Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles
available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Special agent is
usually the title for a detective or investigator for a state, county,
municipal, federal or tribal government. A special agent is not a "spy"
(i.e. secret agent), but an investigator. An agent is a worker for any
federal agency, and a secret agent is one who works for an intelligence
agency. Within the U.S. government, the title of Special Agent is used
to describe any federal criminal or noncriminal investigator or
detective in the 1811, 1810, 1801, 2501, or similar job series as so
titled according to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) handbook.
Agents are typically educated at least as far as the undergraduate
level. Such persons are usually armed and have the power to arrest and
conduct investigations into the violation of federal laws. Not all
federal criminal investigators are called "special agents". Some federal
agencies entitle their investigators as "criminal investigators" but use
the term interchangeably with "special agent". Other federal agencies
use different titles for the same 1811 criminal investigative job
series.
