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Today's CIA- What We Do
CIA’s primary mission is to collect, analyze, evaluate, and disseminate
foreign intelligence to assist the President and senior US Government
policymakers in making decisions relating to national security. This is
a very complex process and involves a variety of steps. First, we have
to identify a problem or an issue of national security concern to the
US Government. In some cases, CIA is directed to study an intelligence
issue—such as what activities terrorist organizations are planning, or
how countries that have biological or chemical weapons plan to use
these weapons—then we look for a way to collect information about the
problem.
There are several ways to collect information. Translating
foreign newspaper and magazine articles and radio and television
broadcasts provides open-source intelligence. Imagery satellites take
pictures from space, and imagery analysts write reports about what they
see—for example, how many airplanes are at a foreign military base.
Signals analysts work to decrypt coded messages sent by other
countries. Operations officers recruit foreigners to give information
about their countries.
After the information is collected, intelligence analysts pull together
the relevant information from all available sources and assess what is
happening, why it is happening, what might occur next, and what it
means for US interests. The result of this analytic effort is timely
and objective assessments, free of any political bias, provided to
senior US policymakers in the form of finished intelligence products
that include written reports and oral briefings. One of these reports
is the President’s Daily Brief (PDB), an Intelligence Community
product, which the US President and other senior officials receive each
day. It is important to know that CIA analysts only report the
information and do not make policy recommendations—making policy is
left to agencies such as the State Department and Department of
Defense. These policymakers use the information that CIA provides to
help them formulate US policy toward other countries. It is also
important to know that CIA is not a law enforcement organization. That
is the job of the FBI; however, the CIA and the FBI cooperate on a
number of issues, such as counterintelligence and counterterrorism.
Additionally, the CIA may also engage in covert action at the
President’s direction and in accordance with applicable law.
The US Congress has had oversight responsibility of the CIA since the
Agency was established in 1947. However, prior to the mid-1970’s,
oversight was less formal. The 1980 Intelligence Oversight Act charged
the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) and the House
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) with authorizing the
programs of the intelligence agencies and overseeing their activities.
Posted: Sep 21, 2007 10:47 AM
Last Updated: Oct 25, 2007 12:10 PM
Last Reviewed: Sep 21, 2007 10:47 AM