Standing before a portrait of Federal Bureau of Investigation founder J. Edgar Hoover, FBI agents voice indignation at the idea that they break the law, despite the incriminating tools they hold. Herblock indicts the abuses of power the agency practiced for years. During Hoover’s long tenure as director (1924–1972), he established the world’s largest fingerprint file and a crime-detection laboratory, but he also used agency resources to gather information illegally and intimidate political protestors and others whom he considered subversive.