FBI Citizens' Academy tours DC headquarters

About a dozen people from the Knoxville FBI Citizens' Academy took a road trip to the nation's capital last week, a trip that took them to some of the country's most secure places. The city filled with national landmarks is a tourist's treasure, a first time for academy members like Susan Cohen.

From the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Monument to ones that recognize veterans of war, there's plenty to take pictures of, but not everything is fair game. Take, for instance, the sights of the FBI's headquarters.

"It's a big concrete thing that sits on a very good piece of Washington real estate,"said FBI Assistant Public Affairs Director John Miller.

Miller's met with some of the world's most high-profile and wanted figures in his previous life as an ABC news correspondent.

"It's not a building to which there is public access anymore," Miller said. "There is no FBI tour, because of security reasons after September 11th."

Last Tuesday, Miller gave the Knoxville FBI Citizens' Academy a snapshot of what agents do there.

One hundred years ago, the FBI started out with about 35 agents in the Department of Justice building. They've now got about 1,400 agents working out of its headquarters and some 13,000 worldwide.

"We like to pull out all the stops," Miller said of the tours. "We like to bring in the FBI executives in charge of the latest programs." From mortgage fraud--a growing white collar crime--to an overview of its inspection division, the Citizens' Academy was debriefed on the issues facing today's FBI.

It all happened behind closed doors in the highly secure Strategic Information Operations Center.

They were hesitant to let 10 News even film the lobby.

"The chairs that the group sat in are the chairs the Attorney General and FBI Director sit in everyday for their briefings with the CIA and the Intelligence community," Miller said. "It's where our most important discussions take place."

It offered a rare opportunity to sit in the hot seat. "It was a unique experience. Very few people who come to Washington DC would get to have this kind of tour," said Arnold Cohen of the Citizens' Academy.

Thursday at six, Ten News Reporter Robin Murdoch will take you inside the highly secure FBI Training Academy in Quantico, Virginia.