Leonardo DiCaprio in "J. Edgar."

LOS ANGELES -- In J. Edgar Hoover's heyday, there were just as many secrets, but far fewer leaks.

So while the FBI founder spent decades probing the private lives of powerful politicians in order to obtain scandalous details he could later use as leverage, Leonardo DiCaprio doubts history will ever repeat itself.

"I don't think those type of secrets that Hoover was able to keep and maintain for such a long period of time would be possible in today's world of Internet. It doesn't seem like those secrets could be kept. This was a different age," says DiCaprio who stars in Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar.

"I don't think Hoover would be able to do the same job in this era of mass distribution of information in a matter of seconds."

The extent of the information Hoover had amassed has never been fully known. To prevent the files from falling into the clutches of then-President Richard Nixon following Hoover's death, his personal secretary Helen Gandy (played by Naomi Watts) shredded them immediately.

Adds DiCaprio, "It's a topic that people could talk about until they're blue in the face -- whether that information being released to the public is a positive or negative thing."

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