The FBI and the Politics of Surveillance,1908-1985

Abstract

This article surveys the history of the Federal Bureau of Investigation since its creation in 1908, focusing on the Hoover years and emphasizing the importance of political surveillance in the Bureau's growth. Although it was the expansion of the federal government's regulatory role that initially, and until 1936, increased FBI personnel and influence, it was the Bureau's public relations efforts and monitoring of political dissent-as well as J. Edgar Hoover's ability to immunize FBI investigations from external scrutiny-that were more important in the FBI's evolution into a powerful, effectively autonomous agency, which in the process offered a fundamental challenge to a political system based on accountability.