How regular citizens on a secret mission broke in and stole the FBI’s dark secrets | CNN

One day in early 1971, a young woman in glasses showed up at a regional office of the Federal Bureau of Investigations in Media, Pennsylvania, about 15 miles outside of Philadelphia. She had made an appointment with the head of the office, introducing herself as a Swarthmore College student doing research on opportunities for women in the FBI. The agents welcomed her in. The visitor wore a winter hat that covered her hair. If any agent found it odd that she kept her gloves on the whole time she was there, they apparently didn’t mention it. She asked her questions and took her notes. When it was time to go, she bumbled her way into another part of the building, and the agents had to steer her back the way she’d come in. The inquisitive student was not a student at all, but a woman from Philadelphia named Bonnie Raines. And while asking about women’s law-enforcement careers, she was learning about other things: the lax security in the Media office. Unlocked filing cabinets. The absence of any visible cameras or alarms. And, on her rambling way out of the building, a glimpse of a room with a second exit, though that door was barricaded by a large cabinet. “They were very graci