"The minute the FBI begins making recommendations on what should be done with its information, it becomes a Gestapo." - J. Edgar Hoover
The history of the FBI is the history of how America - once a nation that abided by the rule of law and held the government accountable for its actions - has steadily devolved into a police state where laws are unidirectional, intended as a tool for government to control the people and rarely the other way around.
The FBI was established in 1908 (as the Bureau of Investigation) by President Theodore Roosevelt and Attorney General Charles Bonaparte as a small task force assigned to deal with specific domestic crimes, its first being to survey houses of prostitution in anticipation of enforcing the White Slave Traffic Act. Initially quite limited in its abilities to investigate so-called domestic crimes, the FBI slowly expanded in size, scope, and authority over the course of the 20th Century.