Intelligence questions.

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The Central Intelligence Agency is the United States' civilian foreign-intelligence service. It collects intelligence abroad, mainly from human sources, analyses it for the President and policymakers, and carries out covert action when the President orders it.

The National Security Act of 1947, signed by President Truman in July 1947, created the CIA; the agency formally came into being in September 1947.

In Langley, in Fairfax County, Virginia, about seven miles from Washington. The compound is named the George Bush Center for Intelligence.

The CIA collects foreign intelligence, mostly from people. The NSA collects signals intelligence — communications and electronic data — and protects U.S. government systems. The FBI is the domestic law-enforcement and counter-intelligence agency inside the United States.

ODNI was created by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of December 2004, after the 9/11 Commission. The Director of National Intelligence leads the whole intelligence community and oversees the President's Daily Brief; before 2005 the CIA director held that role.

Eighteen: ODNI plus seventeen agencies and offices, including the CIA, NSA, DIA, FBI, NGA, NRO, the military services' intelligence branches and units in the State, Treasury, Energy and Homeland Security departments.

An operation meant to influence events abroad where the U.S. role is not meant to be acknowledged — from propaganda and political support to paramilitary operations. By law it requires a written presidential finding and notice to the congressional intelligence committees.

Human intelligence (from people), signals intelligence (from communications and electronic emissions), geospatial intelligence (from satellite and aerial imagery) and open-source intelligence (from public information such as official releases, media and data).

A short, highly classified daily summary of the most important intelligence for the President, prepared by the intelligence community under the DNI.

The President directs it; Congress oversees it through the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The most sensitive matters go to the "Gang of Eight" — the leaders of both parties in both chambers and of both committees.

George Tenet (1997–2004), Porter Goss (2004–2006), Michael Hayden (2006–2009), Leon Panetta (2009–2011), David Petraeus (2011–2012), John Brennan (2013–2017), Mike Pompeo (2017–2018), Gina Haspel (2018–2021), William Burns (2021–2025) and John Ratcliffe, who took office in January 2025.

Yes, in general terms. In 2001 CIA director George Tenet repeatedly warned that al Qaeda was planning major attacks and told the Senate in March 2001 that the terrorist threat was real and immediate. The warnings did not include the time, place or method of the attack.

CIA teams were the first Americans into Afghanistan, in September 2001. Working with the Northern Alliance and backed by U.S. air power and special forces, they helped bring down the Taliban government by December 2001.

The October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate judged that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons and was rebuilding a nuclear programme. After the March 2003 invasion none were found. Later inquiries blamed weak sources, unchallenged assumptions and analysts telling policymakers what they expected.

After 9/11 the CIA held suspected al Qaeda members in secret prisons abroad, known as black sites, and used "enhanced interrogation techniques" including waterboarding. President Obama ended the programme in January 2009, and the Senate intelligence committee published a summary of its investigation in December 2014.

Tapes of interrogations at a CIA prison in Thailand were destroyed on orders from the clandestine service in November 2005. The destruction became public in December 2007.

A global nuclear-smuggling ring run by the Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan, which sold centrifuge technology and weapons designs to countries including Libya, Iran and North Korea. A long CIA operation, with British intelligence, helped expose it; it collapsed in early 2004, when Khan confessed and was placed under house arrest.

By tracking his trusted courier for years until he led analysts to a walled compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. On May 2, 2011, U.S. Navy SEALs, under CIA authority, raided the compound and killed bin Laden.

On December 30, 2009, a Jordanian double agent blew himself up at a CIA base in Khost, Afghanistan, killing seven CIA officers and contractors — one of the deadliest days in the agency's history.

Since the early 2000s the CIA has used armed drones to strike terrorist leaders in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere. The programme grew sharply after 2008 and raised lasting legal and moral debate over targeted killing.

On September 11, 2012, militants attacked the U.S. diplomatic compound and a nearby CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya. Four Americans were killed, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

In 2010 WikiLeaks published hundreds of thousands of military and diplomatic files leaked by Chelsea Manning. In 2013 Edward Snowden, an NSA contractor, disclosed NSA surveillance programmes. In 2017 WikiLeaks published "Vault 7", the CIA's own hacking tools, stolen by a CIA software developer who was later convicted.

Between 2010 and 2012 China dismantled much of the CIA's spy network inside the country. A former CIA officer, Jerry Chun Shing Lee, later admitted conspiring to spy for China and was sentenced to prison in 2019.

The January 2017 intelligence community assessment concluded that Russia ran an influence campaign, including hacking and leaking Democratic Party emails, to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The United States signed an agreement with the Taliban in Doha in February 2020. U.S. forces left Afghanistan in August 2021, when the Taliban took Kabul; CIA officers helped run the evacuation from the airport.

From late 2021 U.S. intelligence tracked Russia's preparations. CIA director William Burns warned the Kremlin in Moscow in November 2021 and briefed Ukraine's leaders in Kyiv in January 2022. The U.S. made the unusual choice to declassify and publish its warnings before the invasion of February 24, 2022.

The CIA's channel to Russia's intelligence services helped arrange exchanges, including the release of Brittney Griner in December 2022 and the multi-country exchange of August 2024 that freed Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan.

The NSA collects foreign signals intelligence and, through its Cybersecurity Directorate, protects national-security systems and publishes advisories about threats and vulnerabilities.

Many analysts point to April 2007, when Estonia's government, banks and media were knocked offline by a wave of cyber attacks during a dispute with Russia.

Ransomware encrypts a victim's files and demands payment to unlock them. The FBI investigates ransomware gangs, seizes their servers and asks victims to report attacks rather than pay.