FBI Agents Share Their Truth

The government can’t divulge everything to the American public... but what are they really hiding from us? Conspiracies and UFO sightings are usually the first things that come to mind, but could the government be keeping far more crucial information from us — information that may affect our everyday lives? As it turns out, even though the FBI is one of Uncle Sam's most tight-lipped bureaus, it was only a matter of time before its secrets finally came to light. Now that these unnerving facts about the FBI have been revealed, you’ll begin to question whether anything you’ve been told is worth believing.

1. The FBI probably has your prints

Even if you've never committed a crime, it's possible that the FBI has a copy of your fingerprints. After all, its Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System holds at least 70 million sets of prints belonging to criminals, 73,000 prints belonging to potential terrorists, and a massive 31 million prints belonging to regular civilians. Biometrics can come from all over the world, too. The FBI can also identify your prints in as little as 12 minutes.

2. A celebrity anti-communist informant

In 1993 The New York Times claimed that Walt Disney served as an informant for the FBI for the last 26 years of his life. The paper said Disney would report on suspected Communists operating in Hollywood. And Disney was apparently pretty good at this job, as in 1954 he was reportedly named a full Special Agent in Charge Contact. In 1947 Uncle Walt also named names before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

3. The 'red scare' went deep

Former U.S. president Ronald Reagan was also an FBI informant in the years before and during his tenure as head of the Screen Actors Guild. This came to light after the San Jose Mercury News obtained Reagan's FBI file with a freedom-of-information request in 1985. The released FBI documents revealed that Reagan was given the codename "T-10," and that Reagan his first wife, Jane Wyman, and 17 others provided the bureau with names of possible Communist sympathizers in the film industry.

4. It took a long time for the FBI to go digital

While you'd think the country's top law enforcement agency would be constantly adapting to the latest technology, the FBI continued to rely on paper files to track its thousands of cases up until 2012. But it wasn't for lack of trying. The agency was widely criticized for missing potential leads before 9/11 and a plan to go digital was swiftly put into place. But then the system called "Virtual Case File" was abandoned in 2005 — after $170 million in costs. A new system called Sentinel began development in 2006... and suffered major cost and technical issues before finally going online in 2012. The total spend? $451 million.