The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government.
It is an independent agency responsible for providing national security intelligence to senior United States policymakers.
It is the successor of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) formed during World War II to coordinate espionage activities between the branches of the United States military. The 1947 National Security Act established the CIA, affording it "no police or law enforcement functions, either at home or abroad". One year later, this mandate was expanded to include "sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures...subversion [and] assistance to underground resistance movements, guerrillas and refugee liberation movements, and support of indigenous anti-communist elements in threatened countries of the free world".
The CIA's primary function is to collect information about foreign governments, corporations, and individuals, and to advise public policymakers. The agency conducts covert operations and paramilitary actions, and exerts foreign political influence through its Special Activities Division. The CIA and its responsibilities changed markedly in 2004. Before December 2004, the CIA was the main intelligence organization of the US government; it coordinated and oversaw not only its own activities but also the activities of the US Intelligence Community (IC) as a whole. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 created the office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), which took over some of the government and IC-wide functions. The DNI manages the IC and therefore the intelligence cycle. The functions that moved to the DNI included the preparation of estimates of the consolidated opinion of the 16 IC agencies, and the preparation of briefings for the President of the United States.
Today, the CIA still has a number of functions in common with other countries' intelligence agencies; see Relationships with foreign intelligence agencies. The CIA's headquarters is in Langley in McLean, unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, a few miles west of Washington, DC along the Potomac River.
Sometimes, the CIA is referred to euphemistically in government and military parlance as Other Government Agencies (OGA), particularly when its operations in a particular area are an open secret. Other terms include The Company. and The Agency.
Organization
Main article: Organizational structure of the Central Intelligence Agency
In its present form, the CIA has an executive office and several agency-wide functions, and four major directorates:
The Directorate of Intelligence, responsible for all-source intelligence research and analysis
The National Clandestine Service, formerly the Directorate of Operations, which does clandestine intelligence collection and covert action
The Directorate of Support
The Directorate of Science and Technology
Budget
The overall US intelligence budget has been considered classified until recently. There have been numerous attempts to get general informationand there have also been accidental disclosures: for instance, Mary Margaret Graham, a former CIA official and deputy director of national intelligence for collection in 2005, said the annual intelligence budget was $44 billion.
Executive Office
The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (D/CIA) reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence (DNI); in practice, he deals with the DNI, Congress (usually via the Office of Congressional Affairs), and the White House, while the Deputy Director is the internal executive. The CIA has varying amounts of Congressional oversight, although that is principally a guidance role.[citation needed]
The CIA Executive Office also facilitates CIA’s support of the US military by providing it with information it gathers, receiving information from military intelligence organizations, and cooperating on field activities. Two senior executives have responsibility, one CIA-wide and one for the National Clandestine Service. The Associate Director for Military Support, a senior military officer, manages the relationship between CIA and the Unified Combatant Commands, who produce regional/operational intelligence and consume national intelligence; he is assisted by the Office of Military Affairs in providing support to all branches of the military.
In the National Clandestine Services, an Associate Deputy Director for Operations for Military Affairs deals with specific clandestine human-source intelligence and covert action in support of military operations.
The CIA also makes national-level intelligence available to tactical organizations, usually to their all-source intelligence group.
Executive Staff
Staff offices with several general responsibilities report to the Executive Office.
General Publications
The CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence maintains the Agency's historical materials and promotes the study of intelligence as a legitimate discipline.
In 2002, the CIA's Sherman KentSchool for Intelligence Analysis began publishing the unclassified Kent Center Occasional Papers, aiming to offer "an opportunity for intelligence professionals and interested colleagues—in an unofficial and unfettered vehicle—to debate and advance the theory and practice of intelligence analysis."
General counsel and inspection
Two offices advise the Director on legality and proper operations. The Office of General Counsel advises the Director of the CIA on all legal matters relating to his role as CIA director and is the principal source of legal counsel for the CIA.
The Office of Inspector General promotes efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability in the administration of Agency activities, and seeks to prevent and detect fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement. The Inspector General, whose activities are independent of those of any other component in the Agency, reports directly to the Director of the CIA.
Public Affairs
See also: CIA influence on public opinion
The Office of Public Affairs advises the Director of the CIA on all media, public policy, and employee communications issues relating to his role. This office, among other functions, works with the entertainment industry.[citation needed]
Directorate of Intelligence
The Directorate of Intelligence produces all-source intelligence analysis on key foreign issues. It has four regional analytic groups, six groups for transnational issues, and two support units.
Regional groups
There is an Office dedicated to Iraq, and regional analytical Offices covering:
The Office of Middle East and North Africa Analysis (MENA)
The Office of South Asia Analysis (OSA)
The Office of Russian and European Analysis (OREA)
The Office of East Asian, Pacific, Latin American and African Analysis (APLAA)
Transnational groups
The Office of Terrorism Analysis supports the National Counterterrorism Center in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. See CIA transnational anti-terrorism activities.
The Office of Transnational Issues assesses perceived existing and emerging threats to US national security and provides the most senior policymakers, military planners, and law enforcement with analysis, warning, and crisis support.
The CIA Crime and Narcotics Center researches information on international crime for policymakers and the law enforcement community. As the CIA has no legal domestic police authority, it usually sends its analyses to the FBI and other law enforcement organizations, such as the Drug Enforcement Administration of the United States Department of Justice.
The Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control Center provides intelligence support related to national and non-national threats, as well as supporting threat reduction and arms control. It receives the output of national technical means of verification.
The Counterintelligence Center Analysis Group identifies, monitors, and analyzes the efforts of foreign intelligence entities, both national and non-national, against US government interests. It works with FBI personnel in the National Counterintelligence Executive of the Director of National Intelligence.
The Information Operations Center Analysis Group. deals with threats to US computer systems. This unit supports DNI activities.
Support and general units
The Office of Collection Strategies and Analysis provides comprehensive intelligence collection expertise to the Directorate of Intelligence, to senior Agency and Intelligence Community officials, and to key national policymakers.
The Office of Policy Support customizes Directorate of Intelligence analysis and presents it to a wide variety of policy, law enforcement, military, and foreign liaison recipients.
National Clandestine Service
Main article: National Clandestine Service
In 2004, the CIA was given charge of all US human intelligence, which many consider the core of the agency.[citation needed] As such, the National Clandestine Service (NCS; formerly the Directorate of Operations) is responsible for collecting foreign intelligence, mainly from clandestine HUMINT sources, and covert action. The new name reflects its having absorbed some Department of Defense HUMINT assets. The NCS was created in an attempt to end years of rivalry over influence, philosophy and budget between the United States Department of Defense and the CIA. The Department of Defense had organized the Defense HUMINT Service, which, with the Presidential decision, became part of the NCS.
The precise present organization of the NCS is classified.
Directorate of Science and Technology
Main article: Directorate of Science & Technology
The Directorate of Science & Technology was established to research, create, and manage technical collection disciplines and equipment. Many of its innovations were transferred to other intelligence organizations, or, as they became more overt, to the military services.
For example, the development of the U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft was done in cooperation with the United States Air Force. The U-2's original mission was clandestine imagery intelligence over denied areas such as the Soviet Union.[citation needed] It was subsequently provided with signals intelligence and measurement and signature intelligence capabilities, and is now operated by the Air Force.
Imagery intelligence collected by the U-2 and reconnaissance satellites was analyzed by a DS&T organization called the National Photointerpretation Center (NPIC), which had analysts from both the CIA and the military services. Subsequently, NPIC was transferred to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).
The CIA has always shown a strong interest in how to use advances in technology to enhance its effectiveness. This interest has historically had two primary goals:
harnessing techniques for its own use
countering any new intelligence technologies the Soviets might develop.
In 1999, the CIA created the venture capital firm In-Q-Tel to help fund and develop technologies of interest to the agency. It has long been the IC practice to contract for major development, such as reconnaissance aircraft and satellites.
Directorate of Support
Main articles: Organizational structure of the Central Intelligence Agency#Directorate of Support and Directorate of Support
The Directorate of Support has many traditional organizational administrative functions, such as personnel, security, communications, and financial operations, but in a manner consistent with the needs of highly sensitive operations. Significant units include
The Office of Security
The Office of Communications
The Office of Information Technology
Training
The Office of Training begins with the Junior Officer Training program for new employees, but it also conducts courses in a wide range of specialized professional disciplines. So that the initial course might be taken by employees who had not received final security clearance and thus were not permitted unescorted access to the Headquarters building, a good deal of basic training has been given at office buildings in the urban areas of Arlington, Virginia.[citation needed]
For a later stage of training of student operations officers, there is at least one classified training area at Camp Peary, near Williamsburg, Virginia. Students are selected, and their progress evaluated, in ways derived from the OSS, published as the book Assessment of Men, Selection of Personnel for the Office of Strategic Services.
It is an independent agency responsible for providing national security intelligence to senior United States policymakers.
It is the successor of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) formed during World War II to coordinate espionage activities between the branches of the United States military. The 1947 National Security Act established the CIA, affording it "no police or law enforcement functions, either at home or abroad". One year later, this mandate was expanded to include "sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures...subversion [and] assistance to underground resistance movements, guerrillas and refugee liberation movements, and support of indigenous anti-communist elements in threatened countries of the free world".
The CIA's primary function is to collect information about foreign governments, corporations, and individuals, and to advise public policymakers. The agency conducts covert operations and paramilitary actions, and exerts foreign political influence through its Special Activities Division. The CIA and its responsibilities changed markedly in 2004. Before December 2004, the CIA was the main intelligence organization of the US government; it coordinated and oversaw not only its own activities but also the activities of the US Intelligence Community (IC) as a whole. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 created the office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), which took over some of the government and IC-wide functions. The DNI manages the IC and therefore the intelligence cycle. The functions that moved to the DNI included the preparation of estimates of the consolidated opinion of the 16 IC agencies, and the preparation of briefings for the President of the United States.
Today, the CIA still has a number of functions in common with other countries' intelligence agencies; see Relationships with foreign intelligence agencies. The CIA's headquarters is in Langley in McLean, unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, a few miles west of Washington, DC along the Potomac River.
Sometimes, the CIA is referred to euphemistically in government and military parlance as Other Government Agencies (OGA), particularly when its operations in a particular area are an open secret. Other terms include The Company. and The Agency.
Organization
Main article: Organizational structure of the Central Intelligence Agency
In its present form, the CIA has an executive office and several agency-wide functions, and four major directorates:
The Directorate of Intelligence, responsible for all-source intelligence research and analysis
The National Clandestine Service, formerly the Directorate of Operations, which does clandestine intelligence collection and covert action
The Directorate of Support
The Directorate of Science and Technology
Budget
The overall US intelligence budget has been considered classified until recently. There have been numerous attempts to get general informationand there have also been accidental disclosures: for instance, Mary Margaret Graham, a former CIA official and deputy director of national intelligence for collection in 2005, said the annual intelligence budget was $44 billion.
Executive Office
The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (D/CIA) reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence (DNI); in practice, he deals with the DNI, Congress (usually via the Office of Congressional Affairs), and the White House, while the Deputy Director is the internal executive. The CIA has varying amounts of Congressional oversight, although that is principally a guidance role.[citation needed]
The CIA Executive Office also facilitates CIA’s support of the US military by providing it with information it gathers, receiving information from military intelligence organizations, and cooperating on field activities. Two senior executives have responsibility, one CIA-wide and one for the National Clandestine Service. The Associate Director for Military Support, a senior military officer, manages the relationship between CIA and the Unified Combatant Commands, who produce regional/operational intelligence and consume national intelligence; he is assisted by the Office of Military Affairs in providing support to all branches of the military.
In the National Clandestine Services, an Associate Deputy Director for Operations for Military Affairs deals with specific clandestine human-source intelligence and covert action in support of military operations.
The CIA also makes national-level intelligence available to tactical organizations, usually to their all-source intelligence group.
Executive Staff
Staff offices with several general responsibilities report to the Executive Office.
General Publications
The CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence maintains the Agency's historical materials and promotes the study of intelligence as a legitimate discipline.
In 2002, the CIA's Sherman KentSchool for Intelligence Analysis began publishing the unclassified Kent Center Occasional Papers, aiming to offer "an opportunity for intelligence professionals and interested colleagues—in an unofficial and unfettered vehicle—to debate and advance the theory and practice of intelligence analysis."
General counsel and inspection
Two offices advise the Director on legality and proper operations. The Office of General Counsel advises the Director of the CIA on all legal matters relating to his role as CIA director and is the principal source of legal counsel for the CIA.
The Office of Inspector General promotes efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability in the administration of Agency activities, and seeks to prevent and detect fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement. The Inspector General, whose activities are independent of those of any other component in the Agency, reports directly to the Director of the CIA.
Public Affairs
See also: CIA influence on public opinion
The Office of Public Affairs advises the Director of the CIA on all media, public policy, and employee communications issues relating to his role. This office, among other functions, works with the entertainment industry.[citation needed]
Directorate of Intelligence
The Directorate of Intelligence produces all-source intelligence analysis on key foreign issues. It has four regional analytic groups, six groups for transnational issues, and two support units.
Regional groups
There is an Office dedicated to Iraq, and regional analytical Offices covering:
The Office of Middle East and North Africa Analysis (MENA)
The Office of South Asia Analysis (OSA)
The Office of Russian and European Analysis (OREA)
The Office of East Asian, Pacific, Latin American and African Analysis (APLAA)
Transnational groups
The Office of Terrorism Analysis supports the National Counterterrorism Center in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. See CIA transnational anti-terrorism activities.
The Office of Transnational Issues assesses perceived existing and emerging threats to US national security and provides the most senior policymakers, military planners, and law enforcement with analysis, warning, and crisis support.
The CIA Crime and Narcotics Center researches information on international crime for policymakers and the law enforcement community. As the CIA has no legal domestic police authority, it usually sends its analyses to the FBI and other law enforcement organizations, such as the Drug Enforcement Administration of the United States Department of Justice.
The Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control Center provides intelligence support related to national and non-national threats, as well as supporting threat reduction and arms control. It receives the output of national technical means of verification.
The Counterintelligence Center Analysis Group identifies, monitors, and analyzes the efforts of foreign intelligence entities, both national and non-national, against US government interests. It works with FBI personnel in the National Counterintelligence Executive of the Director of National Intelligence.
The Information Operations Center Analysis Group. deals with threats to US computer systems. This unit supports DNI activities.
Support and general units
The Office of Collection Strategies and Analysis provides comprehensive intelligence collection expertise to the Directorate of Intelligence, to senior Agency and Intelligence Community officials, and to key national policymakers.
The Office of Policy Support customizes Directorate of Intelligence analysis and presents it to a wide variety of policy, law enforcement, military, and foreign liaison recipients.
National Clandestine Service
Main article: National Clandestine Service
In 2004, the CIA was given charge of all US human intelligence, which many consider the core of the agency.[citation needed] As such, the National Clandestine Service (NCS; formerly the Directorate of Operations) is responsible for collecting foreign intelligence, mainly from clandestine HUMINT sources, and covert action. The new name reflects its having absorbed some Department of Defense HUMINT assets. The NCS was created in an attempt to end years of rivalry over influence, philosophy and budget between the United States Department of Defense and the CIA. The Department of Defense had organized the Defense HUMINT Service, which, with the Presidential decision, became part of the NCS.
The precise present organization of the NCS is classified.
Directorate of Science and Technology
Main article: Directorate of Science & Technology
The Directorate of Science & Technology was established to research, create, and manage technical collection disciplines and equipment. Many of its innovations were transferred to other intelligence organizations, or, as they became more overt, to the military services.
For example, the development of the U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft was done in cooperation with the United States Air Force. The U-2's original mission was clandestine imagery intelligence over denied areas such as the Soviet Union.[citation needed] It was subsequently provided with signals intelligence and measurement and signature intelligence capabilities, and is now operated by the Air Force.
Imagery intelligence collected by the U-2 and reconnaissance satellites was analyzed by a DS&T organization called the National Photointerpretation Center (NPIC), which had analysts from both the CIA and the military services. Subsequently, NPIC was transferred to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).
The CIA has always shown a strong interest in how to use advances in technology to enhance its effectiveness. This interest has historically had two primary goals:
harnessing techniques for its own use
countering any new intelligence technologies the Soviets might develop.
In 1999, the CIA created the venture capital firm In-Q-Tel to help fund and develop technologies of interest to the agency. It has long been the IC practice to contract for major development, such as reconnaissance aircraft and satellites.
Directorate of Support
Main articles: Organizational structure of the Central Intelligence Agency#Directorate of Support and Directorate of Support
The Directorate of Support has many traditional organizational administrative functions, such as personnel, security, communications, and financial operations, but in a manner consistent with the needs of highly sensitive operations. Significant units include
The Office of Security
The Office of Communications
The Office of Information Technology
Training
The Office of Training begins with the Junior Officer Training program for new employees, but it also conducts courses in a wide range of specialized professional disciplines. So that the initial course might be taken by employees who had not received final security clearance and thus were not permitted unescorted access to the Headquarters building, a good deal of basic training has been given at office buildings in the urban areas of Arlington, Virginia.[citation needed]
For a later stage of training of student operations officers, there is at least one classified training area at Camp Peary, near Williamsburg, Virginia. Students are selected, and their progress evaluated, in ways derived from the OSS, published as the book Assessment of Men, Selection of Personnel for the Office of Strategic Services.
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