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Louis J. Freeh

Did You Know . . .

By 1977 new graduating FBI agents were trained and armed with firearms but their most important piece of equipment was a laptop computer.
Encryption, or coded messages, used in computer communications benefited law enforcement agencies and businesses but also benefited criminals. For example, a business might code the credit card numbers of its customers so the numbers cannot be stolen. Criminals, too, send information in code so law enforcement is unable to decipher it. Just as encrypted message codes of the Japanese and Germans were broken by U.S. intelligence agents in World War II, Freeh believed further efforts in the study of encryption were essential.