The Directorate Of Operations: The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

Established in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is an independent governmental agency legally responsible for the provision of national security intelligence to the President, senior policymakers in high offices, and the military in strategic decision-making. The National Security Act of 1947 instituted the agency’s authority to perform three primary activities. The activities are inclusive of the collection of foreign intelligence, analyzing the collected intelligence and performing various other duties as directed by the president. While performing their duties as directed by the president, the function should remain out of reach for the public. The function or duties that the president directs are recognized as covert action.
The NCS, formerly the Directorate of Operations, is one of the main components of the CIA. The NCS serves as the clandestine arm of the agency and the national authority for the coordination, de-confliction, and evaluation of clandestine operations across the intelligence community of the United States. The CIA’s Directorate of Intelligence (DI) is responsible for the analysis of intelligence collected by the agency’s special agents. The U.S policy decisions are guided by the subsequent information that the DI organizes and analyzes. The collected information can be either complete or otherwise. The primary responsibility of the DI’s analysts involves the protection of national security interests. They do this through the assessment of international threats as well as developments, consequently determining the manner in which these developments impact the United States. At the highest level possible, any intelligence organization is responsible for the production of finished intelligence analyses of information related to the intentions as well as capabilities of the nation’s
In this case, there is a possibility of arguing that covert tactics are likely to assist in intelligence collection. In this case, intelligence professionals are expected to control their tactics, which are inclusive of hiding information, using covert tactics, and lie consistently in order to support the interests of the CIA. For instance, the agency might employ covert political action to thwart anti-democratic considerations in some governments. In this case, the country can receive intelligence information regarding possible communistic tendencies by the regime in another country. After receiving this information, the president might authorize a covert action in form of providing aid to the democratic forces to achieve their goals. In this case, when intelligence collection and covert action take place under one agency, it would be easy to monitor the developments. In such a case, an individual might posit that the responsibilities of the CIA are unlikely to cause a conflict of