Audio Transcript

Mr. Schiff: Millions of fingerprint cards are filed at the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division, CJIS, formerly the Identification Division...

Mr. Fischer: "The Identification Division was created by Congress in July of 1924.”

Mr. Schiff: Steve Fischer of CJIS located in West Virginia...

Mr. Fischer: "At that time we received over 800,000 fingerprint records from the Federal Prison at Leavenworth and we were instructed to begin a fingerprint repository for the country.”

Mr. Schiff: Fischer says before computers, the FBI had large rooms filled with huge file cabinets loaded with fingerprint cards...

Mr. Fischer: "And hundreds of fingerprint examiners walking through those files with a fingerprint card in their hand looking for a potential match in one of those file cabinets.”

Mr. Schiff: Sometimes it took days or weeks to process fingerprint cards; now with computers it’s done in minutes.  I’m Neal Schiff of the Bureau and that’s what’s happening at the “FBI, This Week.”