The Intelligence Career Service

The DI’s most important component is its people. The FBI created an Intelligence Career Service (ICS) to elevate the importance of intelligence within the organization and to provide its intelligence professionals with defined career paths and increased promotion opportunities. The ICS consists of Intelligence Analysts (IAs), Language Analysts (LAs), Physical Surveillance Specialists (PSSs), and a dedicated number of Special Agents (SAs).

Intelligence Analysts
IAs are professionals who create intelligence by converting raw data into actionable information. IAs develop specific expertise, discern patterns of complex behavior, and offer an accurate understanding of present and future threats. Analysts create timely actionable products (reports, briefings, etc.) that help investigators, managers, executives, and policy makers. IAs work in every FBI HQ division and in all 56 field offices. You can find out more about the diverse backgrounds and daily work lives of IAs, by reading some of our IA profiles.

Language Analysts
LAs provide quality translation, interpretation, and language analysis services to the FBI and the Intelligence Community. FBI linguists are certified in approximately 75 languages, running the gamut from Amharic (an Ethiopian language) to Yoruba (a Nigerian language). More than 95% of the FBI’s linguists are native speakers of these foreign languages. Their native-level fluencies and long-term immersion within a foreign culture ensure not only a firm grasp of colloquial and idiomatic speech, but also of heavily nuanced language containing religious, cultural, and historical references. For more information about the diverse backgrounds and daily work lives of LAs, read some of our LA profiles.

Surveillance Specialists
The FBI’s Surveillance Specialists are responsible for performing investigative support directly related to the Bureau’s foreign counterintelligence and international terrorism functions. The surveillance positions collect, analyze, and disseminate intelligence data gathered during the course of sophisticated physical surveillance operations. The work of these positions directly and significantly affects the investigative work of the FBI and other federal government, state, and local agencies in the Intelligence Community.

Special Agents
The Intelligence Career Service includes a select number of Special Agents. Special Agents carry out the responsibilities of the FBI by enforcing more than 260 federal statutes, such as those pertaining to organized crime, white-collar crime, financial crime, civil rights violations, bank robbery, kidnapping, terrorism, foreign counterintelligence, fugitive, and drug trafficking matters. Special Agents also work with other federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies on investigative matters of joint interest.

To learn more about career opportunities in the FBI, visit www.fbijobs.gov. 

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