CIA

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“CIA” stands for Central Intelligence Agency, which is an independent U.S. government agency that collects information about foreign countries, organizations, and individuals. It is also informally known as the Agency and historically as the Company. The Agency is also tasked with staging covert operations and other activities to protect national security interests. It reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, mainly concentrating on offering intelligence to the President of the United States and the Cabinet. Unlike the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which focuses on domestic security issues, the CIA only has limited domestic operations. The original purpose of the CIA was to create a clearinghouse for foreign policy intelligence and analysis, now its main purpose is to collect, analyze, evaluate, and disseminate foreign intelligence, and to carry out covert operations.

[Last updated in July of 2022 by the Wex Definitions Team]