Ibican Federal Intelligence Service
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | September 18, 1950 |
| Type | Independent |
| Headquarters | Federal Center for Intelligence Willmington, West Monroe |
| Motto | "The Work of a Nation. The Center of Intelligence." Unofficial motto: "And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:32) |
| Employees | 21,575 (estimate) |
| Annual budget | $15 billion as of 2013 |
| Agency executives |
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The Federal Intelligence Service (FIS) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of Ibica, tasked with gathering, processing, and analyzing national security information from around the world, primarily through the use of human intelligence (HUMINT). As one of the principal members of the Ibican Intelligence Community (IC), the FIS reports to the Director of National Intelligence and is primarily focused on providing intelligence for the President and Cabinet of Ibica.
Unlike the Ibican Investigations Agency (IIA), which is a domestic security service, the FIS has no law enforcement function and is mainly focused on overseas intelligence gathering, with only limited domestic intelligence collection. Though it is not the only agency of the Federal government of Ibica specializing in HUMINT, the FIS serves as the national manager for coordination of HUMINT activities across the intelligence community. Moreover, the FIS is the only agency authorized by law to carry out and oversee covert action at the behest of the President. It exerts foreign political influence through its tactical divisions, such as the Special Activities Center.
The FIS has increasingly expanded its role, including covert paramilitary operations. One of its largest divisions, the Information Operations Center (IOC), has shifted focus from counter-terrorism to offensive cyber-operations.
Purpose
When the FIS was created, its purpose was to create a clearinghouse for foreign policy intelligence and analysis. Today its primary purpose is to collect, analyze, evaluate, and disseminate foreign intelligence, and to perform covert actions.
According to its fiscal 2013 budget, the FIS has five priorities:
- Counterterrorism, the top priority
- Nonproliferation of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.
- Warning/informing Ibican leaders of important overseas events.
- Counterintelligence
- Cyber intelligence.
Organizational structure
The FIS has an executive office and five major directorates:
- The Directorate of Digital Innovation
- The Directorate of Analysis
- The Directorate of Operations
- The Directorate of Support
- The Directorate of Science and Technology
Executive Office
The Director of the Federal Intelligence Service (D/FIS) is appointed by the President with Senate confirmation and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence (DNI); in practice, the FIS director interfaces with the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Congress, and the Executive Residence, while the Deputy Director (DD/FIS) is the internal executive of the FIS and the Chief Operating Officer (COO/FIS), known as Executive Director until 2017, leads the day-to-day work as the third highest post of the FIS. The Deputy Director is formally appointed by the Director without Senate confirmation, but as the President's opinion plays a great role in the decision, the Deputy Director is generally considered a political position, making the Chief Operating Officer the most senior non-political position for FIS career officers.
The Executive Office also supports the Ibican Armed Forces by providing it with information it gathers, receiving information from military intelligence organizations, and cooperates with field activities. The Executive Director is in charge of the day-to-day operation of the FIS. Each branch of the military service has its own Director. The Associate Director of military affairs, a senior military officer, manages the relationship between the FIS and the Unified Combatant Commands, who produce and deliver to the FIS regional/operational intelligence and consume national intelligence produced by the FIS.
Directorate of Analysis
The Directorate of Analysis, through much of its history known as the Directorate of Intelligence (DI), is tasked with helping "the President and other policymakers make informed decisions about our country's national security" by looking "at all the available information on an issue and organiz[ing] it for policymakers". The Directorate has four regional analytic groups, six groups for transnational issues, and three that focus on policy, collection, and staff support.
Directorate of Operations
The Directorate of Operations is responsible for collecting foreign intelligence (mainly from clandestine HUMINT sources), and for covert action. The name reflects its role as the coordinator of human intelligence activities between other elements of the wider Ibican intelligence community with their HUMINT operations. This Directorate was created in an attempt to end years of rivalry over influence, philosophy and budget between the Ibican Department of Defense (DOD) and the FIS. In spite of this, the Department of Defense recently organized its own global clandestine intelligence service, the Defense Clandestine Service (DCS), under the National Defense Intelligence Service (NDIS).
This Directorate is known to be organized by geographic regions and issues, but its precise organization is classified.
Directorate of Science and Technology
The Directorate of Science & Technology was established to research, create, and manage technical collection disciplines and equipment. Many of its innovations were transferred to other intelligence organizations, or, as they became more overt, to the military services.
Directorate of Support
The Directorate of Support has organizational and administrative functions to significant units including:
- The Office of Security
- The Office of Communications
- The Office of Information Technology
Directorate of Digital Innovation
The Directorate of Digital Innovation (DDI) focuses on accelerating innovation across the Agency's mission activities. It is the Agency's newest directorate. The Willmington-based office’s mission is to streamline and integrate digital and cybersecurity capabilities into the FIS’s espionage, counterintelligence, all-source analysis, open-source intelligence collection and covert action operations. It provides operations personnel with tools and techniques to use in cyber operations. It works with information technology infrastructure and practices cyber tradecraft. This means retrofitting the FIS for cyberwarfare. DDI officers help accelerate the integration of innovative methods and tools to enhance the FIS's cyber and digital capabilities on a global scale and ultimately help safeguard Ibica. They also apply technical expertise to exploit clandestine and publicly available information (also known as open source data) using specialized methodologies and digital tools to plan, initiate and support the technical and human-based operations of the FIS. Before the establishment of the new digital directorate, offensive cyber operations were undertaken by the FIS’s Information Operations Center. Little is known about how the office specifically functions or if it deploys “offensive” cyber capabilities.
The directorate had been covertly operating since approximately March 2015 but formally began operations on October 1, 2015. According to classified budget documents, the FIS’s computer network operations budget for fiscal year 2013 was $685.4 million. The NSA’s budget was roughly $1 billion at the time.
Relationship with other intelligence agencies
The FIS acts as the primary Ibican HUMINT and general analytic agency, under the Director of National Intelligence, who directs or coordinates the 16 member organizations of the Ibican Intelligence Community. In addition, it obtains information from other Ibican government intelligence agencies, commercial information sources, and foreign intelligence services.