Federal Bureau Of Investigation Research Articles

FBI Opposition to German and Japanese Nationalist Organizations in the United States (1941–1945)

In modern research on the history of the United States in World War II, it is quite popular to study the opposition of the American special services and, in particular, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to various organizations of the German and Japanese diasporas in new historical conditions. The appeal to traditional methods of historical research, comparative studies and the principles of historicism will make it possible to more accurately trace the process of tightening the counterintelligence work of the Bureau and the close connection of concerns about the involvement of public organizations in the intelligence activities of the enemy. The broadcast of nationalist ideas by various communities of Germans and Japanese under the auspices of their governments quickly attracted the attention of the FBI, which is in the process of consolidating its powers as the main US counterintelligence service. At the same time, the investigations and trials conducted by the John Edgar Hoover department following these investigations often had an openly political color and increasingly consolidated the beginning of a political investigation in this service. This practice and its implementation ran into a tough contradiction between the legal norms of America, which proclaimed "democratic values," the right to freedom of speech and the needs to strengthen the internal security of the state and society in wartime. All these processes and the associated nuances and complexities are considered on specific examples of the work of federal agents against various pro-German and pro-Japanese organizations in the period 1941-45.

Enemies Among Us: The Relocation, Internment & Repatriation of German, Italian & Japanese Americans during the Second World War by John E. Schmitz

Reviewed by: Enemies Among Us: The Relocation, Internment & Repatriation of German, Italian & Japanese Americans during the Second World War by John E. Schmitz Steph Hinnershitz Enemies Among Us: The Relocation, Internment & Repatriation of German, Italian & Japanese Americans during the Second World War. By John E. Schmitz. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2021. Pp. 386. Notes, bibliography, index.) John E. Schmitz’s Enemies Among Us: The Relocation, Internment & Repatriation of German, Italian & Japanese Americans during the Second World War is an ambitious work that sets out to expand and complicate the story of wartime detention in the United States. Using a variety of records on the forced removal of Japanese Americans, German Americans, and Italian Americans, Schmitz “examines the causes, conditions, and consequences of America’s selective relocation and internment of its own citizens and enemy aliens” (2). Schmitz argues that historians have largely focused on the “relocation and internment” of Japanese Americans and suggests that broadening this approach to include German and Italian Americans also globalizes this moment by connecting it to the repatriation of enemy aliens in exchange for American civilian internees abroad. Enemies Among Us also posits that scholars should question the argument that race fueled Japanese American internment. Schmitz provides the first full-length monograph on the policies behind and experiences of detention for all three groups while also highlighting challenges in comparing their internment. Schmitz organizes the book into nine chapters. Chapter 1 provides a useful discussion of the precedent World War I set for World War II internment, while chapters 2 through 4 explain how fears of fifth-column threats from Germans, Italians, and Japanese Americans from the late 1930s through 1940 set the stage for another round of wartime internment. Long before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as Immigration and Naturalization Services, conducted investigations on potentially subversive Germans, Italians, and Japanese Americans. But, as Schmitz explains in chapter 5, Pearl Harbor appeared to validate the fears of political leaders and military officials that fifth columnists were responsible for the attack. Chapters 6 and 7 detail [End Page 408] how rumors and propaganda contributed to relocation and internment policies nationwide and on both the East and West Coasts. Chapter 8 provides a fascinating discussion of the connections between the internment and repatriation of enemy aliens in exchange for American civilian internees abroad, and chapter 9 concludes the book with a disappointingly short yet useful description of internment experiences, particularly the psychological impact of detention in the Crystal City family internment camp in Texas. Schmitz’s in-depth study is a useful and much-needed beginning for a new direction in this period of America’s wartime history: taking a broad view of detention across ethnic and racial groups. His linkage to repatriation and internment policies in the Western Hemisphere will be valuable to many scholars, but his decision to include Japanese American incarceration in his study detracts from his overall goals and undermines his argument in key places. His introduction could provide a more thorough discussion of his choice of terminology for the forced removal and imprisonment of more than 110,000 Japanese Americans (most of them second-generation, American-born Nisei) to clarify for the reader when he is discussing foreign-born Issei and Nisei. This muddies his argument that including Japanese American incarceration within the study of enemy alien internment is useful. Schmitz explains that key figures found it difficult to differentiate between loyal and disloyal Japanese Americans regardless of their citizenship status, which supports other historians’ claims that racism—while perhaps not as key for the internment of enemy aliens—was in fact a crucial factor in the unique set of circumstances faced by Japanese Americans from the West Coast. Schmitz does, however, provide food for thought in interrogating how detention and surveillance across ethnic and racial minority groups created a policy with broad implications. His work will be important for shaping future studies about wartime internment. Steph Hinnershitz National WWII Museum Copyright © 2022 The Texas State Historical Association

What explains variation in representation in the public sector? Predicting the presence of female officers in U.S. College Police Departments

AbstractScholars and practitioners regularly call for higher levels of representation for marginalized groups in public agencies, and representative bureaucracy research commonly boasts the effects of representation on clientele perceptions and performance outcomes. Before the consequences of representation can be fully assessed, it is important to consider the mechanisms that shape the extent to which minority groups are present in an agency. We use data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Report and the U.S. Department of Education to examine what factors influence female representation in 142 College Police Departments (CPDs) within public, 4‐year institutions of higher education, an epicenter of debate regarding gender‐based violence, between 2014 and 2018. We find that few organizational characteristics consistently predict female representation. Our interpretations of such findings are informed by interviews with female CPD officers and consideration of whether female representation has any association with outcomes regarding sexual assault and rape.

The First Counterspy: Larry Haas, Bell Aircraft, and the FBI’s Attempt to Capture a Soviet Mole by Kay Haas and Walter W. Pickut

<i>The First Counterspy: Larry Haas, Bell Aircraft, and the FBI’s Attempt to Capture a Soviet Mole</i> by Kay Haas and Walter W. Pickut

Prevent the rise of a black messiah: Madness or revolution

In the late 1960s, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a United States of America (US) intelligence agency, developed what is famously known as Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO). Its mission was to surveil, misinform, misdirect and subvert or destroy black ‘subversive’ militant groups. The main intention of COINTELPRO was to ‘prevent the rise of a messiah’ who could ‘unify, and electrify, the militant black nationalist movement’. This insight is important as it reveals how those outside of black life (FBI) would invoke biblical language to define the possibility of revolution. This article through Black liberation theology seeks to present the idea of messianism as both an experience of Africans and oppressed peoples in the Global North and Global South. The idea of messianism is part of biblical reception in Africa and the African experience of colonialism. In South Africa, messianism would be observed from the perspective of African Christianity, while another form of messianism would be seen from Nat The Prophet Turner as well as the radical identity of Christ in Black liberation theology. The article will not take lightly the idea of surveillance of black militant groups in the same way as the priestly class surveillance Christ ministry. At the same time, the article would reflect on why lunacy is associated with those that seek to subvert oppression. This article seeks to discuss the role of messianism and militancy in Black or African Christianity and highlighting biblical reception and African affectivity.Contribution: This article explores the imaginative ways the Bible or its themes have been used by both the oppressor and the oppressed, often the latter using the Bible for its prerogative, namely, revolution and liberation.

Do Sheriff-Coroners Underreport Officer-Involved Homicides?

In the United States, each state sets its own standards for its death investigation system. These may require independent medical examiners and coroners or allow for the sheriff to assume the role of coroner. Motivated by the well-established fact that counts of officer-involved homicides in official data sets grossly undercount the number of these incidents, we examine the possibility that different death investigation systems may lead to different death classification outcomes. To examine the potential differences in officer-involved homicide underreporting by presence of sheriff-coroner and violent death type (gunshot, intentional use of force, pursuit, or other vehicle accident), we compare ratios of incidents from both the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Supplementary Homicide Reports and the restricted Multiple-Cause of Death files from the National Vital Statistics System to the Fatal Encounters data across coroner contexts in California between 2000 and 2018; we quantify differences descriptively and examine bivariate tests of means. We find significantly greater underreporting of officer-involved deaths in sheriff-coroner counties in both official data sets for all incidents compared with non-sheriff-coroner counties, independently of the period considered. These underreporting differences in the National Vital Statistics System are robust to restricting to gunshot and intentional use of force deaths, the type of incident expected to be less prone to misclassification in that data set. Officer-involved death underreporting in sheriff-coroner counties necessitates further scrutiny. Disparities in officer-involved death reporting suggest political pressure may play a role in classifying deaths.

Career Ladder: Chelsea Thompson

1990s–2001 Choosing science Chelsea Thompson grew up in an artistic family and spent childhood summers doing art projects at her grandparents’ house in Florida. Even though her family’s love of art rubbed off on her, she ultimately chose to go the science route. “I just enjoyed it,” Thompson says. “I’ve always had a scientific curiosity.” She attended the University of Central Florida, where she majored in forensic chemistry. “I really got into forensics because my grandmother would read murder mystery books all the time.” 2002–12 From Florida to the Arctic As an undergraduate, Thompson wanted to work for the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. But she decided to attend graduate school first. One of her college professors suggested that she pursue a PhD in analytical chemistry instead of forensics, insisting it would give her more opportunities. Convinced, she applied to Purdue University’s analytical chemistry program. After she was accepted, she

Interview with Amy Grubb: Industrial/organizational psychologist for the FBI.

Dr. Amy Grubb is an industrial/organizational (I/O) psychologist for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). I/O psychology may be an overlooked area of psychology, but it is important to the functioning of many of the greatest industries and organizations in our country. Although Dr. Grubb performs job duties that are comparable to those of other psychologists, certain aspects of her job are atypical, given the environment and the decision-making that takes place within the FBI at both the national and international levels. Dr. Grubb was asked a series of questions about what makes working as a psychologist for the FBI an atypical job. Throughout the interview, she shared about the activities she is typically involved in, as well as how the "gravitas" of the mission and weight of the work make the job atypical. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Trends in US Emergency Department Use After Sexual Assault, 2006-2019

Adult sexual assault (SA) survivors experience numerous emergent health problems, yet few seek emergency medical care. Quantifying the number and types of survivors presenting to US emergency departments (EDs) after SA can inform health care delivery strategies to reduce survivor morbidity and mortality. To quantify ED use and factors that influenced seeking ED care for adult SA from 2006 through 2019. This cross-sectional study used SA data from the Nationwide Emergency Department Sample from 2006 through 2019, which includes more than 35.8 million observations of US ED visits from 989 hospitals, a 20% stratified sample of hospital-based EDs. The study also used the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reporting Program, which includes annual crime data from more than 18 000 law enforcement agencies representing more than 300 million US inhabitants. The study sample included any adult aged 18 to 65 years with an ED visit in the Nationwide Emergency Department Sample coded as SA. The data were analyzed between January 2020 and June 2022. Annual SA-related ED visits, subsequent hospital admissions, and associated patient-related factors (age, sex, race and ethnicity, income quartile, and insurance) were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Data were from 120 to 143 million weighted ED visits reported annually from 2006 through 2019. Sexual assault-related ED visits increased more than 1533.0% from 3607 in 2006 to 55 296 in 2019. Concurrently, admission rates for these visits declined from 12.6% to 4.3%. Female, younger, and lower-income individuals were more likely to present to the ED after SA. Older and Medicaid-insured patients were more likely to be admitted. Overall, the rate of ED visits for SA outpaced law enforcement reporting. This cross-sectional study found that US adult SA ED visits increased from 2006 through 2019 and highlighted the populations who access emergency care most frequently and who more likely need inpatient care. These data can inform policies and the programming needed to support this vulnerable population.

Consider recording hate incidents before they escalate to hate crimes

LAS VEGAS — According to data provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, hate crimes have been on the rise over the past few years, rising year‐over‐year, in fact — including on college and university campuses.

One Health security lessons from a year-long webinar series on international COVID-19 response

Following the principles outlined by the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s International Biosecurity and Prevention Forum, the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, and the Middlebury Institute of International Studies’ James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies cohosted a webinar series from April 2020 to January 2021 on COVID-19 management across Africa, Europe, and North America. We provide here an overview of the webinar series and discuss how lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic and debated during the webinars can be used to bridge One Health with biological threat-driven health security. This report can be used to inform recommendations for future One Health security approaches to strengthen global capacity and multidisciplinary cooperation.

A Mixed Methods Social Network Analysis of San Diego Law Enforcement Task Forces and Agencies

The San Diego area has a long reputation as a highly networked, cooperative, and task force-oriented law enforcement region. Measuring and understanding how this region achieves its networked state could assist other regions in improving law enforcement functions. This article uses social network analysis to qualitatively and quantitatively map the network of law enforcement agency task forces in the San Diego County region. The analysis first provides an inventory and description of San Diego area law enforcement task forces and participating agencies, then analyzes the structure of the regional network. The analysis identified 33 law enforcement investigative task forces supported by 84 law enforcement and participating agencies in the San Diego area. These comprise a relatively dense network with a well-connected core of primarily federal and local agencies, with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations being the most central federal agencies, and the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office and Sheriff’s Department, as well as San Diego, National City, and Chula Vista police departments as the most central local agencies. State agencies were less central but included the California Department of Justice and the California Highway Patrol in the top 10 agencies for centrality, depending on the metric. The network mapping in this article provides a baseline for a highly connected task force region that will allow future comparison with other regions and similarly situated cities along the US-Mexico border and beyond. Policy recommendations based on network theory are provided.

“Greasy Thumb”—The Man Who Made the Chicago Mob

“Greasy Thumb”—The Man Who Made the Chicago Mob

Firearm assaults against US law enforcement officers in the line-of-duty: Associations with firearm ownership and state firearm laws

Law enforcement officers are disproportionately affected by occupational injury. Firearm violence is the second leading cause of occupational mortality for this group behind motor vehicle crashes. In the general population, greater firearm ownership and weaker firearm laws are associated with increased firearm violence incidence. It is plausible that a high prevalence of firearms could also be associated with a greater incidence of LEO assault with a firearm. Using data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s, Uniform Crime Reporting, Police Employee Data for 2006–2016, we conducted a panel analysis to estimate the association between state-level estimates of household firearm ownership and LEO assault with a firearm. We additionally examined if effect modification by universal background check law status was present. Higher state-level firearm ownership was associated with an increased odds of LEO assault with a firearm in multi-level models. This association was modified by universal background check law status. In states without a universal background check law, for every 1% increase in state-level firearm ownership per agency-year, there was a 12.4% increase in the odds of an LEO assault with a firearm when adjusting for confounders (OR:1.124; 95% CI:1.018,1.240). In states with a universal background check law, there was no association. Findings, though small in magnitude, suggest aggregate firearm ownership may contribute to LEO assault with a firearm in states without a universal background check law. Future research to prevent LEO assault with a firearm should combine measures to address high rates of firearm ownership with other evidence-based prevention strategies.

Special Intelligence Service of the Federal Bureau of Investigation: Forgotten Forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency

The Special Intelligence Service (SIS) of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was created in 1940 as a foreign intelligence collection and analysis agency operating in the Western Hemisphere. Despite initial difficulties, it rapidly grew into a significant service, expanding its operations to Europe and providing finished intelligence products for the Department of State and other bureaucracies. The SIS was gradually closed in the years following World War II, but it transferred its networks, communications systems, procedures, and much of its personnel to the nascent Central Intelligence Agency. Thus, the FBI, and its particular institutional culture as established by J. Edgar Hoover, had a more significant impact than is generally recognized on the development of what becomes the central bureaucracy in the Intelligence Community established by the National Security Act of 1947.

Former FBI Chief of Counterespionage Peter Strzok on Russian Intelligence in the United States

Former FBI Chief of Counterespionage Peter Strzok on Russian Intelligence in the United States Anoushka Ramesh and Peter Strzok (bio) In the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as recent Russian intelligence and foreign influence operations in the United States, the world is debating the effects of Russian interference on U.S. security. Peter Strzok, former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Chief of Counterespionage and head of the Bureau's investigation into the Kremlin's interference in the 2016 presidential election, joins GJIA to analyze the consequences of Russian operations in America. GJIA: Some news outlets report that Vladimir Putin is irate about how long the invasion of Ukraine is taking and blames the FSB (Federal Security Service) for inadequate intelligence, jailing the head of the FSB's 5th Department and dismissing many of his spies. To what extent do you believe that misleading information was truly the reason for the invasion's prolongation, and why was the FSB, and not the GRU (Chief Intelligence Office) or the SVR (External Intelligence Service), given the lead intel role? PS: That is a great question. First, Putin came out of the intelligence services. He was a KGB, a then-Soviet officer stationed in Germany, and came up in the Russian government through the intelligence services. So he certainly is a practitioner. He understands what the capabilities are, what the limitations are, and the dynamics between the different services. Certainly, what is interesting about the Ukraine conflict is that what traditionally might have been a larger role for the GRU—Russian military intelligence—in the invasion was given to, as you noted, the fifth department within the FSB. There are probably a lot of speculative reasons for that. But if you are anticipating that you are going to annex Ukraine, and it becomes part of Russia, that is going to be a domestic entity that your domestic security service would want a leading role in. I think Russian intelligence services are certainly not immune to the types of corruption and problems we have seen across the board within the Russian government. Certainly, that has been on display with the Russian military in terms of their ability to maintain equipment, whether that is vehicle motors, engines, and tires, and planning and coordinating complex activities. There is some indication that the failures on the military side are a result of money that should have been spent for maintenance or other types of operations being skimmed off the top. I think it is a reasonable question to ask whether the same sorts of things were going on with the intelligence services. It is a government based on kleptocracy, and there is no reason that that sense of what constitutes appropriate behavior is diluted all the way down. So yes, within the high levels of the Russian government—within the oligarchs—there is a great deal of personal skimming going on. There is no doubt in my mind [End Page 221] that lower-level intelligence officers and military commanders are doing the same sort of thing. And there was some indication that Putin was frustrated about the lack of accurate intelligence or assessments that he received from his intelligence services. There is also some indication that Sergey Beseda, who was the head of the fifth department, was initially under house arrest and has now been moved to imprisonment. It might have been different if there had been, within the FSB, a great deal of money and resources put into developing intelligence about Ukraine and paying sources rather than being funneled into everybody's pockets. And the last factor to think about is that Putin's information is increasingly limited, both in terms of the people that he allows into his orbit that can speak to him, and him not liking information being presented to him that is either contrary to what he wants to hear or what he wants to do. So you have a shrinking universe of people who can bring information to him who are terrified about angering the boss by telling him something he does not want to hear. It is a complicated question. I do think there is a...

Racial Hate Crime and COVID-19: A Multinomial Choice Study in the US

During the COVID-19 pandemic, a dual shock to the economy and health system, the sentiments of uncertainty and insecurity have exacerbated the racial inequalities in the United States - contributing to the rise of antagonistic racial tension. Using hate crime data published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), this study implemented a Multinomial Logistic Regression to analyse the marginal probability of different races committing hate crimes. It is found that all races except for African Americans tend to target African Americans as victims of a racial hate crime. This study reveals the racial inequality and discrimination that existed in the United States, providing policymakers and public activists with evidence and direction to make efforts.

POLICING FORENSIC EVIDENCE

POLICING FORENSIC EVIDENCE

Good Neighbor, Bad Neighbor: Fact and Fiction in an FBI Investigation of Brazilian Literature during World War II

AbstractBrazilian novelist Érico Veríssimo (1905–75) was an ambiguous subject of the Good Neighbor Policy: invited to the United States by the Department of State, he was also accused of anti-Americanism by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). An international police investigation into Veríssimo shows a Brazilian-US network in which literature is questioned both as a potential vehicle for subversion and as representative of its political context. Archival sources related to this investigation reveal how police agents searched for clues within fiction and how ideology often got lost in translation. Through a close reading of these sources, I explore the function of literature and the processes for its interpretation in political culture. This essay, by probing the contradictions of the Good Neighbor Policy and the transition from World War II to the Cold War, reveals how Brazilian and US police in collaboration applied the anti-Axis counterintelligence apparatus to the surveillance of Allied literature.

Modifiable Factors Related to Firearm Homicides: A Broader View of Our Lane.

This study aims to identify modifiable factors related to firearm homicide (FH). Many socioeconomic, legislative and behavioral risk factors impact FH. Most studies have evaluated these risk factors in isolation, but they coexist in a complex and ever-changing American society. We hypothesized that both restrictive firearm laws and socioeconomic support would correlate with reduced FH rates. To perform our ecologic cross-sectional study, we queried the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Wide-ranging ONline Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) for 2013-2016 state FH data. We retrieved firearm access estimates from the RAND State-Level Firearm Ownership Database. Alcohol use and access to care data were captured from the CDC Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). Detached youth rates, socioeconomic support data and poverty metrics were captured from US Census data for each state in each year. Firearm laws were obtained from the State Firearms Law Database. Variables with significant FH association were entered into a final multivariable panel linear regression with fixed effect for state. A total of 49,610 FH occurred in 2013-2016 (median FH rate: 3.9:100,000, range: 0.07-11.2). In univariate analysis, increases in concealed carry limiting laws ( P =0.012), detached youth rates ( P <0.001), socioeconomic support ( P <0.001) and poverty rates ( P <0.001) correlated with decreased FH. Higher rates of heavy drinking ( P =0.036) and the presence of stand your ground doctrines ( P =0.045) were associated with increased FH. Background checks, handgun limiting laws, and weapon access were not correlated with FH. In multivariable regression, increased access to food benefits for those in poverty [β: -0.132, 95% confidence interval (CI): -0.182 to -0.082, P <0.001] and laws limiting concealed carry (β: -0.543, 95% CI: -0.942 to -0.144, P =0.008) were associated with decreased FH rates. Allowance of stand your ground was associated with more FHs (β: 1.52, 95% CI: 0.069-2.960, P <0.040). The causes and potential solutions to FH are complex and closely tied to public policy. Our data suggests that certain types of socioeconomic support and firearm restrictive legislation should be emphasized in efforts to reduce firearm deaths in America.