122-457: The Special Collection Service ( SCS ), codenamed F6 , is a highly classified joint U.S. Central Intelligence Agency – National Security Agency program charged with inserting eavesdropping equipment in difficult-to-reach places, such as foreign embassies, communications centers, and foreign government installations. Established in the late 1970s and headquartered in Beltsville , Maryland ,
244-513: A CIA domestic surveillance program was uncovered that had not been subject to congressional oversight. When the CIA was created, its purpose was to create a clearinghouse for foreign policy intelligence and analysis, collecting, analyzing, evaluating, and disseminating foreign intelligence, and carrying out covert operations. As of 2013, the CIA had five priorities: The CIA has an executive office and five major directorates: The director of
366-534: A CIA paid mob led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini would spark what a U.S. embassy officer called "an almost spontaneous revolution" but Mosaddegh was protected by his new inner military circle, and the CIA had been unable to gain influence within the Iranian military. Their chosen man, former General Fazlollah Zahedi, had no troops to call on. After the failure of the first coup, Roosevelt paid demonstrators to pose as communists and deface public symbols associated with
488-466: A Presidential military order issued by President Roosevelt on June 13, 1942. The idea for a centralized intelligence organization was first proposed by General William J. Donovan, who envisioned an intelligence service that could operate globally to counter communist threats and provide crucial intelligence directly to the President. Donovan proposed the idea to President Roosevelt in 1944, suggesting
610-642: A Russian translator and Soviet spy. However, the CIA was successful in influencing the 1948 Italian election in favor of the Christian Democrats . The $ 200 million Exchange Stabilization Fund (equivalent to $ 2.5 billion in 2023), earmarked for the reconstruction of Europe, was used to pay wealthy Americans of Italian heritage. Cash was then distributed to Catholic Action , the Vatican's political arm, and directly to Italian politicians. This tactic of using its large fund to purchase elections
732-536: A White House panel member, the NSA didn't stop any terrorist attack. However the NSA chief stated that surveillance programs stopped 54 terrorist plots. In an interview with Der Spiegel published on 12 August 2013, former NSA Director Michael Hayden admitted that "We (the NSA) steal secrets. We're number one in it". Hayden also added: "We steal stuff to make you safe, not to make you rich". According to documents seen by
854-548: A catalog of computer viruses - that the N.S.A. is building a 1-million-square-foot facility in the Utah desert to store and process it. On 6 June 2013, Britain's The Guardian newspaper began publishing a series of revelations by an as yet unknown American whistleblower, revealed several days later to be ex-CIA and ex-NSA-contracted systems analyst Edward Snowden. Snowden gave a cache of documents to two journalists, Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras . Greenwald later estimated that
976-494: A daily basis. This enables NSA analysts to map cellphone owners' relationships by correlating their patterns of movement over time with thousands or millions of other phone users who cross their paths. In order to decode private conversations, the NSA has cracked the most commonly used cellphone encryption technology, A5/1 . According to a classified document leaked by Snowden, the agency can "process encrypted A5/1" even when it has not acquired an encryption key. In addition,
1098-539: A former British colony in the Asia-Pacific region (blue dot), plays a vital role in intercepting Internet and telecommunications traffic heading from Australia/Japan to Europe, and vice versa. An intelligence-sharing agreement between Singapore and Australia allows the rest of the "Five Eyes" to gain access to SEA-ME-WE 3 . Right : TAT-14 , a telecommunications cable linking Europe with the United States,
1220-721: A member of the National Front , was elected Iranian prime-minister. As prime minister, he nationalized the Anglo-Persian Oil Company which his predecessor had supported. The nationalization of the British-funded Iranian oil industry, including the largest oil refinery in the world, was disastrous for Mosaddegh. A British naval embargo closed the British oil facilities, which Iran had no skilled workers to operate. In 1952, Mosaddegh resisted
1342-461: A number of subversive operations in the country, all of which failed due to the presence of double agents. Millions of dollars were spent in these efforts. These included a team of young CIA officers airdropped into China who were ambushed, and CIA funds being used to set up a global heroin empire in Burma's Golden Triangle following a betrayal by another double agent. In 1951, Mohammad Mosaddegh ,
SECTION 10
#17327931972261464-641: A principal member of the United States Intelligence Community (IC), the CIA reports to the director of national intelligence and is primarily focused on providing intelligence for the president and Cabinet . The agency's founding followed the dissolution of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) at the end of World War II by President Harry S. Truman , who created the Central Intelligence Group under
1586-553: A report entitled 'Development of Surveillance Technology and Risk of Abuse of Economic Information', in 1999. However, for the general public, it was a series of detailed disclosures of internal NSA documents in June 2013 that first revealed the massive extent of the NSA's spying, both foreign and domestic. Most of these were leaked by an ex-contractor, Edward Snowden . Even so, a number of these older global surveillance programs such as PRISM , XKeyscore , and Tempora were referenced in
1708-417: A single day in 2012, the NSA collected e-mail address books from: Each day, the NSA collects contacts from an estimated 500,000 buddy lists on live-chat services as well as from the inbox displays of Web-based e-mail accounts. Taken together, the data enables the NSA to draw detailed maps of a person's life based on their personal, professional, religious and political connections. Federal agencies in
1830-667: A statement addressed to the National Congress of Brazil in early August 2013, journalist Glenn Greenwald maintained that the U.S. government had used counter-terrorism as a pretext for clandestine surveillance in order to compete with other countries in the "business, industrial and economic fields". In a December 2013 letter to the Brazilian government , Snowden wrote that "These programs were never about terrorism: they're about economic spying, social control, and diplomatic manipulation. They're about power ." According to
1952-577: A subsequent congressional inquiry led by Sen. Frank Church , it was revealed that the NSA , in collaboration with Britain's GCHQ, had routinely intercepted the international communications of prominent anti- Vietnam War leaders such as Jane Fonda and Dr. Benjamin Spock . Decades later, a multi-year investigation by the European Parliament highlighted the NSA's role in economic espionage in
2074-523: A variety of activities such as the CIA's drone fleet and anti- Iranian nuclear program activities, accounts for $ 2.6 billion. There were numerous previous attempts to obtain general information about the budget. As a result, reports revealed that CIA's annual budget in Fiscal Year 1963 was $ 550 million (inflation-adjusted US$ 5.5 billion in 2024), and the overall intelligence budget in FY 1997
2196-659: Is a method that involves utilizing data related to social links among individuals, including call logs that connect phone numbers with each other, in order to pinpoint individuals associated with criminal groups. However, a lack of privacy guidelines can result in this process amassing an extensive portion of user data. The NSA uses the analysis of phone call and e-mail logs of American citizens to create sophisticated graphs of their social connections that can identify their associates, their locations at certain times, their traveling companions and other personal information. According to top secret NSA documents leaked by Snowden, during
2318-549: Is known about the technologies and techniques it employs. The sole inside account of SCS comes from a Canadian , Mike Frost, whose 1994 book Spyworld revealed that the program was known to insiders at the time as "College Park". As of 2008, the SCS is reported to target for recruitment key foreign communications personnel such as database managers, systems administrators, and information technology specialists. During October 2013, reports by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden led to
2440-778: Is responsible for all matters pertaining to congressional interaction and oversight of US intelligence activities. It claims that it aims to: The CIA established its first training facility, the Office of Training and Education, in 1950. Following the end of the Cold War , the CIA's training budget was slashed, which had a negative effect on employee retention . In response, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet established CIA University in 2002. CIA University holds between 200 and 300 courses each year, training both new hires and experienced intelligence officers, as well as CIA support staff. The facility works in partnership with
2562-402: Is responsible for collecting foreign intelligence (mainly from clandestine HUMINT sources), and for covert action. The name reflects its role as the coordinator of human intelligence activities between other elements of the wider U.S. intelligence community with their HUMINT operations. This directorate was created in an attempt to end years of rivalry over influence, philosophy, and budget between
SECTION 20
#17327931972262684-462: Is to intercept sensitive information on espionage, nuclear arms, terrorist networks, drug trafficking and other national-security-related issues. The SCS was established to overcome a problem in that the NSA typically intercepts communications "passively" from its various intercept facilities throughout the world, yet the increasing sophistication of foreign communications equipment renders passive interception futile and instead requires direct access to
2806-516: The Royal Concierge surveillance program, Britain's GCHQ agency uses an automated monitoring system to infiltrate the reservation systems of at least 350 luxury hotels in many different parts of the world. Other related surveillance programs involve the wiretapping of room telephones and fax machines used in targeted hotels, as well as the monitoring of computers, hooked up to the hotel network. The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA),
2928-490: The 1998 U.S. embassy bombings , SCS operatives covertly entered Afghanistan to place eavesdropping devices within range of Al-Qaeda 's tactical radios. The SCS was rumored to have been involved in the 2001 operation that planted 27 satellite-controlled bugs in the Boeing 767-300ER that was to be used as Chinese leader Jiang Zemin 's official jet. The bugs were discovered, however, before they could be switched on. Prior to
3050-539: The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq , SCS was described as the "prime mover" of electronic surveillance in the country. SCS operatives built numerous antennae, spaced throughout the Iraqi countryside, capable of intercepting Iraqi microwave communications. These Iraqi communications would have been otherwise difficult to intercept, because they beamed hilltop to hilltop in a narrow band, with an angle too oblique and thus too dissipated to be intercepted by air or spacecraft. In 1998,
3172-693: The Boundless Informant . As confirmed by the NSA's director Keith B. Alexander on 26 September 2013, the NSA collects and stores all phone records of all American citizens. Much of the data is kept in large storage facilities such as the Utah Data Center , a US $ 1.5 billion megaproject referred to by The Wall Street Journal as a "symbol of the spy agency's surveillance prowess." Today, this global surveillance system continues to grow. It now collects so much digital detritus – e-mails, calls, text messages, cellphone location data and
3294-475: The Departments of State and War . The division lasted only a few months. The first public mention of the "Central Intelligence Agency" appeared on a command-restructuring proposal presented by Jim Forrestal and Arthur Radford to the U.S. Senate Military Affairs Committee at the end of 1945. Army Intelligence agent Colonel Sidney Mashbir and Commander Ellis Zacharias worked together for four months at
3416-682: The National Intelligence University , and includes the Sherman Kent School for Intelligence Analysis , the Directorate of Analysis' component of the university. For later stage 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
3538-540: The National Security Council issued Directive 10/2 calling for covert action against the Soviet Union , and granting the authority to carry out covert operations against "hostile foreign states or groups" that could, if needed, be denied by the U.S. government. To this end, the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) was created inside the new CIA. The OPC was unique; Frank Wisner , the head of
3660-1003: The Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) in India , the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in Pakistan , the General Intelligence Service in Egypt , Mossad in Israel , and the National Intelligence Service (NIS) in South Korea . The CIA was instrumental in the establishment of intelligence services in several U.S. allied countries, including Germany's BND and Greece's EYP (then known as KYP). The closest links of
3782-599: The Soviet atomic bomb project . In particular, the agency failed to predict the Chinese entry into the Korean War with 300,000 troops. The famous double agent Kim Philby was the British liaison to American Central Intelligence. Through him, the CIA coordinated hundreds of airdrops inside the iron curtain, all compromised by Philby. Arlington Hall , the nerve center of CIA cryptanalysis, was compromised by Bill Weisband ,
Special Collection Service - Misplaced Pages Continue
3904-431: The U.S. military , including the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command , by providing it with information it gathers, receiving information from military intelligence organizations, and cooperating with field activities. The associate deputy director of the CIA is in charge of the day-to-day operations of the agency. Each branch of the agency has its own director. The Office of Military Affairs (OMA), subordinate to
4026-515: The UKUSA Agreement . These foreign countries also help to operate several NSA programs such as XKEYSCORE . (See International cooperation .) A special branch of the NSA called " Follow the Money " (FTM) monitors international payments, banking and credit card transactions and later stores the collected data in the NSA's financial databank, " Tracfin ". Mobile phone tracking refers to
4148-856: The United States Department of Defense (DOD) and the CIA. In spite of this, the Department of Defense announced in 2012 its intention to organize its own global clandestine intelligence service, the Defense Clandestine Service (DCS), under the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Contrary to some public and media misunderstanding, DCS is not a "new" intelligence agency but rather a consolidation, expansion and realignment of existing Defense HUMINT activities, which have been carried out by DIA for decades under various names, most recently as
4270-652: The fiscal year 2010, the CIA had the largest budget of all intelligence community agencies, exceeding prior estimates. The CIA's role has expanded since its creation, now including covert paramilitary operations. One of its largest divisions, the Information Operations Center (IOC), has shifted from counterterrorism to offensive cyber operations . The agency has been the subject of several controversies , including its use of torture , domestic wiretapping , propaganda , and alleged human rights violations and drug trafficking . In 2022,
4392-633: The iOS 3 and iOS 4 operating systems. These include the mapping feature, voicemail and photos, as well as Google Earth , Facebook and Yahoo! Messenger . In contrast to the PRISM surveillance program, which is a front-door method of access that is nominally approved by the FISA court , the MUSCULAR surveillance program is noted to be "unusually aggressive" in its usage of unorthodox hacking methods to infiltrate Yahoo! and Google data centres around
4514-588: The " Five Eyes ": During World War II , the BRUSA Agreement was signed by the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom for the purpose of intelligence sharing. This was later formalized in the UKUSA Agreement of 1946 as a secret treaty . The full text of the agreement was released to the public on 25 June 2010. Although the treaty was later revised to include other countries such as Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Turkey, and
4636-579: The 1990s, which provided Moscow with sensitive information about highly sophisticated U.S. overseas bugging operations. However, the program was so secret that, after Hanssen's arrest, the FBI would only describe it in general terms, as a "program of enormous value, expense, and importance to the U.S. government". In 1999, as the Clinton Administration sought to kill Osama bin Laden following
4758-595: The 2013 release of thousands of documents. Many countries around the world, including Western Allies and member states of NATO , have been targeted by the " Five Eyes " strategic alliance of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and the United States—five English-speaking Western countries aiming to achieve Total Information Awareness by mastering the Internet with analytical tools such as
4880-577: The Agency's mission activities. It is the Agency's newest directorate. The Langley, Virginia -based office's mission is to streamline and integrate digital and cybersecurity capabilities into the CIA's espionage, counterintelligence, all-source analysis, open-source intelligence collection, and covert action operations. It provides operations personnel with tools and techniques to use in cyber operations. It works with information technology infrastructure and practices cyber tradecraft . This means retrofitting
5002-823: The Air Force. A DS&T organization analyzed imagery intelligence collected by the U-2 and reconnaissance satellites 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 Directorate of Support has organizational and administrative functions to significant units including: The Directorate of Digital Innovation (DDI) focuses on accelerating innovation across
Special Collection Service - Misplaced Pages Continue
5124-432: The CIA for cyberwarfare . DDI officers help accelerate the integration of innovative methods and tools to enhance the CIA's cyber and digital capabilities on a global scale and ultimately help safeguard the United States. They also apply technical expertise to exploit clandestine and publicly available information (also known as open-source data ) using specialized methodologies and digital tools to plan, initiate and support
5246-453: The CIA would corroborate Hart's findings. The CIA's station in Seoul had 200 officers, but not a single speaker of Korean . Hart reported to Washington that Seoul station was hopeless, and could not be salvaged. Loftus Becker, deputy director of intelligence, was sent personally to tell Hart that the CIA had to keep the station open to save face. Becker returned to Washington, D.C., pronouncing
5368-575: The CIA's computer network operations budget for fiscal year 2013 was $ 685.4 million. The NSA's budget was roughly $ 1 billion at the time. Rep. Adam Schiff , the California Democrat who served as the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee , endorsed the reorganization. "The director has challenged his workforce, the rest of the intelligence community, and the nation to consider how we conduct
5490-1113: The CIA. The role and functions of the CIA are roughly equivalent to those of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) in Germany , MI6 in the United Kingdom , the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) in Australia , the Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE) in France , the Foreign Intelligence Service in Russia , the Ministry of State Security (MSS) in China ,
5612-601: The Central Intelligence Agency (D/CIA) is appointed by the president with Senate confirmation and reports directly to the director of national intelligence (DNI); in practice, the CIA director interfaces with the director of national intelligence (DNI), Congress , and the White House , while the deputy director (DD/CIA) is the internal executive of the CIA and the chief operating officer (COO/CIA), known as executive director until 2017, leads
5734-560: The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union . As encryption technology increased in sophistication, by the end of the 20th century many coded signals proved unbreakable. Due to this problem, bugging techniques and technologies saw a revival: unable to easily intercept and decrypt foreign communications through passive means, the U.S. government needed to instead intercept the communications at their source, and thus
5856-622: The Company , is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with gathering, processing, and analyzing national security information from around the world, primarily through the use of human intelligence (HUMINT) and conducting covert action through its Directorate of Operations . The agency is headquartered in the George Bush Center for Intelligence in Langley, Virginia . As
5978-508: The Defense Human Intelligence Service. This Directorate is known to be organized by geographic regions and issues, but its precise organization is classified. 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
6100-732: The German Bundesnachrichtendienst is keeping contact to the CIA office in Wiesbaden . The success of the British Commandos during World War II prompted U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt to authorize the creation of an intelligence service modeled after the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), and Special Operations Executive . This led to the creation of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) by
6222-421: The NSA defined its "intelligence priorities" on a scale of "1" (highest interest) to "5" (lowest interest). It classified about 30 countries as "3rd parties", with whom it cooperates but also spies on: Other prominent targets included members and adherents of the Internet group known as " Anonymous ", as well as potential whistleblowers. According to Snowden, the NSA targeted reporters who wrote critically about
SECTION 50
#17327931972266344-544: The NSA surveillance system and are sharing information with each other. In the documents the NSA lists "approved SIGINT partners" which are partner countries in addition to the Five Eyes. Glenn Greenwald said that the "NSA often maintains these partnerships by paying its partner to develop certain technologies and engage in surveillance, and can thus direct how the spying is carried out." These partner countries are divided into two groups, "Second Parties" and "Third Parties". The Second Parties are doing comprehensive cooperation with
6466-556: The NSA uses various types of cellphone infrastructure, such as the links between carrier networks, to determine the location of a cellphone user tracked by Visitor Location Registers . As worldwide sales of smartphones grew rapidly, the NSA decided to take advantage of the smartphone boom. This is particularly advantageous because the smartphone contains a variety of data sets that would interest an intelligence agency, such as social contacts, user behaviour, interests, location, photos and credit card numbers and passwords. According to
6588-427: The NSA's domestic surveillance of U.S. citizens was provided by USA Today . The newspaper released a report on 11 May 2006, regarding the NSA's "massive database" of phone records collected from "tens of millions" of U.S. citizens. According to USA Today , these phone records were provided by several telecom companies such as AT&T , Verizon , and BellSouth . In 2008, the security analyst Babak Pasdar revealed
6710-473: The NSA's surveillance activities are a continuation of news leaks which have been ongoing since the early 2000s. One year after the September 11, 2001, attacks , former U.S. intelligence official William Binney was publicly critical of the NSA for spying on U.S. citizens. Further disclosures followed. On 16 December 2005, The New York Times published a report under the headline " Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts." In 2006, further evidence of
6832-479: The NSA, and the Third Parties are doing focused cooperation. However, being a partner of the NSA does not automatically exempt a country from being targeted by the NSA itself. According to an internal NSA document leaked by Snowden, "We (the NSA) can, and often do, target the signals of most 3rd party foreign partners." The Australian Signals Directorate ( ASD ), formerly known as the Defence Signals Directorate ( DSD ), shares information on Australian citizens with
6954-418: The OPC, answered not to the CIA Director , but to the secretaries of defense, state, and the NSC. The OPC's actions were a secret even from the head of the CIA. Most CIA stations had two station chiefs, one working for the OSO, and one working for the OPC. With the agency unable to provide sufficient intelligence about the Soviet takeovers of Romania and Czechoslovakia , the Soviet blockade of Berlin , and
7076-414: The OSO was tasked with spying and subversion overseas with a budget of $ 15 million (equivalent to $ 190 million in 2023), the largesse of a small number of patrons in Congress. Vandenberg's goals were much like the ones set out by his predecessor: finding out "everything about the Soviet forces in Eastern and Central Europe – their movements, their capabilities, and their intentions." On June 18, 1948,
7198-424: The Office of Reports and Estimates, which drew its reports from a daily take of State Department telegrams, military dispatches, and other public documents. The CIA still lacked its intelligence-gathering abilities. On August 21, 1950, shortly after, Truman announced Walter Bedell Smith as the new Director of the CIA. The change in leadership took place shortly after the start of the Korean War in South Korea , as
7320-425: The Philippines, most of the information sharing has been performed by the so-called " Five Eyes ", a term referring to the following English-speaking western democracies and their respective intelligence agencies: Left : SEA-ME-WE 3 , which runs across the Afro-Eurasian supercontinent from Japan to Northern Germany , is one of the most important submarine cables accessed by the "Five Eyes". Singapore,
7442-400: The SCS has been involved in operations ranging from the Cold War to hunting Al-Qaeda after the September 11 attacks . The SCS is a U.S. black budget program that has been described as the United States' " Mission Impossible force," responsible for "close surveillance, burglary, wiretapping, breaking and entering." It is headquartered in Beltsville, Maryland, in an obscured building that
SECTION 60
#17327931972267564-447: The SCS program was expanded in the 1990s to fulfill this need. According to documents leaked by Edward Snowden , the SCS is part of a larger global surveillance program known as STATEROOM . SCS operatives reportedly hid eavesdropping devices in pigeons perched on the windowsills of the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C. The SCS program was compromised by infamous Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) mole Robert Hanssen in
7686-429: The Shah to exercise his constitutional right to dismiss Mosaddegh. Mosaddegh launched a military coup , and the Shah fled the country. Under CIA Director Allen Dulles , Operation Ajax was put into motion. Its goal was to overthrow Mossadegh with military support from General Fazlollah Zahedi and install a pro-western regime headed by the Shah of Iran. Kermit Roosevelt Jr. oversaw the operation in Iran. On August 16,
7808-433: The Shah. This August 19 incident helped foster public support of the Shah and led gangs of citizens on a spree of violence intent on destroying Mossadegh. An attack on his house would force Mossadegh to flee. He surrendered the next day, and his coup came to an end. Global surveillance Global mass surveillance can be defined as the mass surveillance of entire populations across national borders. Its existence
7930-415: The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) have been conducting surveillance on the networks of many online games, including massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) such as World of Warcraft , as well as virtual worlds such as Second Life , and the Xbox gaming console. According to the April 2013 summary of disclosures,
8052-432: The U.S. government recruited an Australian operative under SCS and deployed him to Iraq. The operative reported concerns about what was transpiring in Iraq, in that there was "a very high volume of data, and that he was getting no feedback about whether it was good, bad, or useful". He further reported that "this was a massive intelligence collection operation – one that was not in accordance with what UNSCOM
8174-447: The U.S. intelligence community to other foreign intelligence agencies are to Anglophone countries: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Special communications signals that intelligence-related messages can be shared with these four countries. An indication of the United States' close operational cooperation is the creation of a new message distribution label within the main U.S. military communications network. Previously,
8296-413: The US. Thus the two areas of responsibility for the CIA were covert action and covert intelligence. One of the main targets for intelligence gathering was the Soviet Union , which had also been a priority of the CIA's predecessors. U.S. Air Force General Hoyt Vandenberg , the CIG's second director, created the Office of Special Operations (OSO) and the Office of Reports and Estimates (ORE). Initially,
8418-422: The United States located Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad , Pakistan , SCS operatives established a base in an apartment that the CIA had rented a mile away from the compound. They focused lasers on the compound windows and, by analyzing the vibrations, were able to count the number of people inside and outside, and also ascertained that there was one person who never ventured outside the compound. Bin Laden
8540-548: The United States: Data gathered by these surveillance programs is routinely shared with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). In addition, the NSA supplies domestic intercepts to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and other law enforcement agencies. Foreign countries: As a result of the NSA's secret treaties with foreign countries, data gathered by its surveillance programs are routinely shared with countries who are signatories to
8662-403: The act of attaining the position and coordinates of a mobile phone. According to The Washington Post , the NSA has been tracking the locations of mobile phones from all over the world by tapping into the cables that connect mobile networks globally and that serve U.S. cellphones as well as foreign ones. In the process of doing so, the NSA collects more than 5 billion records of phone locations on
8784-481: The anonymity network Tor . Several of their clandestine operations involve the implantation of malicious code into the computers of anonymous Tor users who visit infected websites. In some cases, the NSA and GCHQ have succeeded in blocking access to the anonymous network, diverting Tor users to insecure channels. In other cases, the NSA and the GCHQ were able to uncover the identity of these anonymous users. Under
8906-675: The assistance of US entities such as the United States Department of Justice and the FBI , were sanctioned by US laws such as the FISA Amendments Act , and the necessary court orders for them were signed by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court . Some of the NSA's programs were directly aided by national and foreign intelligence agencies, Britain's GCHQ and Australia's ASD , as well as by large private telecommunications and Internet corporations, such as Verizon , Telstra , Google , and Facebook. Snowden's disclosures of
9028-618: The associate deputy director, manages the relationship between the CIA and the Unified Combatant Commands , who produce and deliver regional and operational intelligence and consume national intelligence produced by the CIA. The Directorate of Analysis , through much of its history known as the Directorate of Intelligence (DI), is tasked with helping "the President and other policymakers make informed decisions about our country's national security" by looking "at all
9150-585: The available information on an issue and organiz[ing] it for policymakers". The directorate has four regional analytic groups, six groups for transnational issues, and three that focus on policy, collection, and staff support. There are regional analytical offices covering the Near East and South Asia , Russia , and Europe; and the Asia–Pacific , Latin America , and Africa . The Directorate of Operations
9272-405: The book Assessment of Men, Selection of Personnel for the Office of Strategic Services . Additional mission training is conducted at Harvey Point , North Carolina . The primary training facility for the Office of Communications is Warrenton Training Center , located near Warrenton, Virginia . The facility was established in 1951 and has been used by the CIA since at least 1955. Details of
9394-487: The browsing histories of millions of individuals. Britain's global surveillance program Tempora intercepts the fibre-optic cables that form the backbone of the Internet. Under the NSA's PRISM surveillance program, data that has already reached its final destination would be directly harvested from the servers of the following U.S. service providers: Microsoft , Yahoo! , Google , Facebook , Paltalk , AOL , Skype , YouTube , and Apple Inc. Contact chaining
9516-516: The business of intelligence in a world that is profoundly different from 1947 when the CIA was founded," Schiff said. The Office of Congressional Affairs ( OCA ) serves as the liaison between the CIA and the US Congress . The OCA states that it aims to ensures that Congress is fully and currently informed of intelligence activities. The office is the CIA's primary interface with Congressional oversight committees, leadership, and members. It
9638-555: The cache contains 15,000–20,000 documents, some very large and detailed, and some very small. In over two subsequent months of publications, it became clear that the NSA had operated a complex web of spying programs that allowed it to intercept Internet and telephone conversations from over a billion users from dozens of countries around the world. Specific revelations were made about China, the European Union, Latin America, Iran and Pakistan, and Australia and New Zealand, however,
9760-729: The communications equipment. The CIA, meanwhile, has access to agents specializing in clandestine operations and thus is more able to gain access to foreign communication equipment, yet lacks the NSA's expertise in communications eavesdropping. Hence, the SCS was born, combining the communications intelligence capabilities of the NSA with the covert action capabilities of the CIA in order to facilitate access to sophisticated foreign communications systems. The SCS employs exotic covert listening device technologies to bug foreign embassies, communications centers, computer facilities, fiber-optic networks, and government installations. The U.S. government has never officially acknowledged its existence, and little
9882-420: The creation of a "Central Intelligence Service" that would continue peacetime operations similar to those of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which he led during World War II. Upon President Roosevelt's death, the new president Harry Truman inherited a presidency largely uninformed about key wartime projects and global intelligence activities. Truman's initial view of the proposed central intelligence agency
10004-421: The day-to-day work as the third-highest post of the CIA. The deputy director is formally appointed by the director without Senate confirmation, but as the president's opinion plays a great role in the decision, the deputy director is generally considered a political position, making the chief operating officer the most senior non-political position for CIA career officers. The Executive Office also supports
10126-680: The direction of Fleet Admiral Joseph Ernest King , and prepared the first draft and implementing directives for the creation of what would become the Central Intelligence Agency. Despite opposition from the military establishment, the State Department , and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Truman established the National Intelligence Authority in January 1946. Its operational extension
10248-513: The direction of a director of central intelligence by presidential directive on January 22, 1946. The agency's creation was authorized by the National Security Act of 1947 . Unlike the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which is a domestic security service, the CIA has no law enforcement function and is mainly focused on intelligence gathering overseas, with only limited domestic intelligence collection . The CIA serves as
10370-518: The documents leaked by Snowden, the NSA has set up task forces assigned to several smartphone manufacturers and operating systems , including Apple Inc. 's iPhone and iOS operating system, as well as Google 's Android mobile operating system. Similarly, Britain's GCHQ assigned a team to study and crack the BlackBerry . In addition, there are smaller NSA programs, known as "scripts", that can perform surveillance on 38 different features of
10492-475: The entire year of 2013. Documents leaked by Snowden in 2013 include court orders, memos, and policy documents related to a wide range of surveillance activities. According to the April 2013 summary of documents leaked by Snowden, other than to combat terrorism, these surveillance programs were employed to assess the foreign policy and economic stability of other countries, and to gather "commercial secrets". In
10614-431: The establishment of a global surveillance network, code-named " ECHELON " (1971). The origins of global surveillance can be traced back to the late 1940s after the UKUSA Agreement was collaboratively enacted by the United Kingdom and the United States, which eventually culminated in the creation of the global surveillance network code-named " ECHELON " in 1971. In the aftermath of the 1970s Watergate affair and
10736-499: The existence of the so-called "Quantico circuit" that he and his team discovered in 2003 when brought on to update the carrier's security system. The circuit provided the U.S. federal government with a backdoor into the network of an unnamed wireless provider, which was later independently identified as Verizon . Snowden made his first contact with journalist Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian in late 2012. The timeline of mass surveillance disclosures by Snowden continued throughout
10858-567: The fiscal 2013 figure is $ 52.6 billion. According to the 2013 mass surveillance disclosures , the CIA's fiscal 2013 budget is $ 14.7 billion, 28% of the total and almost 50% more than the budget of the National Security Agency. CIA's HUMINT budget is $ 2.3 billion, the SIGINT budget is $ 1.7 billion, and spending for security and logistics of CIA missions is $ 2.5 billion. "Covert action programs," including
10980-565: The government after 9/11. As part of a joint operation with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the NSA deployed secret eavesdropping posts in eighty U.S. embassies and consulates worldwide. The headquarters of NATO were also used by NSA experts to spy on the European Union. In 2013, documents provided by Edward Snowden revealed that the following intergovernmental organizations , diplomatic missions, and government ministries have been subjected to surveillance by
11102-452: The identification and containment of emerging global outbreaks. In 2003, global surveillance mechanisms were used to fight against the SARs pandemic. In the United States , the NSA is collecting the phone records of more than 300 million Americans. The international surveillance tool XKeyscore allows government analysts to search through vast databases containing emails, online chats and
11224-469: The information they sent. In September 1952 Haney was replaced by John Limond Hart, a Europe veteran with a vivid memory for bitter experiences of misinformation. Hart was suspicious of the parade of successes reported by Tofte and Haney and launched an investigation which determined that the entirety of the information supplied by the Korean sources was false or misleading. After the war, internal reviews by
11346-811: The knowledge of Australian diplomats. In addition, the ASD cooperates with the Security and Intelligence Division (SID) of the Republic of Singapore in an international operation to intercept underwater telecommunications cables across the Eastern Hemisphere and the Pacific Ocean . In March 2017 it was reported that, on advice from the Five Eyes intelligence alliance , more than 500 Iraqi and Syrian refugees, have been refused entry to Australia, in
11468-523: The lack of a clear warning to the President and NSC about the imminent North Korean invasion was seen as a grave failure of intelligence. The CIA had different demands placed on it by the various bodies overseeing it. Truman wanted a centralized group to organize the information that reached him. The Department of Defense wanted military intelligence and covert action, and the State Department wanted to create global political change favorable to
11590-571: The last year. The Communications Security Establishment Canada ( CSEC ) offers the NSA resources for advanced collection, processing, and analysis. It has set up covert sites at the request of NSA. The US-Canada SIGNT relationship dates back to a secret alliance formed during World War II , and was formalized in 1949 under the CANUSA Agreement. On behalf of the NSA, the CSEC opened secret surveillance facilities in 20 countries around
11712-435: The marking of NOFORN (i.e., No Foreign Nationals) required the originator to specify which, if any, non-U.S. countries could receive the information. A new handling caveat, USA/AUS/CAN/GBR/NZL Five Eyes , used primarily on intelligence messages, gives an easier way to indicate that the material can be shared with Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, and New Zealand. The task of the division called " Verbindungsstelle 61 " of
11834-540: The military services. The development of the U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft, for instance, 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 . It was subsequently provided with signals intelligence and measurement and signature intelligence capabilities and is now operated by
11956-623: The national manager for HUMINT, coordinating activities across the IC. It also carries out covert action at the behest of the president . The CIA exerts foreign political influence through its paramilitary operations units, including its Special Activities Center . The CIA was instrumental in establishing intelligence services in many countries, such as Germany 's Federal Intelligence Service . It has also provided support to several foreign political groups and governments, including planning, coordinating, training in torture , and technical support. It
12078-411: The news agency Reuters , these "secrets" were subsequently funneled to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans. Federal agents are then instructed to "recreate" the investigative trail in order to "cover up" where the information originated. According to the congressional testimony of Keith B. Alexander , Director of the National Security Agency , one of
12200-472: The non-military National Intelligence Program, including $ 4.8 billion for the CIA. After the Marshall Plan was approved, appropriating $ 13.7 billion over five years, 5% of those funds or $ 685 million were secretly made available to the CIA. A portion of the enormous M-fund, established by the U.S. government during the post-war period for reconstruction of Japan, was secretly steered to
12322-479: The other members of the UKUSA Agreement . According to a 2008 Five Eyes document leaked by Snowden, data of Australian citizens shared with foreign countries include "bulk, unselected, unminimised metadata" as well as "medical, legal or religious information". In close cooperation with other members of the Five Eyes community, the ASD runs secret surveillance facilities in many parts of Southeast Asia without
12444-566: The overall United States intelligence budget are classified. Under the Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949, the Director of Central Intelligence is the only federal government employee who can spend "un-vouchered" government money . The government showed its 1997 budget was $ 26.6 billion for the fiscal year. The government has disclosed a total figure for all non-military intelligence spending since 2007;
12566-402: The published documentation reveals that many of the programs indiscriminately collected bulk information directly from central servers and Internet backbones, which almost invariably carry and reroute information from distant countries. Due to this central server and backbone monitoring, many of the programs overlapped and interrelated with one another. These programs were often carried out with
12688-462: The purposes of its data collection is to store all the phone records inside a place that can be searched and assessed at all times. When asked by Senator Mark Udall if the goal of the NSA is to collect the phone records of all Americans, Alexander replied, "Yes, I believe it is in the nation's best interest to put all the phone records into a lockbox that we could search when the nation needs to do it." Other applications of global surveillance include
12810-708: The royal refusal to approve his Minister of War and resigned in protest. The National Front took to the streets in protest. Fearing a loss of control, the military pulled its troops back five days later, and Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi gave in to Mosaddegh's demands. Mosaddegh quickly replaced military leaders loyal to the Shah with those loyal to him, giving him personal control over the military. Given six months of emergency powers, Mosaddegh unilaterally passed legislation. When that six months expired, his powers were extended for another year. In 1953, Mossadegh dismissed parliament and assumed dictatorial powers. This power grab triggered
12932-512: The scale and detail of mass citizen data collected, leads to rightfully pessimistic observations about individual freedoms and privacy". Its roots can be traced back to the middle of the 20th century when the UKUSA Agreement was jointly enacted by the United Kingdom and the United States, which later expanded to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand to create the present Five Eyes alliance. The alliance developed cooperation arrangements with several "third-party" nations. Eventually, this resulted in
13054-409: The situation to be "hopeless," and that, after touring the CIA's Far East operations, the CIA's ability to gather intelligence in the far east was "almost negligible". He then resigned. Air Force Colonel James Kallis stated that CIA director Allen Dulles continued to praise the CIA's Korean force, despite knowing that they were under enemy control. When China entered the war in 1950, the CIA attempted
13176-476: The technical and human-based operations of the CIA. Before the establishment of the new digital directorate, offensive cyber operations were undertaken by the CIA's Information Operations Center. Little is known about how the office specifically functions or if it deploys offensive cyber capabilities. The directorate had been covertly operating since approximately March 2015 but formally began operations on October 1, 2015. According to classified budget documents,
13298-429: The unveiling of the SCS having systematically wiretapped Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel 's private cell phone over a period of over 10 years, which among other activities to wiretap and systematically record large amounts of European and South American leaders' and citizens' communication by the NSA led to a distinct diplomatic backlash at the United States government. The SCS program was established in 1978 during
13420-530: The use of federal funds. The act also exempted the CIA from having to disclose its "organization, functions, officials, titles, salaries, or numbers of personnel employed," and created the program "PL-110" to handle defectors and other "essential aliens" who fell outside normal immigration procedures. At the outset of the Korean War , the CIA still only had a few thousand employees, around one thousand of whom worked in analysis. Intelligence primarily came from
13542-589: The world. As the program is operated overseas ( United Kingdom ), the NSA presumes that anyone using a foreign data link is a foreigner, and is, therefore, able to collect content and metadata on a previously unknown scale from U.S. citizens and residents. According to the documents leaked by Snowden, the MUSCULAR surveillance program is jointly operated by the NSA and Britain's GCHQ agency. (See International cooperation .) The Five Eyes have made repeated attempts to spy on Internet users communicating in secret via
13664-404: Was killed inside the compound during a raid by U.S. special operations forces on May 2, 2011. 39°02′42″N 76°51′25″W / 39.045°N 76.857°W / 39.045; -76.857 Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA / ˌ s iː . aɪ ˈ eɪ / ), known informally as the Agency , metonymously as Langley and historically as
13786-410: Was US$ 26.6 billion (inflation-adjusted US$ 50.5 billion in 2024). There have been accidental disclosures; for instance, Mary Margaret Graham , a former CIA official and deputy director of national intelligence for collection in 2005, said that the annual intelligence budget was $ 44 billion, and in 1994 Congress accidentally published a budget of $ 43.4 billion (in 2012 dollars) in 1994 for
13908-589: Was at one time labeled simply " CSSG. " Next door is the U.S. Department of State 's Beltsville Messaging Center , to which the SCS is linked via fiber optic cable. The SCS is jointly staffed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA). According to intelligence historian James Bamford, "The position of SCS chief alternates between NSA and CIA officials." SCS operatives are based out of U.S. embassies and consulates overseas, and operatives often use Foreign Service or Diplomatic Telecommunications Service cover when deployed. Their mission
14030-412: Was frequently repeated in the subsequent years. At the beginning of the Korean War , CIA officer Hans Tofte claimed to have turned a thousand North Korean expatriates into a guerrilla force tasked with infiltration, guerrilla warfare, and pilot rescue. In 1952 the CIA sent 1,500 more expatriate agents north. Seoul station chief Albert Haney would openly celebrate the capabilities of those agents and
14152-513: Was identified as one of few assets of "Critical Infrastructure and Key Resources" of the US on foreign territory. In 2013, it was revealed that British officials "pressured a handful of telecommunications and Internet companies" to allow the British government to gain access to TAT-14 . According to the leaked documents, aside from the Five Eyes, most other Western countries have also participated in
14274-562: Was involved in many regime changes and carrying out terrorist attacks and planned assassinations of foreign leaders. Since 2004, the CIA is organized under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). Despite having had some of its powers transferred to the DNI, the CIA has grown in size following the September 11 attacks . In 2013, The Washington Post reported that in
14396-595: Was known as the Central Intelligence Group (CIG), which was the direct predecessor of the CIA. The Central Intelligence Agency was created on July 26, 1947, when President Truman signed the National Security Act into law. A major impetus for the creation of the agency was growing tensions with the USSR following the end of World War II . Lawrence Houston, head counsel of the SSU , CIG, and, later CIA,
14518-523: Was not widely acknowledged by governments and the mainstream media until the global surveillance disclosures by Edward Snowden triggered a debate about the right to privacy in the Digital Age . One such debate is the balance which governments must acknowledge between the pursuit of national security and counter-terrorism over a right to privacy. Although, to quote H. Akın Ünver "Even when conducted for national security and counterterrorism purposes,
14640-522: Was principal draftsman of the National Security Act of 1947 , which dissolved the NIA and the CIG, and established both the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency. In 1949, Houston helped to draft the Central Intelligence Agency Act ( Pub. L. 81–110 ), which authorized the agency to use confidential fiscal and administrative procedures, and exempted it from most limitations on
14762-593: Was supposed to be doing" at the time. After the invasion, SCS operatives were employed in the hunt for Saddam Hussein , planting sophisticated eavesdropping equipment in target areas to intercept communications that were then analyzed by voice analysis experts. The SCS was heavily involved in eavesdropping to advance the War on Terror , setting up eavesdropping posts around Middle Eastern capitals and figures close to Osama bin Laden's terrorism network. In 1999, an SCS team monitored al-Qaeda training camps near Khost . When
14884-481: Was that of a simple information gathering entity that would function more as a global news service rather than a spy network. His vision starkly contrasted with Donovan's, which focused on avoiding the creation of an American version of the Gestapo . On September 20, 1945, shortly after the end of World War II, Truman signed an executive order dissolving the OSS. By October 1945 its functions had been divided between
#225774