Special agent

Special agent may refer to:

In the United States Government

Any civilian (i.e. non-military rank) federal criminal or non-criminal investigator or detective in the 1811, 0081, or similar job series as so titled according to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) handbook. Such persons are usually armed and have the power to arrest and conduct investigations into the violation of federal laws.

Just about every federal agency has some type of special agent, including, but not limited to, those employed within the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF), or U.S. Marshals Service (USMS); or within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), United States Secret Service (USSS); or within the Department of Treasury by the Internal Revenue Service's Criminal Investigation Division (IRS-CID); or within the Department of Defense by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), the Air Force's Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI), or the Army's Criminal Investigations Division (Army-CID); or within most of the 57 federal Offices of Inspector General (OIG) (see also Inspector General); just to mention a few.

For a complete list of federal law enforcement agencies employing series 1811 federal agents, visit the Federal Law Enforcement Officer's Association (FLEOA) website.

A state or municipal criminal investigator if so titled by the employing agency.

A secret agent.

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Origin of the Term

The use of the term "Special Agent" for US Federal Law Enforcement Officers derives from the fact that all such individuals have limited jurisidction. They may only enforce certain sections of the US Code, or be limited to a certain geographic area, or both. There is no such thing as a "General Agent" that is empowered to enforce all laws, everywhere in the United States. This is in contrast to individual states, which can and most often do have General Agents, though they are not usually referred to as such. A State Police or Highway Patrol organization typically has the authority to enforce all state laws everywhere within the geographic confines of that state.

Exactly which Special Agents have the broadest authority is a matter of debate. The issue of concurrent jurisidction (in which two agencies have non-exclusive jurisidction over a given set of the US code, such as the FBI and DEA in respect to drug laws) does not make the issue more clear. The FBI has a catch-all jurisdiction that includes enforcement of all codes not otherwise exclusively assigned to another agency, but this in fact leaves out a wide swath of the US code. The most likely candidates would be Special Agents with either ICE or NCIS. While normally limited to operating at or near ports of entry, ICE agents not only have the power to enforce all Federal laws, but also applicable state & local laws. NCIS agents not only investigate and enforce most of the laws within the U.S. Code, they do the same with the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), a jurisdiction held by neither ICE nor the FBI.

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