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There's some background necessary to understand the article. Each of the big five intelligence agencies has a special type of intelligence they collect. They

by parsimo2010 7y ago

There's some background necessary to understand the article. Each of the big five intelligence agencies has a special type of intelligence they collect. They generally don't overlap to prevent duplicated effort, wasted money, and unhealthy competition. The CIA specializes in HUMINT, while the NSA specializes in SIGINT. So the article saying, the CIA doesn't spy on the UAE should be read as the US government doesn't collect HUMINT in the UAE, instead of reading that the US government doesn't collect any intelligence in the UAE.

thrwwaycit8348 7y ago
>Each of the big five intelligence agencies has a special type of intelligence they collect. What are the other 3, and what is the special type they collect? I can only just think of the military and FBI, where the FBI does federal law enforcement (crimes by Americans or on American territory that crosses state lines.) What were the 5 you had in mind? (Just based on public sources, not anything classified if you read it, even if you read it off of wikileaks or something.) Curious.
- parsimo2010 7y ago
  The big five are the CIA, NSA, NRO, NGA, and DIA. You can start here as a branching off point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_Community https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_Com... Each agency's specialty isn't always a type of intelligence, but sometimes a domain (for lack of a better word). CIA- HUMINT NSA- SIGINT NRO- space domain (shares with relevant agencies, i.e. SIGINT collected in space is shared with the NSA) NGA- GEOINT (significant presence in space as well) DIA- military domain (involved when the intelligence is militarily relevant) That's a very broad overview. The intelligence community is larger than the big five, and there are probably very few people who understand the relationship between which agency should do something vs. which agency actually does that thing.
  - thrwwaycit8348 7y ago
    Thanks! Literally never heard of the other 3 you mentioned. Guess they don't get much press!!
- GhettoMaestro 7y ago
  For the curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_intelligence_gathering_disciplines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_intelligence_gathering... The big ones are HUMINT, GEOINT, MASINT, OSINT, AND SIGINT. In the US the responsibility typically falls like this: CIA = HUMINT & OSINT NSA = SIGINT & MASINT NRO / NGA = GEOINT (& probably some MASINT) edit: A lad below me has a better (and more complete) answer.

thrwwaycit8348 7y ago

>Each of the big five intelligence agencies has a special type of intelligence they collect. What are the other 3, and what is the special type they collect? I can only just think of the military and FBI, where the FBI does federal law enforcement (crimes by Americans or on American territory that crosses state lines.) What were the 5 you had in mind? (Just based on public sources, not anything classified if you read it, even if you read it off of wikileaks or something.) Curious.

parsimo2010 7y ago
The big five are the CIA, NSA, NRO, NGA, and DIA. You can start here as a branching off point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_Community https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_Com... Each agency's specialty isn't always a type of intelligence, but sometimes a domain (for lack of a better word). CIA- HUMINT NSA- SIGINT NRO- space domain (shares with relevant agencies, i.e. SIGINT collected in space is shared with the NSA) NGA- GEOINT (significant presence in space as well) DIA- military domain (involved when the intelligence is militarily relevant) That's a very broad overview. The intelligence community is larger than the big five, and there are probably very few people who understand the relationship between which agency should do something vs. which agency actually does that thing.
- thrwwaycit8348 7y ago
  Thanks! Literally never heard of the other 3 you mentioned. Guess they don't get much press!!
GhettoMaestro 7y ago
For the curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_intelligence_gathering_disciplines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_intelligence_gathering... The big ones are HUMINT, GEOINT, MASINT, OSINT, AND SIGINT. In the US the responsibility typically falls like this: CIA = HUMINT & OSINT NSA = SIGINT & MASINT NRO / NGA = GEOINT (& probably some MASINT) edit: A lad below me has a better (and more complete) answer.