Proper noun

Singular Central Intelligence Agency

Plural -

Central Intelligence Agency

1. an independent agency of the United States government responsible for collecting and coordinating intelligence and counterintelligence activities abroad in the national interest.

Synonyms

• CIA

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government.

It is an independent agency responsible for providing national security intelligence to senior United States policymakers.

It is the successor of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) formed during World War II to coordinate espionage activities between the branches of the United States military. The 1947 National Security Act established the CIA, affording it "no police or law enforcement functions, either at home or abroad". One year later, this mandate was expanded to include "sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures...subversion [and] assistance to underground resistance movements, guerrillas and refugee liberation movements, and support of indigenous anti-communist elements in threatened countries of the free world".

The CIA's primary function is to collect information about foreign governments, corporations, and individuals, and to advise public policymakers. The agency conducts covert operations and paramilitary actions, and exerts foreign political influence through its Special Activities Division. The CIA and its responsibilities changed markedly in 2004. Before December 2004, the CIA was the main intelligence organization of the US government; it coordinated and oversaw not only its own activities but also the activities of the US Intelligence Community (IC) as a whole. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 created the office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), which took over some of the government and IC-wide functions. The DNI manages the IC and therefore the intelligence cycle. The functions that moved to the DNI included the preparation of estimates of the consolidated opinion of the 16 IC agencies, and the preparation of briefings for the President of the United States.

Today, the CIA still has a number of functions in common with other countries' intelligence agencies; see Relationships with foreign intelligence agencies. The CIA's headquarters is in Langley in McLean, unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, a few miles west of Washington, DC along the Potomac River.

Sometimes, the CIA is referred to euphemistically in government and military parlance as Other Government Agencies (OGA), particularly when its operations in a particular area are an open secret. Other terms include The Company. and The Agency.