Brick Agent Underground

Holding FBI Executives accountable through transparency.  FBI Executive management Watchdog.  Supporting brick agents on the Street.  Provide the media, public and elected officials with information about the FBI.

Brick Agent Underground

"brick agent:  term of endearment describing successful, hard working, non-management FBI agents; federal detective; lead investigator; case agent;  The FBI's outstanding reputation was built on the backs of these line level, non-supervisory agents. 
  

Incompetence and personal ambition within the FBI's executive management are fatally degrading the world's finest law enforcement organization.  In the clubby, insular FBI Senior Executive Service, executives protect each other, display little leadership ability and have a glaring lack of experience working on the street.   Their objectives are career advancement in the FBI and obtaining premium employment in retirement.  Self-interest and allegiance to the SES Club are fundamentals entrenched in the culture of their ranks.  The resulting aura of secrecy and self-preservation, unfortunately, is being mistaken by Congress and the public as a wider, "FBI Culture".   

How we got Here:   Bureaucrats gained their stranglehold over the FBI by corrupting the promotion system.  Turning it into a mysterious, backroom process without transparency or accountability.   Executives pretend to have established a fair and open promotion process within the FBI.  The truth is, those rising to the executive ranks are often the lesser talented investigative agents. They routinely attain promotions through networking and tacit pledges of allegiance to other executives in the club, rather than for their own accomplishments or leadership ability.   Through sheer personal fortitude, brick agents have productive careers despite being forced to operate within what has become a suffocating, gamed, bureaucracy.  Yes, there are a small number of FBI executives who are highly competent investigators.  Yes, there are a small number of executives who are inspiring and thoughtful leaders.  A few are heroes.  Unfortunately, those few heroes are far outnumbered and often shouted down by legions of incompetent, petty,  self-promoters within the executive ranks.    Executive management has gotten away with hiding overwhelming examples of their incompetence.  Sadly, many have hijacked parts of the organization to satisfy personal agendas.  Executives reward one another with rigged-up promotions in exchange for mutually pledged loyalty and for maintaining secrecy about embarrassing, audacious incidents within their ranks.   A sort of, "FBI job trade program" as one executive bluntly referred to it.   The incidents of incompetence are more than just isolated gaffes.  Their volume and brazenness prove that systemic, deeply rooted flaws exist in the FBI's accountability process for executives.  They are an evidence trail of a failed promotion system and demonstrate the existence of a closed network that protects their own.   

Why it's Important:    America's new enemies are vicious, hard targets.  They are unusually determined to achieve their goals.  The stakes have always been high but more so now.  We are warned that terrorists could detonate a dirty bomb in the U.S.  A significant threat exists for our cyber annihilation.  Hostile, cunning foreign intelligence officers pose a lethal danger. Assains attack our schools and businesses, our financial markets are under siege by sophisticated, organized transnational crime cartels.  Corruption is rampant.  The fight is being valiantly waged by FBI line-level employees while upper-level managers too often distract them.  Executives set bureaucratic minefields to navigate or lack experience and abilities to instill proper command and control to win investigative and intelligence collection battles.    Employees at the FBI proudly stand as part of the Thin Blue Line but in many situations we're the last Blue Line.   Getting the most talented leaders into the FBI executive ranks and holding them accountable is of critical importance to our Nation's security.  

Managers in recent years have taken the FBI far off track, nearly bankrupting it.   A tipping point has been reached; the struggle to correct it must be undertaken now before it is too late.   This Site is just one step in what will be a long, hard fight.  Someone had to start this fight.  Encouraged that the struggle has been undertaken,  other employees will advance better ideas along with improved methods of implementing them.  FBI leadership will improve dramatically because of it.    

Holding FBI Management Accountable Through Transparency