[2014] Eyes Pried Open: Rookie FBI Agent Read online

  Lam was replaced by Karen Hewitt, who also happened to be my supervisor’s sister-in-law. Much to my surprise, I was notified by an administrative area that I had been assigned as the FBI agent in charge of performing her background investigation prior to her appointment as the new US Attorney of the Southern District of California. This assignment clearly introduced a potential conflict of interest, so my supervisor stepped in and recused himself and our squad from participating in the background investigation. This type of ethical behavior was demonstrated throughout my time in the FBI, and was another example of how FBI agents try to do the right thing, even if the outcome is not always successful.

  During this controversial and sensitive time for the US Department of Justice, our Special Agent in Charge replied to a media inquiry regarding his opinion on the firing of Carol Lam. He was quoted in the San Diego Times newspaper as effectively stating that he did not agree with what happened. This seemingly harmless quote that was merely an opinion proved to be more problematic than the SAC expected. The SAC reported to the Director of the FBI, who in turn reported to the Unites States Attorney General, who at the time was Alberto Gonzalez. The US Attorney General is the boss of the US Attorneys, and is the person who technically hires and fires throughout the Department of Justice; the ultimate decision making unofficially comes from the Presidential administration, who can appoint and remove the Attorney General. So in essence, our SAC was criticizing the decision of his boss’s boss, and even the President to some degree. I was about to see a first-hand lesson in how politics works in a field that most people think of as being purely black and white. Apparently once an individual achieves a certain management level within the FBI, the dynamics are not unlike any other large organization where office politics results in great rewards or severe penalties, sometimes at the expense of common sense.

  The San Diego FBI SAC abruptly announced his retirement and quietly left the San Diego field office in a matter of a few days. As I saw when I was next to him on the firing range, he was not a personable man, but I have no reason to doubt that overall he was a dedicated agent. While he lacked some of the leadership abilities that I would have liked to see, his resignation seemed to be forced due to his saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.

  After the SAC left, the ASAC over the criminal branch, Karen Lowe, was temporarily placed in charge of the office. I held a great deal of respect for her, which was shared by all of the other agents in the office. I could not imagine the hurdles she had climbed in being a female agent in the FBI, let alone being in charge of hundreds of agents who were primarily men. She did an outstanding job during that brief tenure of responsibility for the office. She was always on-scene for important arrests, and was supportive of agents in both their professional and personal lives. The San Diego agents, including me, would have been happy to see her promoted to be the permanent SAC, but she was approaching retirement, and for family reasons did not want this position. That made me respect her even more, because in my book it showed intelligence above and beyond what can be measured by an “IQ” number; she was focusing on family and not just climbing the career ladder.

  Shortly before my departure from the FBI, the SAC position in San Diego was filled by SAC Kevin Slatter, who previously had served as the assistant director of training at the FBI Academy. I was already familiar with him, since he was in charge of the FBI Academy during my stay there, and he spoke at my graduation. I had already formed a positive impression of him, because unlike many of the personalities at the Academy, he was always personable and treated everyone professionally, as a true leader should. He was also incredibly media savvy and had served as a commentator on several major networks. I knew that SAC Slatter would bring a wealth of experience to the San Diego office and would be a positive influence throughout the ranks.

  CHAPTER 21

  Inspections and Administration

  One significant non-investigative-related experience I had was what is simply referred to in the FBI as inspection. Every three years, each field office is inspected by a dedicated team of agents from other field offices. The inspectors look at everything under the hood in a field office with a magnifying glass, including asset management, facility security, squad management, caseloads, and individual agent performance. Every single agent in the division is inspected and has a personal interview about his or her role in the FBI, including details about casework. During inspection everyone is uptight, because the entire organization is thoroughly analyzed, and the results can greatly impact the future career of everyone from agents to the SAC in a field office.

  Throughout the inspection period, I was heavily utilized by multiple squads for my reporting and analysis abilities. I was effective with preparing and presenting information in an understandable and meaningful format, and I wound up having thanks from several grateful squad supervisors by the end of the inspection period. As with other occurrences, this made me question how resources, including me, were managed and utilized throughout the FBI. I felt that I added much more value doing in-depth analysis versus responding to bank robbery calls, yet during my time in the FBI I was mostly used in a role that could have been performed by anyone with a badge and gun.

  As one would expect to find in any large government bureaucracy, there were massive amounts of paperwork and procedures related to almost any action that FBI agents take short of going to the bathroom; the FBI used approximately 1,500 different forms. To some degree, that is the nature of a large organization, a necessary evil. However, at some point the amount of time agents spend on paperwork reaches a significantly diminished return in the added value. So much time is spent on paperwork, the actual work that agents were hired to do is not being done. As with many other aspects of the FBI life, the constant action that is portrayed in television and movies is far from the reality of the mundane reams of paperwork that are done back in the office.

  To the credit of the organization, the FBI is not just sitting around with stacks of thousands of different types of forms saying that operations are fine and efficient. In the late 2000s, the FBI began working on the new IT project called Sentinel, which came about after a previous unsuccessful project resulted in a waste of $100 million in IT development. Sentinel was designed with a new electronic case file system, which replaced an incredibly antiquated mainframe “green screen” file system which required the maintenance of paper copies that comprise the millions of FBI files. As part of the Sentinel project, which included not only IT work but business process engineering, the number of forms used within the FBI was reduced from approximately 1500 down to 200. Business process improvement efficiencies were being looked at, and repetitive or redundant forms were condensed or consolidated where possible. The success of this endeavor was critical in enabling agents to spend more time investigating and less time with managing administrative overhead tasks. The project was finally completed in 2012.

  I estimate that there are about eight hours of indirect work such as filling out paperwork, filling up with a tank of gas, or visiting a judge or attorney, to one hour of direct investigative work. The administrative work of preparing court documents, writing records, briefing supervisors, and other necessary indirect actions that go with the job sometimes seemed to be the only tasks we were able to work on, which did not contribute to improved job satisfaction for agents.

  When performing an investigation, not only does the agent have to think about the time that needs to be dedicated to the activity, but also the appropriate permissions that are mandated by FBI policy that must be obtained before proceeding with most investigative activities. When figuring out a game plan for an investigation and the methods to be used, agents have to factor in the amount of administrative time needed, and many times the more advanced investigative techniques are not worth the amount of time that it will take just on the administrative side. Sometimes what would be a useful investi
gative technique will be avoided because the agent just does not have time to fill out reams of paperwork after the fact.

  For example, various forms of telephone monitoring can yield fantastic investigative results. However, the federal government, the citizens who make up the United States, and FBI agents are all extremely sensitive to privacy issues, and rightfully so. If somebody has conversations that an agent wishes to monitor, a strict set of protocols, including proof that monitoring is necessary, must be followed prior to the actual monitoring. This protection of our freedom comes at a cost. If somebody has been kidnapped, the FBI is given the difficult task of trying to locate this person. If safety is an issue, the FBI has a mechanism to monitor a cell phone’s geographic location, but is restricted to only obtaining that information. Telephone calls or the content of those calls is still forbidden without a court order. Just to apply for a court order requires various approvals within the FBI, including supervisors and the Assistant Special Agent in Charge. In addition, an agent must fill out several pages of paperwork which supports and justifies the requested court order. Next, the United States Attorney's office has to prepare additional court documents. After this is completed, the FBI agent has to go and meet with a judge and swear to the facts in order to proceed with the court order and get the electronic monitoring up and running. Finally, once the court order is signed and filed, it must be provided to the appropriate telephone company, who then will make the necessary technical arrangements for the FBI to begin monitoring. At this point, even working at a frantic pace, a day may have passed for all of the pieces to align, and with a kidnapping, that is by far the most critical day in the process. In order to preserve our freedom, the cost is not only monetary when looking at the number of resources and administrative time associated with telephone monitoring, but it is also literally a cost of lives lost who could have been saved if broader and more flexible monitoring policies were allowed by the FBI. It is easy to sit in a classroom or online comment section and preach about how we need to further protect our liberties. Who can argue with that? Well, anyone with a kidnapped loved one who has to endure waiting for news is going to be incredibly unhappy with the current system and process that indeed protects our liberties and privacy. Unfortunately, during the course of investigating more than fifty kidnappings, never once did other squad members or I successfully establish telephone monitoring. It was not that we did not want to do that, but it was not practical due to the time and administrative investment required.

  People often think that the FBI is listening to their phone calls. Most people have no idea how incredibly rare a “phone tap” is, largely due to the previously described processes that must be navigated through. I listened in and monitored telephone conversations for only two cases throughout my time in San Diego. To my knowledge, those were the only two active cases in the San Diego area during that time with telephone monitoring. Not millions, thousands, or even dozens of cases. Two. Except when safety is an issue, telephone conversations can only be monitored for criminal matters when all other investigative techniques have been exhausted. Agents have to demonstrate that interviews, surveillance, and undercover employees cannot provide the necessary information for an investigation; telephone monitoring is the last resort.

  The phone conversations that I listed to were related to organized crime cases with multiple subjects and a variety of cellular telephone lines that required monitoring. Before listening in on a phone conversation, the FBI must go through what is called a minimization procedure. An Assistant United States Attorney will go over with the FBI agents what they are and are not allowed to monitor. Phones can only be monitored for content that is relevant to the investigation, which is the same concept used for search warrants. When performing a physical search, the agent can only search in the locations that are allowed, areas that could possibly store or conceal the items that pertain to the investigation. With a monitored phone call, only the parts of the phone call that pertain to an investigation can be listened to.

  So how on earth can an FBI agent possibly get the evidence he or she needs for an investigation by listening to only parts of a phone conversation? The FBI can only listen for brief segments and make a judgment on whether the content is relevant. If the content is not relevant (such as a criminal’s spouse who is talking about recipes with a friend), then the agent stops listening for approximately 30 seconds. Then the agent will listen in again for a few seconds, and once again will try to tell if the conversation has gone a direction that allows monitoring. If not, they must immediately stop listening and will keep repeating the same 30 second cycle for the duration of the phone call. Although some criminals are not aware of this protocol, many of the more savvy subjects, especially law breakers with ties to organized crime, actually use their children to talk to other children to pass along information since they know FBI agents will not be allowed to listen to their children speaking. The perception of FBI agents being able to pick up a phone or just tap into the phone whenever they want to listen is greatly exaggerated in the imagination of the public, which in the long run only helps criminals and terrorists.

  There are two scenarios in which the normal rules of telephone monitoring do not apply. One is related to the monitoring of telephone conversations that occur in prisons. Prisoners give up all rights related to searches, and written correspondence and telephone conversations are considered to be part of the search rights that are given up. When a prisoner makes a call, or even uses the closed-circuit audio system with telephone handsets to speak with visitors, those conversations are typically automatically electronically recorded. The vast majority of this content is never listened to, but in some cases agents will obtain recordings. Once again, to do this there are significant administrative requirements along with a cumbersome process that involves working with the United States Attorney's office, but a formal court order is not necessary.

  The other scenario that allows telephone monitoring is for special circumstances regarding terrorism investigations. The FBI has obviously concentrated efforts on combating terrorism in the post 9/11 world. This is the area where controversy has arisen around what are called national security letters. A national security letter is a mechanism that an agent can use to get telephone information, such as a listing of incoming and outgoing call details. Terrorism agents and analysts work tirelessly in trying to put together bits and pieces of information and see how they relate. Certain intersections of information can prove to be fruitful and truly prevent devastating attacks. The national security letter serves as a documentation and justification requirement to authorize telephone related activities. FBI agents are busy people, with numerous leads to investigate, and do not have spare time on their hands. FBI agents do not care about getting telephone information unless it is pertinent to one of their investigations. They are human and want to do the right thing. However, if an investigative lead goes nowhere, they may be tempted to move on to the next investigative step, and sometimes may not appropriately follow-up with the correct administrative steps for dead-end leads. When this breakdown in the administrative process pertaining to national security letters became apparent, it resulted in a significant negative media coverage and related inquiries about FBI agents, who the public was lead to believe were just monitoring phones with blatant recklessness and zero regard for privacy. Citizens imagined rooms full of FBI agents spying on their telephone conversations. The reality is that this monitoring did not consist of actually listening to telephone conversations, which requires additional levels of approval and documentation as allowed by FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act). These abuses have been greatly exaggerated; FBI agents are some of the staunchest believers in the Constitution and the privacy and protection afforded to all citizens. Surely, there was some sloppiness in documenting the appropriate National Security Letters, but the public perception of FBI agent telephone spying abuse was incredibly far from the reality of a few
documents that were not appropriately submitted.

  In 2013 there was an AP article published on how Google was forced to hand over user information to the FBI, which was legally authorized through National Security Letters. The first comment that I noticed when viewed on Yahoo plainly stated, “The FBI is the enemy.” There were seventy thumbs-up votes from people who agreed. There were zero thumbs-down until I voted. Clearly the FBI has overwhelming trust and image problems that are amplified by social media outlets. I was saddened to realize that our own citizens are so poorly educated on how the dedicated, highly principled people of the FBI are giving their lives to protect the country; the United States has plenty of enemies, but the FBI is most certainly not one of them.

  CHAPTER 22

  Background Checks

  A significant part of my time in San Diego was spent working on background investigations. New agents are expected to perform background checks, which agents consider to be a fairly mundane and routine process. These investigations are primarily related to appointments or positions appointed by the President of the United States. In addition, there were investigations related to Presidential pardons.

  Background checks are centrally managed from Washington, DC, but the actual ground-work is done in the field offices. The work is initiated by what the FBI calls a lead. A lead is the FBI's formal mechanism communicating from one field office to another that action is required pertaining to an investigation. Rather than an agent picking up the phone, this method puts requests in writing and has a system whereby information can be exchanged and returned. In addition, this method helps field offices manage due dates and priorities. The same mechanism is used for all types of investigations, from background checks to bank robberies. For example, if a bank robber robs a bank in San Diego and then the FBI learns that the subject may have fled to Phoenix, the San Diego office would enter a high-priority lead for the Phoenix office to follow up to try to locate the robber. My squad in San Diego covered leads for all of the major types of violations that we worked, including bank robberies, kidnappings, extortions, fugitives, murder-for-hire schemes, and crimes against federal officials. In addition to these, along with all squads, new agents were tasked with working leads pertaining to background checks.