Intelligence agencies (also known as ‘Intelligence Services’) are organisations responsible for the planning, collection, analysis and distribution of certain types of intelligence.
There are numerous different intelligence agencies – each assigned with a different, role, responsibility or collection requirement.
Intelligence agencies are unique. Their requirement will determine their role. Depending on each requirement, an Intelligence agency will utilise different collection methods to satisfy their information requirements.
Intelligence agencies can be organised by their requirement to produce a certain ‘type’ of intelligence; for example, foreign information collection, military intelligence, or law enforcement.
Intelligence Agencies can also be assigned the management and control for a certain intelligence collection capability. For example, The U.S. National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGIA) is the tasking authority for the control, management and collection of satellite reconnaissance imagery.
Single source agencies are sometimes created as the guardians of a particular ‘type’ of intelligence or discipline. Such as the United States National Security Agency (NSA) being the premier ‘SIGINT’ collection agency for the United States intelligence community.
