On Saturday, March 9, I joined a class of our new agents and intelligence analysts in New York for a visit to the National September 11 Memorial and Museum. The visit was the kickoff of a plan several months in the making, and reflected some themes particularly near and dear to me. I felt strongly that we should add this visit to our Basic Field Training Course, so I want to explain to you why I think it’s so important. 

As you know, I’m not the first Director to add an experience like this to our training. In 2000, Director Freeh decided all new agent classes should visit the HolocaustMuseum in Washington, D.C. In 2014, Director Comey built on that insight by adding a visit to the Martin Luther King Memorial on the National Mall. Both visits have become key elements of the FBI’s training experience. They remind us of the horrific consequences that can arise when law enforcement abuses its power and abandons accountability and the rule of law. 

The idea for both of those visits came from an understanding that the Bureau has to do more than just teach our new agents and analysts the nuts and bolts of how to do their job. We’ve also got to remind them of why we do the job, and why we do it the way we do it.

I believe visiting the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum will reinforce these lessons for our new folks – but in a slightly different way. Above all, what I hope they’ll take away is that there’s nothing more important than the work we do, the people we do the work with, and the people we do the work for.

There’s no better reminder than 9/11 of the importance of the FBI’s work. As you remember, after that terrible day, under the leadership of Director Mueller, the Bureau transformed in ways that have made us stronger and better, and our country safer. Those changes weren’t limited to our counterterrorism work. They’ve spread through every FBI program and every investigation, in every community we serve.

It’s crucial for our new agents and analysts to understand the wellspring of those changes, so they’ll have a better understanding of today’s FBI. This visit will remind them why we’re so focused on integrating intelligence in everything we do; why we emphasize partnerships; and why we’ve always got to be willing to adapt and innovate, and think not only about current threats but also about the threats we haven’t seen yet. 

This visit will also remind them of the stakes of our work. That’s especially important now, as our workforce continues to age out, and we have fewer and fewer people like so many of you, who either worked at the Bureau during 9/11 or joined the Bureau because of 9/11. We need to make a special effort to ensure that 9/11 doesn’t become an abstract memory or mere historical footnote for our organization.

Every one of you who worked for the FBI on that terrible day remembers the overwhelming sense of purpose you felt – to make sure something like that never, ever happened again. Even as 9/11 recedes further into the past, and more employees who were then with the Bureau retire, the FBI should never completely lose that feeling. That sense of purpose and resolve can serve as an indispensable touchstone for our new agents and analysts. It will help them to never be complacent – to never accept anything less than excellence from themselves, their colleagues, and this organization. Because at the end of the day, it’s our work that matters.

This visit will also remind our new agents and analysts of the importance of the people we do this work with. We can’t think of 9/11 without recalling the sacrifices some of us are called upon to make in this line of work. We think of the members of the FBI family who died that day; our FBI brothers and sisters who have since lost their lives to illnesses resulting from their work after the attacks; and those fighting grave illnesses today. These selfless men and women thought of others first and answered the call of duty, no matter the cost. I hope this visit will inspire our new agents and analysts to follow their example – and to take care of their colleagues who make similar sacrifices in the future.

Finally, I hope the memory of this visit will help our people to stay focused on the people we do the work for. We work to bring justice to the victims of terrorism and crime and their families – and to make sure that others never experience the pain they’ve gone through. 

About two years after the 9/11 attacks, when I was the Assistant Attorney General, I had the chance to meet with members of the victims’ families and hear their stories, and it left an impression that I’ll never forget. The kind of knee-buckling grief those families experienced – that sense that something you held most precious was stolen from you – never goes away It dissipates with the passage of time, but it never disappears. After you experience that kind of grief – even as a prosecutor or investigator and not as a victim – you’re forever changed.

That’s why I want our new agents and analysts to visit this place. It should change you. Touring the 9/11 Memorial and Museum will give our new folks a deeper understanding of just how much crime and terrorism wound victims and families, and what an awesome responsibility we have. It will help them to understand that they haven’t chosen any ordinary job. They’ve chosen to do something extraordinary – and millions of people they’ll never know are counting on them to do that job well.

In New York, I encouraged the new agents and analysts to lock down in their memory the images, words, and emotions of what began as a beautiful September day all those years ago. When they have tough days later on in their FBI careers, I hope those memories will bring them back to the core of their job: the work we do, the people we do the work with, and the people we do the work for. If they keep those things front and center, they’ll carry on your legacy and leave the Bureau even better than they found it – and our country will be better for it, too.

Thank you again for modeling what it means to be part of the FBI family, and for continuing to care about this great organization.

Chris Wray  

For additional information on the visit, to include a video and Director Wray’s remarks, 

please visit https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/911-memorial-visit-added-to-agent-and-analyst-training-031319.

Baltimore Inner Harbor

FBI HQ Tour

Conference

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OPM has recently learned of an aggressive marketing push targeting
Federal annuitants. Companies are offering a cash payment in
exchange for a portion, or all, of your future annuity payments
generally much less than their long-term worth, and typically
charging high interest rates and fees.

We have specifically received numerous phone calls from one company
in particular asking us to not just verify annuity amounts, but also
banking information, including routing numbers and account numbers.
Our suspicions were confirmed by our Inspector General’s office who
discovered this company is currently under investigation by the
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

CFPB lists three things you can do to protect your retirement
annuity:

1. Avoid loans with high fees and interest. Pension advance companies
may not always advertise their fees and interest rates, but you will
certainly feel feel them in your bottom line. Before you sign
anything, learn what you are getting and how much you are giving up.

2. Don’t sign over control of your benefits. Companies sometimes arrange
for monthly payments to be automatically deposited in a newly created
bank account so the company can withdraw payments, fees and interest
charges from the account. This leaves you with little control.

3. Don’t buy life insurance that you don’t want or need
Pension advance companies sometimes
require consumers to sign up for life insurance
with the company as the consumer’s beneficiary. If you
sign up for life insurance with the pension advance
company as your beneficiary, you could end up
footing the bill, whether you know it or not.

Go to (https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/blog/consumer-advisory
-3-pension-advance-traps-to-avoid/) for more information.

Also feel free to report any suspected scams to OPM’s Office of
Inspector General (OIG) at:

OIG Hotline Number

877-499-7295

Or Write to

OPM Office of the Inspector General
1900 E Street NW Room #6400
Washington, DC 20415-1100

Or Submit a Complaint Form

Hotline Complaint Form

‘Inside the FBI: New York’: First Promo & Premiere Date For Dick Wolf’s USA Network Docuseries

by Erik Pedersen

March 24, 2017 6:00pm
Dick Wolf has another new show coming — but this one’s not an NBC procedural. The docuseries Inside the FBI: New York will premiere at 10 PM Thursday, April 27, on USA Network, the NBCUniversal-owned net said today. It also released the first promo for the series; watch it below.

Wolf executive produces Inside the FBI: NY, which comes from Emmy-winning filmmaker Marc Levin. It takes an unprecedented look at the Bureau’s New York field office. “The threat’s always evolving, so we always have to be evolving,” one agent says. “At any moment, without warning, anybody is a potential threat.” Says another: “While we do care about what’s going on overseas, New York is home, and this is where I’m worried about. Any time something happens here, I take it personal.”

The FBI has been under a microscope in recent months, with Director James Comey’s decision on Hillary Clinton’s email scandal late in the election cycle and especially this week’s hearing before the House Intelligence Committee. On Monday, Comey confirmed that the Bureau is investigating Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia and also said the FBI has “no information” to support Trump’s charge that President Obama wiretapped him.

Said Wolf, the man behind NBC’s Law & Order and Chicago franchises, ‎”Marc and his team were embedded with the FBI’s flagship New York office for over a year, and his extraordinary access has resulted in a never-before-seen look at the lives and work of the FBI agents who keep Americans safe.”

Inside the FBI: New York is a co-production between Wolf Reality and Brick City TV. Tom Thayer and Marc Benjamin also serve as executive producers alongside Wolf and Levin.

The location of the FBIRA Store at Headquarters has moved.

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