Central Intelligence Agency
national foreign intelligence agency of the United States
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and conducting covert operations. The agency is headquartered in the George Bush Center for Intelligence in Langley, Virginia, and is sometimes metonymously called "Langley". A major member of the United States Intelligence Community (IC), the CIA has reported to the director of national intelligence since 2004, and is focused on providing intelligence for the president and the Cabinet, though it also provides intelligence for a variety of other entities including the United States Armed Forces and foreign allies.
The CIA is headed by a director and is divided into various directorates, including a Directorate of Analysis and Directorate of Operations. Unlike the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the CIA has no law enforcement function and focuses on intelligence gathering overseas, with only limited domestic intelligence collection. The CIA is responsible for coordinating all human intelligence (HUMINT) activities in the IC. It has been instrumental in establishing intelligence services in many countries, and has provided support to many foreign organizations. The CIA exerts foreign political influence through its paramilitary operations units, including its Special Activities Center. It has also provided support to several foreign political groups and governments, including planning, coordinating, training and carrying out torture, and technical support. It has been involved in many regime changes and carrying out planned assassinations of foreign leaders and terrorist attacks against civilians.
During World War II, U.S. intelligence and covert operations had been undertaken by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS).
The public source identifies “Central Intelligence Agency” as national foreign intelligence agency of the United States. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Central, Intelligence and Agency.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q37230. VIAF identifies the subject as 140094734. The Library of Congress control number is n79099301. 4 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2004.
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This entry incorporates text from “Central Intelligence Agency” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.