I had always thought (vaguely) that the CIA dealt with national security and international espionage, and the FBI dealt with domestic crime. After listening to recent news stories of their failure to share information about terrorists, I realized that I really didn’t know anything about the two agencies.
What are their respective parameters, goals, limitations?
The FBI is “the principal investigative arm of the United States Department of Justice. It has the authority and responsibility to investigate specific crimes assigned to it. The FBI also is authorized to provide other law enforcement agencies with cooperative services, such as fingerprint identification, laboratory examinations, and police training.” (from the FBI website).
The CIA is responsible for “coordinating the nation’s intelligence activities and correlating, evaluating and disseminating intelligence which affects national security.” (from the CIA website).
Obviously, there are times when the responsibilities of these two agencies should require them to work together (like when a foreign national breaks law in order to committ terrorist acts). The controversy swirling around us today is over the fact that the two groups have allowed posturing to replace cooperation.
Well, supposedly it is illegal for the CIA to conduct operations of ANY kind inside the United States, but every 10 years or so, the CIA gets caught doing just that.
The big problem between the various intelligence communities, CIA, NSA, FBI is that they have a very stupid tendency to jealously and zealously guard any info they might have and refuse to share it with the any of the other agencies.
Supposedly the NSA is now the most powerful of all of the intelligence agencies, but you will never hear them admitting that.
Jane’s may have some relevant topics:
The Director of Central Intelligence website has links to all 13 agencies that are publicly known (The NRO was kept secret for several years, I think, so it’s entirely possible there’s someone else hiding out somewhere.) The wheel of intelligence shows them all, and you can click on a piece to get an overview of that agency.
As best I can tell, the essential difference between the FBI and the CIA is this:
The FBI has no clue what’s going on within America’s borders, while the CIA has no clue what’s going on outside our borders.
The FBI reads you your rights before they hook the electrodes up to your scrotum; the CIA doesn’t.
This site shows says that it only used to be illegal for the ‘CIA to spy on Americans within our borders’:
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0223/hentoff2.php
This site says:
http://www.angelfire.com/hi/IntellCommunity/
‘Within and outside the United States, the CIA operates a vast network of informants, surveillants, and support personnel. Such outside-Agency personnel complement the Agency’s internal intelligence staff, which consists primarily of Agents, counterintelligence operatives, and technical and analytical support personnel.’
Presumably counter-intelligence has always required the CIA to conduct operations within the US?
Another big difference between the CIA and the FBI is that the CIA topples governments (or at least gives some a really big shove).
“Coordinating the nation’s intelligence activities and correlating, evaluating and disseminating intelligence which affects national security” is only half of it. It’s no secret that the CIA, from time to time, uses America’s resources to try to influence the domestic politics of other countries in ways that (they think) will favor American interests.
Under J. Edgar Hoover, the F.B.I.'s role was largely to conduct high-profile campaigns against celebrity bank robbers, denying the existence of the mafia, blackmailing politicians and others, and harassing people who expressed disagreement with government policy or anyone else Hoover took a dislike to.
It’s a crime that the F.B.I.'s headquarters building is named after this thug.