Functions of the FBI
As the top federal law enforcement agency in the United States, the FBI is responsible for overseeing national security, dealing with criminal activity such as terrorism, cybercrime, white collar crimes, public corruption, civil rights violations, and other major crimes. In recent years, the FBI’s role has expanded, particularly to include a greater focus on counterterrorism after the September 11 attacks against the World Trade Center in 2001. In addition, the FBI is in charge of publishing an annual summary of all criminal activity in the U.S. through the Bureau’s Uniform Crime Reporting program. However, although the FBI is responsible for enforcing federal law and will investigate specific cases assigned to it, law enforcement in the United States still predominantly remains the responsibility of state and local governments.A crisis of credibility?
In recent years, the FBI has come under criticism for playing a part in public scandals including mishandling classified documents and failing to prevent external influence against elections. As a result, only 50 percent of Americans believed that the Bureau was doing a good job in 2022 and the FBI ranked low on trustworthiness for Americans when compared to other government agencies. In addition, faults have been found with the FBI’s crime reporting system, which relies on law enforcement agencies around the country to report crime data. However, many states have failed to report all their data, leading to incomplete figures in the FBI’s crime reports. As crime has been highlighted as a very important issue in midterm elections for many Americans, critics have said that the lack of accurate crime data from the FBI could be used to promote misinformation that could impact elections and falsely sway the beliefs of the American public.
