The CIA National Clandestine Service
What are the responsibilities of the CIA's National Clandestine Service?
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.
What are the responsibilities of the CIA's Covert Action Staff?
The Covert Action Staff deals with covert action, which means influencing governments or organizations in a secretive manner. For example, the Covert Action Staff might introduce articles that favour a more moderate Muslim approach. They might pay off a persons who acts as an Imam and create a more moderate approach. They might pay off real Imams to be more moderate. They in the old days would actually be involved in toppling governments. So it's anything where the CIA uses very aggressive means, and certainly secret means to influence what is going on in the world.
What are the responsibilities of the CIA's Special Operations Staff?
Special Operations has to do with paramilitary, which, in the case of Afghanistan, for example, when we went in there, meant dealing with tribes, and getting them to cooperate, which means actually being involved in paramilitary operations along with our military.
What are the responsibilities of the CIA's Counterintelligence Staff?
The Counterintelligence Staff tries to uncover efforts by opposing intelligence services, such as the SVRR from the Russians, to infiltrate or penetrate the CIA. So it's spy versus spy, and that is very important. We saw what happened with Aldridge Ames, for example, a CIA officer who was recruited by Russia to give them intelligence. It's very important that the CIA uncover efforts to undermine their own efforts.
What are the responsibilities of the CIA's Counterterrorism Office?
The Counterterrorism Office or Centre, is charged with going after terrorists, uncovering secrets about terrorists, trying to roll them up. They will roll them up, either through paramilitary efforts or, very often, through cooperation with other intelligence services. For example, Jordan and Saudi Arabia will give us tips and will actually turn over terrorists so that the CIA can either put them in Guantanamo or try to get them to cooperate with the CIA.
What are the responsibilities of the CIA's Counternarcotics Office?
The Counternarcotics Office helps other countries stamp out, for example, Cocaine in South America. And they will use very sophisticated means. For example, they will intercept financial banking transactions that are transmitted by satellite to uncover where some of these big drug lords are. They'll help other countries with various technical devices to try to uncover where these drug lords are and, generally, just try to stamp out drugs.
What countries are under surveillance by the National Clandestine Service?
We spy on every country in the world with three exceptions: Great Britain, Australia, and Canada. Those are considered our total friends, but we will spy on Israel, Israel spies on us, as we saw with in the Jonathan Pollard case. We will spy on France, and France will spy on us. We actually will penetrate French diplomatic establishments to uncover what they are up to and vice versa. So this is a game that both sides play, and in many cases it means more stability because for example if we find that Russia is not really trying to do something bad to us, then that makes us more secure and diminishes the tensions.
