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(U) CIA's Directorates ... Understanding More About Them
FROM:
Customer Account Manager for CIA (S112)
Run Date: 08/06/2004
(C) The CIA-NSA relationship is certainly complex and multi-faceted. Some of the complexity
stems from the diverse missions and resulting unique cultures in each of CIA's three main
directorates -- the Directorate of Intelligence (DI), the Directorate of Operations (DO), and the
Directorate of Science and Technology (DS&T). Understanding the differences in these
organizations and their cultures may help when dealing with individuals or requests from each
directorate.
(S) The Directorate of Intelligence (DI) is the analytical arm of the CIA, charged with
providing timely, accurate, and objective analysis on the full range of national security threats
and foreign policy issues facing the United States. Functions of this directorate include providing
US policymakers with the information and analysis needed to carry out their mission of
formulating and implementing US national security policy and providing daily current intelligence
briefings to senior White House (Presidential Daily Briefing - PDB) and designated Cabinet-level
officials (Senior Executive Information Briefing - SEIB). Although there is certainly collaboration
between CIA/DI's analytic community and NSA's SIGINT analysts, the CIA/DI is mostly a SIGINT
customer using finished NSA/SID product as one of their most valuable sources in producing allsource intelligence products. Of the three CIA directorates, the analytic nature of CIA/DI's
culture makes it most like that of NSA/SID.
(S) The Directorate of Operations (DO) is the HUMINT-collection arm of the CIA. Even
though this directorate and SID both perform collection, the nature of the HUMINT business
creates a culture with some dramatic differences to SID's but also with some similarities. A
priority for both the DO and SID is protecting collection sources and methods. For the DO, this
means protecting people (assets) while SID protects technical sources of intelligence. As a result
of these differences and similarities, the DO and SID have very different relationships with
foreign partners. There are many examples of DO and SID partnerships with HUMINT and
SIGINT enabling each other -- almost essential to obtain the most valuable accesses in today's
world. In an effort to better understand and relate to a HUMINT organization, SID has detailed
many representatives or referents into the DO to handle specific issues related to each target
area.
(S) The Directorate of Science & Technology (DS&T) is the technical arm of the CIA. Its
mission is to access, collect, and exploit critical intelligence by applying innovative scientific,
engineering, and technical solutions. Some of the technical services provided by the DS&T, such
as technical collection in support of HUMINT operations, require a very technical workforce -somewhat similar to NSA's technical workforce (electronics, signals, etc). As a result of these
similarities, there are some excellent examples of SID-DS&T partnering in some areas and other
examples of "turf wars" due to real or perceived mission overlap. The DS&T also possesses some
very different technical skills/disciplines (disguises, document replication, and audio collection
devices, etc.) which can complement SID operations. As in the case with the DO, SID has placed
several NSA representatives or referents in the DS&T to facilitate the relationship in specific
mission areas.
(S//SI) Some joint CIA-NSA efforts , which actually include people from across CIA directorates
and SID organizations, offer the best examples of how these two agencies can work well
together. The Special Collection Service (SCS) is a joint NSA-CIA organization whose mission
is the covert collection of SIGINT from official U.S. establishments abroad. The Clandestine
SIGINT Program (ClanSIG), run by the jointly staffed Technology Management Office (TMO)
at CIA, provides numerous excellent examples of HUMINT enabling SIGINT and vice versa. In
addition to these long standing programs, a more recent example includes the SIGINT
proliferation cell -- physically located in the Counterproliferation Division (CPD) in CIA/DO but
jointly staffed with NSA/SID, CIA/DO and CIA/DI analysts. This cell has official SIGINT reporting
ability.
(C) Understanding the differences between CIA's directorates can improve NSA/SID employees'
ability to interact effectively with CIA employees. For further information on the NSA-CIA
relationship, we suggest contacting the NSA/F5 organization (NSA's representatives located at
CIA) or the CIA Customer Account Management folks in SID/Customer Relationships
Directorate.
"(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet
without the consent of S0121 (DL sid_comms)."
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DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108