At first, lab managers dismissed his complaints about colleagues' work as prickly perfectionism. They suspended him for a week after he notified defense lawyers of lab errors in a case. It was not until 1994 that Whitehurst's claims were taken seriously enough to reach the inspector general's office. The assault on the bureau's competence could not come at a worse time. At the same time, the enemy is smarter and more slippery.
New technology makes white-collar crime easier to commit and harder to prosecute.
It is not entirely fair that so much of the fury has descended upon the haloed head of Louis Freeh. From the start, Freeh demonstrated a willingness to turn the agency inside out. Freeh's critics resent him not so much for what he did but for the way he did it. They charge him with obsessive secrecy, bullheadedness and micromanagement, and cite a pattern of stifling dissent, protecting cronies and killing messengers. Some field agents are mutinously calling the director Dr. Kevorkian and the Queen of Hearts for his penchant for lopping heads first and asking questions later.