- Info
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: Apr 05, 2007 10:09 AM
Last Updated: Jun 02, 2008 09:35 AM
Last Reviewed: Apr 05, 2007 10:09 AM