Some observers charge that the FBI's decentralized nature may have helped prevent full disclosure. In each field office, the special agent in charge sets the tone. Often SACs are used to having autonomy and bristle at orders from Washington. Even in the days of the powerful Director J. Edgar Hoover, SACs were a maverick group. We're not as disciplined as we once were in our society, and FBI agents aren't as disciplined either.
Agents tend to exercise more discretion.
This independence can be a positive feature, since top-down command structures are often unwieldy and inefficient. But it can also lead to inconsistent, sloppy, or even suspect activities. It's still there, and in some ways, it's more pervasive. The errors came as no surprise to Jeff Weiner, a Miami defense attorney who has dealt with the FBI and says he's faced similar problems. While he believes the FBI's errors in this case are purely accidental, he doesn't believe that's always true.