What are the responsibilities of the CIA's National Clandestine Service?

What are the responsibilities of the CIA's National Clandestine Service?

Ronald Kessler (Author of "The Terrorist Watch: Inside The Desperate Race To Stop The Next Attack") gives expert video advice on: What are the responsibilities of the CIA's National Clandestine Service?; What are the responsibilities of the CIA's Covert Action Staff?; What are the responsibilities of the CIA's Special Operations Staff? and more...

The National Clandestine Service is what you think of when you think of the CIA, because it is the spy component, and the human intelligence side. Their function is to gather secret classified intelligence. If it's information from a country, like Russia; or in the case of Al-Qaeda, obviously secret information that they don't want revealed. It's not to get information that we all can gather on the web or some other overt means. And the way the Clandestine Service does this is to develop sources, essentially, who are willing to turn on their own organization or country to give us information.