Tunberg initially agreed, Wyler said, but then changed his mind when the Screen Writers' Guild routinely investigated the claim.

The policy of not routinely investigating all fires has fueled a debate between officials and marshals over its consequences.

That office employs career lawyers who routinely investigate this sort of leak and have the security clearances to do so with dispatch.

This year, however, of the 4,119 fires assigned to marshals between January and August, 1,252 went uninvestigated, as the city no longer routinely investigates anything smaller than three-alarm fires.

Police routinely investigated such allegations, which rarely resulted in punishment (see section 5 Other Societal Abuses and Discrimination).

He said the F.B.I. routinely investigated such accidents under Federal train wreck statutes, which make it a Federal crime to sabotage or damage a train in interstate commerce.

He said the bureau, which prints stamps used by the United States Postal Service, routinely investigates whenever there are flaws in its work.

Government agencies around the world routinely investigate purported alternative cancer treatments in an effort to protect their citizens from fraud and abuse.

While the Fire Department last year stopped routinely investigating fires under three alarms, David Billig, a department spokesman, said suspicious fires and those that cause injury or death were still being investigated.

He said his office does not routinely investigate leaks to newspapers.