About the FBI Have you ever wanted to work for the FBI? Here is a little history on the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The FBI started in 1908. It was known as the Bureau of Investigation then. On July 26, 1908, the Attorney General selected ten Special Agents of the Bureau of Investigation. They were called the Special Agent Task Force. In 1933, the Bureau’s name was changed to the Division of Investigation. It was changed again in 1935 to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It is known as that today.
All agents carry a special wallet that has their picture in it. They use this wallet to identify themselves to people when they are working. It is called a credential. There are two different kinds of credentials. They change depending on which division in the FBI you work in and your rank as an agent.
The FBI has changed what they investigate as the times have changed. In 1908, there were different crimes than the crimes that exist today. Also, there were fewer types of crimes than today. A good example of this is car theft. In 1908, almost no one had a car. As more people bought cars, the number of car thefts increased.
Many years ago, the FBI investigated crimes like bank robbery, kidnapping, and car thefts that go across state lines. Today, there are over 350 violations of the law that the FBI investigates. The different violations are broken down into several categories. The FBI looks into violent crime, organized crime, white collar crime, terrorism, foreign counterintelligence, civil rights, and applicant matters.
The FBI has many ways of solving those crimes and finding the criminals. One of them is through fingerprint identification. Fingerprints are a great way to tell people apart because everyone’s fingerprints are unique. This means that no two people in the world have the same fingerprints! Other ways of identifying people, like hair color, height, and weight, may change as a person gets older. Fingerprints stay the same no matter what.
There are over 250 million sets of fingerprint records on file. If all the fingerprint cards on file were stacked on top of one another, they would equal 133 stacks, each the size of the Empire State Building! Finding space to keep all of these fingerprint cards is difficult. This is one of the reasons the FBI is now putting cards in a digital format. That means the images can be stored on computers. All fingerprint cards at the FBI are eight-inch squares, a little smaller than a piece of notebook paper, and are thinner than a piece of cardboard. The FBI gets over 37,000 of these fingerprint cards every day, seven days a week! 32% of these cards now come to the FBI as digital images.
Not all fingerprint cards on file are of criminals. Some records are civil prints. Civil prints are taken of people who work for the government or apply for a job with the government.
Still interested in being an agent? Check out the FBI’s official website for more information: www. fbi. gov.

What caused the FBI to put more fingerprint cards in a digital format?
A.
The head of the FBI wanted to look at fingerprints on his computer.
B.
It was harder to find space for hard copies of fingerprint cards.
C.
Their computers would not work without digital fingerprint cards.
D.
It was harder to find space on the computers for fingerprint cards.
It's B