CIA

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n “special activities and other functions related to foreign intelligence and national security as directed by the President.” It is this last statement that has caused much of the controversy surrounding the CIA over the years. Some of these “special activities” have been deemed illegal by many authorities, as I will discuss later.
The CIA is an independent agency within the executive branch of government. It is part of the US intelligence community that consists of the National Security Council, the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and the intelligence sections of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. All of these agencies gather information and report their findings back to the CIA that coordinates all the information. The Director of Central Intelligence or DCI leads all of the intelligence agencies efforts. The DCI is appointed by the President and serves as an advisor to the President on matters of intelligence.
The main function of the CIA is then to get that information that they have gathered to the proper people, whether it is political personnel or military personnel or both. In other words, the CIA provides crucial information to the President, cabinet officials, Congress, and military forces in the field. The CIA is also responsible for monitoring countries that harbor long standing threats to the United States such as terrorism, illegal arms dealings, weapons of mass destruction, drug trafficking, and economic fraud. It also engages in covert activities usually at the direction of the President or the National Security Council. The CIA web page states that covert actions are sometimes necessary when “US policy objectives may not be fully recognized by normal diplomatic means and when military action is deemed too extreme an option.” Basically they are stating what you have seen in Mission Impossible might not really be so impossible. In relation to this are the two main programs of the CIA.
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