliminary way to show how the primary locus of explanation for organiza-