Federal Bureau of Investigation

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is a governmental agency belonging to the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative organization and an internal intelligence agency. The FBI is the lead U.S. counterterrorism agency and the lead U.S. counterintelligence agency. It is the USA’s security service, and is a component agency of the U.S. Intelligence Community. Also, it is the government agency responsible for investigating crimes on sovereign Native American reservations in the United States under the Major Crimes Act. The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime. The bureau was established in 1908 as the Bureau of Investigation (BOI). Its name was changed to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 1935. The FBI headquarters is the J. Edgar Hoover Building, located in Washington, D.C. The bureau has fifty-six field offices located in major cities throughout the United States, and more than 400 resident agencies in lesser cities and areas across the nation. More than 50 international offices called “legal attach s” exist in U.S. embassies and consulates general worldwide.