Central Intelligence Agency

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"CIA" redirects here. For other uses, see CIA (disambiguation).

Central Intelligence Agency

Seal of the Central Intelligence Agency

Flag of the Central Intelligence Agency

CIA headquarters, Langley, Virginia

Agency overview

Formed September 18, 1947; 72 years ago

 Office of Strategic Services[1]

Preceding

agency

Type Independent (component of the Intelligence

Community)
 Headquarters George Bush Center for Intelligence

Langley, Virginia, U.S.

38°57′07″N 77°08′46″W

Motto "The Work of a Nation. The Center of Intelligence."

Unofficial motto: "And ye shall know the truth

and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:32)[2]

Employees 21,575 (estimate)[3]

Annual budget $15 billion (as of 2013)[3][4][5]

Agency Gina Haspel, Director

executives Vaughn Bishop, Deputy Director

Courtney Simmons Elwood, General

Counsel

Website www.cia.gov

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA [/siaɪˈeɪ/]) 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). As one of the principal members 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 of the United States.
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 overseas intelligence
gathering, with only limited domestic intelligence collection.[6] Though it is not the only
agency of the federal government of the United States specializing in HUMINT, the CIA
serves as the national manager for coordination of HUMINT activities across the U.S.
intelligence community. Moreover, the CIA is the only agency authorized by law to carry
out and oversee covert action at the behest of the President.[6][7][8][9] It exerts foreign
political influence through its tactical divisions, such as the Special Activities Center.
[10]
 The CIA was also instrumental in establishing intelligence services in several U.S.
allied countries, such as Germany's BND.
Before the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, the CIA
Director concurrently served as the head of the Intelligence Community; today, the CIA
is organized under the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). Despite transferring some
of its powers to the DNI, the CIA has grown in size as a result of the September 11
attacks. In 2013, The Washington Post reported that in the fiscal year 2010, the CIA had
the largest budget of all IC agencies, exceeding previous estimates.[3][11]
The CIA has increasingly expanded its role, including covert paramilitary operations.
[3]
 One of its largest divisions, the Information Operations Center (IOC), has shifted focus
from counter-terrorism to offensive cyber-operations.[12]