How the FBI went from land to cyber investigations in 110 years

Editor's note:This article is a part of a series reviewing Utah and U.S. history for KSL.com's Historic section.SALT LAKE CITY — Chances are high that you’ve heard plenty about the Federal Bureau of Investigation either in the news or on the silver screen. However, the FBI's role in American crime has changed heavily over time.

The FBI celebrated 110 years of existence on July 26. It, along with several other investigative government agencies, has always had a mysterious, larger-than-life allure. However, the way the FBI originated, was pretty normal. It started with a very common debate in U.S. politics.

“Congress and (President Theodore Roosevelt) were basically arguing over how much power the president should have — not an unusual argument to have in our political culture,” said FBI historian John Fox.

Congress reacted by passing a law that prevented the Secret Service — within the Treasury Department at the time — from loaning detectives to other agencies, including the Department of Justice. This law prompted Attorney General Charles Bonaparte to create an agency of special agents to investigate various federal crimes for the Department of Justice.

So on July 26, 1908, the FBI was born. It began rather small, with headquarters based in the Washington, D.C. area and field offices in New York City and Chicago. It only had about 24 federal crimes in its jurisdiction at the beginning.

However, it expanded quickly from there as the agency's responsibilities grew.

“Very quickly, Congress was passing laws that made other matters parts of the federal criminal code and we are in charge, usually, of investigating them,” Fox explained. “Along with that, came more resources to hire people, so over the years, we added offices (all over the country).”

Of course, many of these offices were small. They consisted of a special agent in charge and maybe another agent or two that would cover investigations in that territory. However, finding dates of when these smaller offices opened is nearly impossible because those records weren’t really kept.

As a whole, the agency also investigated anarchist violence, white-collar crimes, and World War I espionage and sabotage in the first decade of its existence. The Bureau focused almost entirely on national security concerns during World War II and criminal investigations became a priority after it ended.

Fox said the Salt Lake City field office opened as early as 1910 or 1911 (earlier than the FBI’s initial reported date of 1914.) Leon Bone appears to have been the first special agent in charge of the Salt Lake field office.

In its early days, the Salt Lake City field office covered a much larger swath of U.S. land than it does now. The local agents investigated everything from land fraud (such as people or businesses using the Homestead Act to acquire land before turning it over to a business for money) to interstate human trafficking.

By the 1920s, the Salt Lake field office also investigated kidnappings, bank robberies and automobile thefts. It briefly closed in August 1930, but eventually reopened eight months later.

Since Las Vegas fell in its original jurisdiction, the Salt Lake field office investigated the early crime problems and fugitives in the city until a Las Vegas field office was added in the 1960s.

Some of the largest cases the Salt Lake field office investigated came after that.

It investigated the hijacking of American Airlines Flight 855 over Utah in 1972. That eventually led to the arrest of Richard Floyd McCoy, who was convicted of grabbing a $500,000 cash ransom on a flight before escaping by jumping out of the airplane. Many believe McCoy may have also been behind the infamous D.B. Cooper crime mystery.

The Salt Lake field office also helped in arresting “Unabomber” Theodore Kaczynski in 1996, which led to the security for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake. The local agency also assisted in the Elizabeth Smart abduction case.

Of course, times have changed throughout the years and the FBI’s focus remains ever-changing, said Eric Barnhart, special agent in charge of the Salt Lake City Division.

Now, there’s about 300 violations of federal law that the FBI has jurisdiction over and the Salt Lake field office includes 16 satellite locations within three states. It includes Monticello, Provo, St. George and Vernal.

The local offices deal with everything from homegrown extremism counterterrorism to cyber policing.

“We have probably somewhere between 40,000-50,000 cases pending at one time between our 56 field offices,” Barnhart said. “You’ve gotta walk and chew your bubblegum at the same time.”

Cyber counterintelligence has become a major point for the FBI in the 21st century, Barnhart said. He said that includes various countries such as Russia and China “trying to steal intellectual property, our military secrets, our industrial secrets.”

With Utah becoming a growing tech hub, it has become a threat locally as well.

“It can be anything from nation-state intrusions to attacks on infrastructure to, one of the new things out there, is a business email compromise where basically someone says ‘this is the CEO, you’re my chief financial officer. I need you to transfer millions of dollars to this account for the purchase of X,'” Barnhart explained. “Right now, we estimate that is a $12-billion annual scheme and small businesses to major corporations are falling for this.”

Public corruption and civil rights are also a high priority in the Salt Lake area, as well as working with the Bureau of Indian Affairs on Native American lands within the district’s jurisdiction.

Barnhart estimates the future FBI agents will likely specialize, however, in cyber affairs.

“The FBI has faced new challenges each period of our history, each generation, and we have adapted to them and grown with time and evolved in order to face those threats,” Fox said.

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