Intelligence agencies: functions and scope

Intelligence Agencies

What exactly is an Intelligence Agency? It is an agency that is responsible for gathering information about an enemy of any kind, and assimilating this information in such a way that it would be useful to them in their fight against the enemy. One of the more famous Intelligence Agencies of the world is the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States of America. This is an independent agency that the government of the United States which is charged with the specific responsibility of gathering and collecting information about intelligence as well as counter-intelligence activities that are taking place outside of the country. This is generally done with the specific permission and approval of the National Security Council.

The types of intelligence agencies that a country may actually require are very different from place to place a country to country. For example, a country that has armed forces may require such intelligence information that would help it to function better, like maybe military intelligence. The space and earth and satellite programs of a country may need intelligence about the various scientific developments in other countries, and so on. Intelligence activities may be conducted on three different levels, strategic, also known as national, tactical, and counter-intelligence activities. The first method that of strategic intelligence is one of the broadest levels of intelligence, and this includes the necessary information about the innate capabilities as well as of the intentions of various foreign countries that may or may not be actual threats to the country that is carrying out these activities.

Tactical Intelligence, on the other hand, is the intelligence that is connected to the various issues within an organization or a management of an organization, and deals with such issues as pre-employment screenings, the security assessments that may be required for the purpose of screening, both in the electronic field and in the physical field, and various other issues such as harassment, or the identification of the discrimination issues that have become a security threat to the organization, and so on and so forth.

Strategic Intelligence is that information that can help the recipient of the information makes better decisions about the various things that may be affecting him, and for which this information would provide him with an idea of a solution as to how to move further. It is a well-known fact that it is this type of critical decision-making that would ensure the security of either the business or the criminal or the civic issue or any other matter that the intelligence is required for. Strategic intelligence can also be defined as the basic intelligence that is required to form both military and security plans and strategies at national and international levels of operation.

The 'Intelligence Community' of the United States of America, in a nutshell, can be defined as the federation of executive branch agencies that carry out intelligence activities that are considered extremely necessary as well as of paramount importance for the condos and the maintenance of foreign relations and for the protection and preservation of national security. The information or intelligence that is collected by these agencies and organizations of the United States of America will generally include such intelligence like information about any types of activities that are directed against the U.S.A., all intelligence about international terrorist activities that may be taking place anywhere in the world, and may be a potential threat to the national security of the U.S.A., and nay other forms of intelligence as requested by the President, like for example, the information about any hostile activities that may be conducted in a foreign country against the U.S.A., and any other such information.

Who are the members of the Intelligence Community of the United States of America? This is a specialized group of about fifteen Federal Government Agencies and Organizations that play an important role in the business of conducting the activities of national intelligence. Some of the fifteen members are: the intelligence elements that belong to the Army, the Navy, the Air force, and the Marine Corps, the Central Intelligence Agency, or the CIA as it is better known, the Defense intelligence Agency, or the DIA, the Department of Homeland Security, the Energy Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or the FBI, as it is better known, the National Geo-Spatial Intelligence Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, the National security Agency, the State Department, he treasury Department, and the United States Coast Guard.

The leader of the Intelligence Community is the Director of Central Intelligence, or the DCI, and it is his duty to keep the President of the United States updated and knowledgeable on matters of security and intelligence and all about the various activities that may be taking place at any point of time within the Intelligence Community. The entire team of members of the DCI would be able to provide a distinctive edge and an advantage to the President as well as to the military, and to the law enforcement community of the U.S.A., and to the diplomats and to the Congress, who would then utilize this information as they see fit. The team would also have the responsibility of creating various policies and managing the different processes within the DCI that would eventually promote accountability, leadership, and also the corporate management of the Department.

The various policy makers would by this process of interaction b kept apprised of the intelligence and the information that is directly related to the security of the nation, and it is the Congress that has the responsibility of overseeing and maintaining a control and an overall charge of the intelligence activities that are taking place. After the assimilation of the intelligence, what is done to it, and who is responsible for acting on the information? Since it is widely acknowledged that the knowledge as well as fore-knowledge of the world around us is the most important factor in the happenings of the world that allows not only military commanders but civilian leaders too to consider and plan alternative actions from the options that are offered to them by the gathering of the intelligence by the agencies that make the appropriate decisions regarding the intelligence that is provided to them.

This is in other words referred to as 'evidence' and it is this that allows the decision makers in the Government and elsewhere to plan out any strategies and plans based on the information that they have received about the activities being indulged in by foreign countries. For example, the 'Executive Order 12333' has as its primary focus all the various activities of the Intelligence Community that have as their main focus of action the capabilities and the capacities of foreign powers or foreign organizations or their various agents and their intentions in indulging in those particular activities, and the various activities that they engage in that may be suspicious or causing doubts. The intelligence gathered by the Intelligence agencies is processed in a few steps, the first step being that of processing the information that has been collected.

The next step is that of analysis and the production of the information, after which is the dissemination of the intelligence. At this stage the information would be unlimited and overwhelming, and it is only after processing and dissemination that the information would be passed on to the concerned people, who may be the leaders of the nation, or the policy makers, or the armed forces or the law enforcement personnel of the nation. The intelligence in itself may be one of several types. One type is often referred to as 'human intelligence'; another is the intelligence that is derived from the unscrambling and dissemination of signals, yet another is that of 'imagery intelligence', and another is that of 'open source' intelligence, and there may also be other types of information like, for example, highly technical intelligence.

Since it is a fact that everywhere today there is threat to the security of the nation and its people, it is of utmost necessity for the Intelligence Agencies who are responsible for collecting damning evidence against any person or bodies who have been indulging in such activities that may be a threat to the United States of America, in this case, to be knowledgeable about the various threats that are surfacing day by day in today's world. These are some of the various threats that are being faced by the people of today, who do not know where the next threat would come from: chemical warfare, biological warfare, terrorist activities, trafficking in narcotics and other similar substances, and a newly discovered threat to the infrastructure of information of the country, in addition to the common threat to the military of the country.

In the activity known as 'counter-intelligence', the IC not only identifies and comprehends and also prioritizes the information and the intelligence that has been collected by it, but also counteracts the various intelligence threats that are faced by the country from foreign powers. Some of the counterintelligence activities are: communication security measures, computer security measures, as well as physical security measures, and the security and safeguarding of information systems. Sometimes, it is even necessary to carry out certain clandestine operations like deceptions, clandestine collection of information, covert actions, and also the carrying out of the exercise of distributing disinformation or misleading information, which would mislead the suspected threat.

The United States Intelligence Community is, as stated earlier, made up a number of different agencies. The Central Intelligence Agency is one of these. Also known popularly as the CIA, this agency was created in the year 1947, when President Truman signed the National Security Act. The Act stated that the Director of Central Intelligence would be responsible for coordinating the intelligence activities of the entire nation, and that they would also correlate and evaluate as well as disseminate all the pertinent information that would probably be a threat to the national security of the United States of America. Today, the Director of Central Intelligence is Porter J. Goss, who serves as the head of the United States Intelligence Community, and also, more importantly, as the primary advisor to the president of the U.S.A. On matters of national security, and the threats that it is faced with, if any. He is also the head of the Central Intelligence Agency.

The CIA however, is an independent agency that is innately responsible to the President of the U.S.A. through the DCI, and can also be liable and accountable to the people of the United States of America through the agencies of the Congress that conduct oversights of intelligence and form a community of oversight of security threats to the nation and keep the average American well informed. The innate mission of the CIA is to provide such information that would help the President of the U.S.A. And the national Security Council and the various officials who are responsible for formulating and implementing the different policies of national security based on the intelligence that'd provided to them by the CIA.

Therefore, the CIA has the responsibility of providing accurate and exact and comprehensive and also timely information and intelligence on the topics that may affect the national security. The CIA also has the duty of conducting counterintelligence activities as it sees fit, and wherever necessary, based on its own judgment and under the direction and supervision of the president of the U.S.A. It also has the duty of conducting any other special security measures wherever necessary, and any other functions and activities that may be related to the national security and to foreign intelligence.

In order to be able to accomplish and carry out all the duties that have been assigned to it, the CIA will engage in activities that would promote the gaining of more knowledge, like for example, research and investigations. It can utilize high technological means for the purpose, and also carry out the deployment and the development of the technology for the purpose of intelligence. Being a separate and an independent agency also helps the CIA to conduct its own research and therefore, it often serves as an independent source of information and analysis and this is the reason that it is also able to work closely with several other organizations within the Intelligence Community so that all the various consumers of intelligence, whether they are policy makers who belong to the government, or whether they are military commanders who would use the intelligence for entirely different purposes. The goal of the Central Intelligence Agency is, therefore, to provide all those who need it and request it the very best intelligence that it is possible to assimilate and provide to those who need it.

In today's constantly changing world where intelligence needs to be as sophisticated if not more, than the suspected violators of the national security of the U.S.A., the CIA is inordinately faced with newer and newer challenges, and this in turn makes it necessary for the agency to meet these challenges in ways of its own. Some of these measures are: the CIA has to create certain special multi-disciplinary measures that would be able to tackle some high priority issues like for example, counter terrorism, counter intelligence, organized crimes of an international caliber, non-proliferation issues, drug trafficking, and arms and environmental intelligence. The CIA is expected to handle these issues with care and with the total dedication and sense of responsibility that goes with it. Another measure that the CIA has to take is that of forging stronger relationships and ties between all the other different intelligence agencies, and providing all-source analyses for all the issues that concerns the agency.

In addition, the Central Intelligence Agency also has the responsibility of playing an important role in all the activities of the Intelligence Community and managing all the different services that are in common with all the different agencies, and also in talking part in all the partnerships that would quite naturally exist between the different intelligence agencies in such areas like research and development, technical advances and so on. As the main intention of intelligence gathering and collection undertaken by any agency is that of offering complete satisfaction to the various consumers of this type of intelligence, the CIA has, most importantly, laid emphasis on the fact that adaptability would be one of the main keywords on which to act. This would help the consumer to have his needs met by the CIA, especially in the terrorist threat and other security threat - prone world of today.

The CIA has several different branches under which it functions. They are: the Directorate of Intelligence, which is responsible for the collection and dissemination of intelligence on foreign issues, the Directorate of Science and Technology, which is responsible for the creation of and the application of modern technology for the purpose of the collection of information and intelligence. The Directorate of Operations is primarily responsible for the clandestine and undercover collection of foreign intelligence. The Center for the Study of Intelligence is responsible for taking care of the historical documents that would be in its charge, for the purpose of providing education for whoever so desires. Whenever legal advice is needed, the Office of General Counsel acts as the agent of advice for the CIA. The Office of Public Affairs handles all public affairs and publicity and media affairs and public policies. These, then, are the several different branches of working of the Central Intelligence Agency.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation or the FBI as it is more popularly known is another intelligence Agency that is a part of the Intelligence Community. According to the FBI, there are certain priorities that have been listed out by the Directors of the FBI down the ages, which have served the nation in god stead when it came right down to it. These are: to protect the United States of America from terrorist attacks, against any sort of intelligence and espionage operations being conducted by foreign countries against the U.S.A., to also protect against the cyber based and all types of high tech crimes that are so very popular today, to fight public corruption, and to endeavor to protect the civil rights and liberties of the citizens of the United States of America, to fight against international criminal rings and organizations that may become a threat to the national security, to combat both white collar crimes as well as certain violent crimes of significance, and to support international, federal, municipal, state, and county partners in these fights against crime, and finally, to attempt to use high technology of today to improve the chances of fighting against these crimes.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation serves primarily as the investigating section of the Justice System of the U.S.A., and although the fact is that the FBI is innately responsible for the fighting of those crimes that would affect the national security of the nation, at present, it is the issue of the fight against terrorism and terrorist related activities that has taken precedence over all the other activities of the agency. The very heart of the Federal Bureau of investigation and all its operations and activities lies in the investigations that it conducts, and the main purpose behind this is to defend the United States of America against any type of terrorist attacks or threats, and also to enforce the various criminal laws of the nation. The FBI has jurisdiction over more than 200 types of federal laws and regulations.

The Directorate of Intelligence has as one of its main duties the positioning and placing the FBI in such a manner that it would be in a position that would allow it to anticipate and deter any type of national security and terrorist threats by concentrating its core investigative capacities on maintaining enterprise wide intelligence policies, and by providing all the useful and pertinent information and intelligence that needs to be given to law enforcement agencies and national and homeland security agencies of the United States of America. In this way, the FBI would have taken a common approach to the intelligence work that it needs to carry out, and also to the management of all the intelligence processes. It must also be ready at all times to align its activities with the environment where the threat to the security is evidently prominent. As for the serious threat of terrorism and the counter terrorist activities that the FBI is authorized to carry out, it must be explained at the outset that the FBI is a part of a large and vast national and also international campaign that has been planned out to undertake the stamping out of terrorism.

This means that the FBI would have to work in close cooperation and in virtually hand in hand with quite a few other law enforcement agencies, and also intelligence and military as well as certain diplomatic circles of operation. The responsibility entails that the FBI must neutralize all types of terrorist cells and operatives that attempt to operate within the U.S.A., and also offer any sort of help to any nation that requests such help in quelling the rise of terrorist activities and also terrorists in any part of the world. One major advantage enjoyed by the FBI in this particular mission is that it is ideally situated. In other words, the Agency can boast of both domestic intelligence and law enforcement capacities. Therefore, the FBI would have an entire and full range of options to choose from in its various pursuits of intelligence and investigations. This means that the FBI can detect threats to the nation through its vast network of surveillance and the state of the art methods used by the network, and also through source development activities and also by extremely careful analysis conducted by them, and this means that the FBI can if it so decides arrest and incarcerate the individuals or groups that may have been indulging in any nefarious activities.

The FBI can also at the same time, move quickly with great speed to prevent any impending attacks, and this is because of the presence of an excellent network of Special Agents and the close relationship that they reserve with the several federal and state and national and even at times international partners, who would be able to guide or provide such sensitive information or intelligence that would enable them to inform the FBI as soon as possible so that the FBI would take action as soon as it possibly could. In addition to all the above advantages that are enjoyed by the FBI as a matter of right, it also enjoys the advantage of the vast amount of experience and knowledge that it has accumulated through the years and even centuries, wherein the boundaries that are imposed by the Constitution and the various laws that protect civil liberties are always kept in mind through all of their various activities where they may sometimes inadvertently step out of the line of the law.

However, the years of experience effectively prevents this from happening, and this makes the FBI a force to be reckoned with. One example of the might and capabilities of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is that of the time immediately after the September 11 terrorist attacks that occurred on the twin towers of the World Trade Center, a literal landmark in the United States and the major stock exchange of the nation, and in Washington DC, the center of the Government of the United States of America. The attack that was planned out and executed, rather well, one must say, by the militant terrorist group called Al Quaeda, killed many thousands of completely innocent people who were just going about their daily business within the complex, and left many more people, including the firemen who had come to rescue the people who had been trapped under the rubble caused by the collapsing buildings, wounded horribly.

The FBI swung into action, and in conjunction with the various law enforcement agencies and Community Intelligence partners, managed to arrest more than 3,000 Al Quaeda leaders and followers of the group and taking them into their custody. This was an operation that had out of necessity, to span the entire globe, and within the U.S.A., more than 200 individuals have been accused of having terrorist links and of having committed terrorist activities within the U.S.A. Even more incredible is the fact that the Federal Bureau of Investigation eventually managed to break up and apprehend more than a hundred terrorist plots that were discovered within the boundaries of the U.S.A., and also all over the world.

Therefore, it can be said that the FBI is committed to preventing any acts of terror or terrorism from taking place and threatening the lives and even the mental peace and well being of the citizens of the U.S.A., and also to do its very best in protecting the security of the people of the United States. The FBI also provides leadership and criminal justice services wherever necessary to federal and state and national and international agencies so that they may be able to derive all the benefits that the experience and the facilities of the FBI can afford to give them. This may include fingerprinting advice, DNA analyses, and at times, professional training by the officers of the FBI to the new recruits or others who need to learn anything about the FBI and all its activities. At times, the FBI may also provide reports and statistics to those people who need or request for them.

Let us take the example of the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System of the Criminal Justice Information Services System of the FBI. This is a system that maintains national and criminal history statistics about various criminals and their fingerprints, in the U.S.A. And abroad. The Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System provides automated fingerprint search facilities, that are available day and night, at all times, 24 hours, and 365 days a year. The facilities offered also include latent search capabilities, the storage of electronic images, and the electronic exchange that is possible today with all the advanced technology available, of not only fingerprints but also the various responses to information and intelligence that may be provided. The electronic system of exchange of fingerprints helps the FBI to receive electronic information about ten print criminal fingerprints within a matter of a mere two hours, and a mere 24 hours for civilian fingerprints.

It is a fact that the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System maintains a large biometric database, actually one of the largest in the world, which contains an amazing 47 million fingerprints of criminals, as well as all the pertinent information about all these criminals. The database was in fact built by the FBI from the information submitted voluntarily by the federal and local and state law enforcement agencies of the U.S.A. The data performs an extremely role in apprehending a criminal before he can make his escape because of the fact his fingerprints can be checked against the huge database of fingerprints within the material maintained by the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, and if his fingerprint matches those found at the scene of the crime, then he can be arrested immediately. In the days gone by, this process used to take an inordinate amount of time, because of the tedious process of having to actually transport the fingerprint cards to a specific destination where the processing would take place.

The entire procedure would take not many days, but three whole months, and the urgency of the matter would be lost. However, now, this can be avoided because of the relative ease of operating the system and of matching fingerprints against those of the criminals maintained in the database. This system was implemented because the FBI decided to take matters into its own hands, and for the purpose, formed partnerships with the entire law enforcement community of the U.S.A., and this enabled the start of the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System in July of 1999. Now even when the criminals are in police custody, the fingerprints can be processed within 2 hours, and the information be obtained within 24 hours, and this would ensure the carrying out of justice, well and true.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation also serves a very important purpose, that of identifying and neutralizing as fast as possible, those terrorist threats that are a danger to the security of the entire nation. This Division of the FBI provides a centralized method of oversight and management for all the different Foreign Counterintelligence Divisions that lead the investigations. This Division, also known as the FCI, ensures that any type of offensive actions and counter intelligence measures that it takes during the course of its duties is done with the complete and full cooperation and the coordination of the U.S. Intelligence Community. It also has the duty of making sure that the primary focus of these investigations is on those foreign countries and powers that pose the most significant and important threat to the United States of America. It also integrates law enforcement with its own counter intelligence efforts, and makes sure that all the various types of violations that come under the Title 18 of the U.S. Criminal Code, which is that of espionage, are investigated thoroughly and completely.

In a nutshell, the various duties and responsibilities of the FCI are: to effectively prevent or stop and neutralize the foreign acquisition of weapons of mass destruction or the technology for the production of WMD or, in other words, weapons of mass destruction. This division is also charged with the responsibility of seeing to it that there is no intrusion or penetration of the FCI or the entire U.S. Intelligence Community by any foreign powers, even inadvertently. In the same manner, the penetration or infiltration by any foreign powers into any U.S. Government Agency or contractors of the U.S. Government would be prevented, and the agencies safeguarded. The Critical National Assets of the United States of America must be safeguarded with utmost care, and this task is also handled by the FCI. The Strategic Interests of the U.S.A. is looked after by this agency, and it has the permission of the Government of the U.S.A. And of the Central Intelligence to carry out nay sort of aggressive preventive measures against those foreign powers and nations that may be a threat to the U.S.A.

The National Security Agency / Central Security Service is the Agency of the U.S.A. that specializes in 'Crypto logic organization'. This means that this Agency is in charge of looking after those documents and texts that may be very sensitive and must be taken care of very well. The Agency also promotes and directs and coordinates and performs such activities during the course of its various duties that would not only protect the Information and the Intelligence Systems of the United States of America but would also produce foreign intelligence information wherever necessary. The National Security Agency is also referred to as a 'high technology organization' wherein it utilizes all the various high technology that are available today in the fulfillment of its duties. It is said to be on the literal frontiers of communication systems and data processing systems, and also an important foreign language analyzer and researcher within the government of the Unites states of America.

The Unit of Signals Intelligence, or SIGINT as it is better known, is one of the institutions of working of the NSA. This Agency has a long and ancient past liberally checquered with historical incidents, wherein, during the Second World War, the SIGNIT performed the duty of intercepting and interpreting the foreign language, Japanese, and succeeded in reading their military signals so that they could anticipate the Japanese action at Midway Island, Japan. It is believed that it was because of the action that was taken as a result of the interpretation of the signals that the War was actually shortened by at least one whole year. Even today, this Signal Unit performs the important and necessary function of managing to keep the United States of America always one step ahead of its enemies and foreign powers that may mean some sort of harm to this nation. Some of the important functions that this agency performs are: to provide information and statistics in the form of SIGINT format so that the Government may be apprised of the situation that the agency is at present dealing with and make its decisions based on the information that is provided by them.

The SIGINT also has the duty of protecting the rights of the citizen of the U.S.A. By adhering to the provisions of the Constitution of the U.S.A. under the Fourth Amendment, and also during the course of its duties, it has the responsibility of utilizing the various resources that the nation is able to provide them with, in a conscientious and responsible manner, and in accordance with the management principles that are generally used by the agency. In addition to SIGINT, the NSA has the HUMINT or the Human Intelligence Unit under its wings, though it is more the responsibility of the DIA or the Defense Intelligence Agency than the former. IMINT is another division, and this is the Imagery Intelligence, and yet another is the MASINT, or the Military intelligence and the Measurement and Signature Intelligence Unit, and when all these units work together towards the common goal of overcoming the enemies or at the least, staying one step ahead at all times, then the nation's security and safety is always ensured.

When SIGINT provides the Government with the necessary information and intelligence that would enable them to not only ensure the defense of the nation but also to advance the global interests of the U.S.A., and the HUMINT and the IMINT and the MASINT all work together in tandem to ensure the safety and the security of the nation, then they would form a veritable fortress against intruders and enemies of any sort, from anywhere in the world. The people who work in these agencies, especially in the SIGINT must be highly qualified persons who must also be very well versed in the technological advancements of today, and must also be knowledgeable about the various different languages, as well as mathematics and engineering capabilities of the different people of the world, who are from several different parts of the world, as this would help them identify those languages and the countries that speak them, and the U.S.A. is indeed indebted to this unit for it has saved many a life and defended the democracy of America in the direst of circumstances.

The Information Assurance Division, or the IAD as it is better known, of the NSA is another unit that has its base in the knowledge in the advanced technology of today. In fact, this division is often referred to as the most 'Tech-Savvy' force in this division. As everyone is aware, we live in a world today where newer and newer technologies infiltrate the older, with lightning speed, leaving the users often confused as to what happened to the previous 'new' technology that has now actually turned obsolete. However, the advantage of these developments is the fact that it is possible to share information with people all across the world, in every corner of the globe, in a much faster manner than ever before. The NSA's Information Assurance Directorate is responsible for providing the government of the United States of America with the type of information assurance systems that would inevitably keep the nation safe and secure from all manners of threats to its security. In fact, it can be stated that the national security depends on this division and the material that is provides.

The duty of the IAD is to not only detect, but also to report and take appropriate action against any form of cyber threats that the nation is faced with. This means that the division is responsible for the creation of certain encryption codes that would pass on the material that has been detected by them to another system, in an extremely secure and impregnable manner. The IAD can also embed whatever measures it considers essential and of utmost necessity for the protection of the security of the nation into the newly formed Global Grid. This often means that the agency would create and build secure audio as well as video communications equipment, which would keep all intelligence safe from intruders' eyes, and also be involved in making tamper-proof products, and also provide trustworthy micro-electronic solutions for the same purpose. Therefore, as a part of the duties that the agency is to perform, it is allowed to test the safety and security of their customers' systems, and also to provide OPSEC assistance and aid whenever needed, and to test the efficacy and the efficiency of the safety and security standards of commercially produced software and hardware against the stringent national standards.

The Defense Intelligence Agency is an agency of the Department of Defense, and another important facet of the United States Intelligence Community. This is an agency that can boast of more than 7,500 military as well as civilian employees both within the United States and abroad. The DIA is the most important producer and the manager of foreign intelligence, and is responsible for providing such information and intelligence as necessary to such personnel and groups as fighters of a war, defense policy makers of the country who would have to have certain pertinent and exact information that only this particular agency may be able to provide them with, and to force planners, both inside the Department of Defense and within the Intelligence Community, in order to better support the military planning and operating systems of the United States of America Government, and for the better acquisition of arms and ammunitions.

The DIA is in essence a 'combat support agency' of the Department of Defense of the Government of the U.S.A. Based in the defense Headquarters of the government in Washington DC, this agency essentially covers most intelligence information and its clients are as widely ranged as the President of America to the brave lone soldier on the battle field. Numerous aspects of military intelligence are covered by this agency, and the field of their activities ranges from the extremely complex nature of missile trajectory data to a well-written biographical account of various foreign military leaders. The employees of DIA are to travel to various foreign nations and accumulate knowledge about the living conditions in those countries, etc., and they are also expected to work in close contact to the professionals in these other countries.

The National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, or the NGS, is another unit of the Intelligence community of the U.S.A. This agency provides accurate and exact and also timely information and geospatial intelligence on national security. The NGA was previously known as the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, and was created in the year 1996 in order to cope with the new and highly technological advances in areas like imagery, image intelligence, and geospatial intelligence. Most of this agency's responsibilities and duties center around the additional statutory mission of providing the much-needed support to national level policy makers and Government Agencies that may need it. The primary duty however is to provide the appropriate cohesion to the previously separate institutions of imagery and mapping. The agency is therefore expected to be well versed with the latest technology in terms of imagery and mapping, and the customers of this division would expect nothing but the latest when this agency is approached for such information.

The entire decision-making process of the government and the nation would be offered critical support by the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, a division of the Intelligence Community of the U.S.A. It is said that it is on account of the intelligence provided by this agency that the U.S. Army is always able to be in a state of alertness and readiness and also preparedness, all the time. Therefore, the importance of this division must not be underestimated at any cost. What the agency does is this: it exploits and analyses the imagery and also the cartographic and the geodetic information that it collects and distributes wherever pertinent and essential, and not only reads and describes and assesses but also depicts visually the geographic information of the Earth so that the government of the U.S.A. is always aware of the geographic information of other countries, and this intelligence will be extremely useful to the armed forces, during a war. In a nutshell, the goal of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency can be said to be that of basically ensuring that a knowledge foundation on the geography and facts about a nation be provided to the Government of the United States of America so that it can utilize this intensive knowledge for the planning out of its decisions regarding the security of the nation, and take all the necessary and appropriate actions wherever essential.

It was in the year 1948 that the Air Force Security Service was established in the United States of America. The United States Air Force informally inculcated the Air Force Security Group into the Office of the Intelligence Requirements Division, Directorate of Intelligence, in the Pentagon. One example of the necessity of this division of national security is that of the important role played by it in the 1960's during the Vietnam War. It was at this time that the USAFSS as it was known, showed and demonstrated its capabilities in the program that came to be known as the 'Airborne Radio Direction Finding Program'. This program was a tremendous success, and it was after this that the Air Force Chief of Staff, General Curtis Lemay, passed the order that several experimental aircraft, that would be equipped with radio homing equipment, would be flown into Southeast Asia.

The intelligence provided by this agency has been utilized in several wars that the United States has been involved in over the years, and it now widely recognized that success would not have been possible without the information and intelligence provided by the agency. The innate mission of the agency is to provide the information and intelligence that would enable the government to take appropriate action. It also has the responsibility of offering information on the several operations that it undertakes during the fulfillment of its responsibilities, and also to provide intelligence on battle space, and to create awareness among the concerned personnel on the battle space available, and thereby ensure the safety and the security of the United States of America.

Another agency of importance that is responsible for the protection and the preservation of the safety and the security of the United States of America is the Department of Homeland security. This Department is yet another component of the Intelligence Community of the government of the U.S.A., and is dedicated, like the others, to the safety of the people and the government of the U.S.A. against the threat of any foreign invaders or interlopers. The National Strategy for Homeland Security and the Homeland Security Act that was passed in the year 2002 served to mobilize and activate the forces of the U.S.A. so that it would be preserved from any sort of terrorist acts perpetrated by any foreign powers. This, actually, is an extremely complex and difficult mission, because of the fact that it involves the assistance and the cooperation of the entire society comprised of more than a few millions of people, to make the effort a complete success.

The primary reason for the enactment of the Homeland Security Act and also for the establishment of the Department of Homeland security was that of providing a virtual unifying core for all the various organizations that are involved in the securing of the security of the U.S.A. It is an amazing fact that more than 180,000 employees come together every day in the pursuit of the goal of preserving the security of the nation, and because of the fact that this is an uphill task, a strategic plan was created by the Department of Homeland Security so that there would be a framework on which to base the plans of the agency. This framework would not only act as the basis for the actions of the employees but would also guide them in their everyday actions and activities so that the security of the nation would be preserved as best as is possible. The mission that the DHS states that it follows rigorously is that it would lead a unified and a national effort for the very purpose of securing and safeguarding the security of he United States of America. To this effect, the agency would prevent and deter terrorist attacks and also protect against and respond with urgency and immediacy to any sort of call to the protection of the safety of the nation, and this would include any threat or danger or hazard that would be faced by the nation and its people.

Borders of the country would also be protected, and lawful immigrants would be welcomed, and the free flow of commerce would also be taken care of. In a nutshell, the Department of Homeland Security would perform everything possible to ensure the safety of the American citizen and the American nation as such. It is towards the achievement of this goal that it must primarily be extremely aware of the threats and dangers that may invade the soils of America at any time. In other words, the agency must not only identify a particular threat when it is issued, but also comprehend it, and then be able to assess the vulnerabilities and also be able to determine after assessment, the potential impact that the threat would carry, and then to disseminate timely information and intelligence to the various partners of homeland security, and to the American public in general. The agency must also be able to prevent these threats from actually being carried out, in other words, it must be able to detect and then to mitigate and to deter and also to the various threats that it may have intercepted during the course of its duties.

The agency also has the important function of safeguarding the American people and their basic rights and freedom, and also the critical infrastructure of America, and the property of the U.S.A. from any sort of terrorist threats or attacks, and also from any type of natural disasters that may affect the people of the United States, and also form any other type of emergency that may occur at any time. This intelligence agency also has the most important duty and responsibility of leading the national response and also to coordinate and manage all the efforts that are taken by the national security forces after a terrorist attack or a natural disaster or after an emergency situation, it will also help to rebuild the community after the threat has passed. Service of the people of America is another responsibility of this intelligence agency, and therefore it will lead in the efforts to facilitate free trade and free travel and lawful immigration into the U.S.A. It is also committed to valuing the most important resource of any nation, its people. It is for this reason that the agency has managed to create a culture that would effectively promote a common identity and also a mutual respect and promote the concept of teamwork and so on so that people would generally be able to achieve effectiveness and efficiency in their work efforts.

The President of America, George Bush, in his State of the Union address stated that he plans to introduce a new set of initiatives that would serve the important purpose of protecting and safeguarding in a much better manner than is being done at present, and the method of achieving this was by bridging the gap or 'closing the seams' between analyses of foreign, and domestic intelligence and information on terrorism, the new affliction that is threatening the very peace and security of the people of the United States of America. The President also announced that he had told the Director of Central Intelligence, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Attorney General, and the Secretaries respectively of Homeland security and of Defense to work together in close collaboration and in a spirit of cooperation for the purpose of developing the nation's very first 'Unified Terrorist Threat Integration Center'.

This Center would essentially fulfill the purpose of merging and combining and also analyzing various terrorist related intelligences that would have been collected from sources within the country as well as from abroad, so that the very best possible and most comprehensive threat picture would effectively be formed. One particular incident was responsible for this sort of unification, and this was the terrorist attack that was carried out on September 11, 2002, on certain important landmarks within the United States of America, and that resulted in the loss of thousands upon thousands of innocent lives. It was after this devastating incident that the entire Intelligence Community was forced to pull up its collective socks, and now the Government is working in collaboration and in total cooperation with all the Intelligence Agencies like never before. This entails not only joining forces but also sharing all relevant information wherever possible.

Today, with the creation and the formation of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, the U.S.A. has managed to reach the next stage in the enhancement of the counter terrorism efforts that are being taken by the government. It is to this purpose that the President of the United States made this announcement that all his senior advisors from all the Intelligence agencies must ensure that all the information that is generated as part of the intelligence effort must be shared and integrated and also analyzed as quickly as possible, so that action, if any, would be taken even as the information would be in the stage of being analyzed, in other words, as quickly as was humanly possible, so that any loss to the citizens of the U.S.A. Or to the property or to any other resources of the country would be effectively prevented from happening.

If this activity were to be done in a completely seamless manner, then its effectiveness would be further enhanced, and this is what the President of the United States stated that he wants. He guaranteed that the Administration would always keep in mind the fact that the rights of the citizens of the United States of America would not be violated in any manner while executing the Plan. Specifically, the Terrorist Threat Integration Center would carry out all the following functions: it will optimize the use of terrorist threat related information and intelligence and capabilities in such a manner that threat analyses could be carried out with great efficiency and speed, and also so that the information collection strategies would be the best ever. The TTIC will also develop a structure that would allow the possibility of information sharing across different agency lines, and therefore ensure a seamless method of operation, as requested by the President.

In a similar manner, the president has also effectively transformed the activities of the FBI and the Attorney General into one of anti-terrorist activity, in other words, that they must make it their priority that they would fight against terrorist activities and engage primarily in the prevention of such activities. Therefore, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has responded by enacting the following measures: gone about the process of destroying terrorist plots and activities that had been taking place in America, quite undetected for a number of years. All these people were caught and penalized. The FBI also established about 66 Joint Terrorism Task Forces all across the entire United States, and the participants of this Joint Committee were to be numerous Federal, state and national as well as several localized agencies, who would share all the information that was available to them and participate actively in all the anti-terrorism activities that were planned by the Committee. In addition, another Joint Terrorism Task Force was also created, at the Headquarters of the FBI.