All in a Day's Work

When Technology Review first approached the FBI about interviewing an agent of the computer crime squad, the idea was to write about an agent's "average day." The public affairs manager at the FBI's Boston office nixed the idea: there are no average days for an FBI agent, she said. Indeed, Day says that one of the best things about her job is its endless variety.

"I might spend one day in trial preparation. I could spend an entire day milling through computer files doing evidence assessment. The next day I could be scheduled to testify in a trial. And last month I spent a couple weeks in Bangkok, Thailand, teaching police from 10 different Asian countries." She spends some days on the phone, perhaps overseeing a new case coming in from a financial institution or phoning FBI headquarters with information that needs to be relayed to other field offices. A few days later she might be off to the range for weapons training. Agent Day carries a .40-caliber Glock 23 and assists on the occasional drug raid. "It is very long work, and it's very hard," she says about her job, "but it gives you something that you would never see in the private sector."