Accommodation address: A mail address, usually a post office box, for communication between agents and case officers.
Agent: An individual who acts under the direction of an intelligence agency or security service to obtain, or assist in obtaining, information for intelligence or counterintelligence purposes. The term is commonly misused in the media to mean an intelligence officer.
Agent of influence: An individual who can be used by a intelligence service to covertly influence foreign officials, opinion molders, organizations, or pressure groups in a way that generally will advance the government's objectives, or to undertake specific action in support of U.S. government objectives.
Agent provocateur: An individual, employed by an agency urging illegal acts by those under suspicion.
Analysis: A stage in the intelligence processing cycle whereby collected information is reviewed to identify significant facts. The information is compared and collated with other data, and conclusions that also incorporate the memory and judgement of the intelligence analyst are derived from it.
Assessment: Part of the intelligence process whereby an analyst determines the reliability or validity of a piece of information; also, a statement resulting from this process.
Asset: Any resource - a person, group, relationship, instrument, installation, or supply - at the disposition of an intelligence agency for use in an operational or support role. The term is normally applied to a person who is contributing to a CIA clandestine mission, but is not a fully controlled agent of the CIA.
Bagman: An agent who pays bribes or carries money for distribution.
Bigot list: A restrictive list of persons who have access to a particular and highly sensitive class of information. Bigot is read to mean narrow.
Black: Indicates reliance on concealment of an illegal activity, rather than on cover.
Black bag job: Warrantless surreptitious entry, especially conducted for purposes other than microphone installation, such as physical search and seizure, photographing documents or downloading computer files.
Black propaganda: Propaganda that purports to emanate from a source other than the true one. If no attribution is given, it is called gray propaganda.
Blow: To expose - often unintentionally - personnel, installations, or other elements of a clandestine activity or organization.
Brainwashed: A person who has been the subject of psychological techniques to alter thought processes and loyalty.Bug. A concealed listening device or microphone or other audio surveillance device; also, to install the means for audio surveillance of a subject or target.
Bugged: Contains a concealed listening device.
Burnt: Compromised. Can be used in relation to an individual or an operation.
Burst transmission: A present message transmitted rapidly to thwart hostile direction-finding surveillance.
Case: An intelligence operation in its entirety; also, a record of the development, methods, and objectives of an operation.
Case officer: An Operations Directorate officer of the CIA responsible for handling agents.
Cell: The basic unit of a covert espionage network.
Chekist: Member of the Russian intelligence services, from Cheka, the first Soviet security service.
Cipher: Any cryptographic system in which arbitrary symbols or groups of symbols represent units of plain text.
Clandestine intelligence: Intelligence information collected via covert resources.Classification. The determination that official information requires, in the interest of national security, a specific degree of protection from unauthorized disclosure, coupled with a designation signifying that such a determination has been made. The designation normally is termed a security classification.
Cobbler: A forger, a slang term popular with the British.Code. A system of communication in which arbitrary groups of symbols represent units of plain text. Codes may be used for brevity or security.Code word. A word assigned a classification and a classified meaning to safeguard intentions and information regarding a planned operation.
Collection: The acquisition of information by any means and its delivery to the proper intelligence processing unit for use in the production of intelligence.
COMINT: Communications intelligence. Technical and intelligence information derived from foreign communications by someone other than the intended recipient; sometimes used interchangeably with SIGINT. It does not include foreign press, propaganda or public broadcasts.
Company: the. Insiders' name for the Central Intelligence Agency.Compartmentation. The practice of establishing channels for handling sensitive intelligence information. The channels are limited to individuals with a specific need for such information and who are therefor given special security clearances in order to have access to it.
COMSEC: Communications security. The protection of U.S. telecommunications from exploitation by foreign intelligence services and from unauthorized disclosure. COMSEC is one of the mission responsibilities of NSA. It includes cryptosecurity, transmission security, emission security, and physical security of classified equipment, material, and documents.Consumer. A person or agency that uses information or intelligence produced either by its own staff or other agencies.
Control: Physical or psychological pressure exerted on an agent or group to ensure that the agent or group responds to the direction from an intelligence agency or service.
Co-opted worker: A citizen of the country who is not an officer or employee of the country's intelligence service, but who assists that service on a temporary or regular basis. In most circumstances, a co-opted worker is an official of the country, but might also be a tourist, businessman, scientist or student, for example.
Counterespionage: Those aspects of counterintelligence concerned with aggressive operations against another intelligence service to reduce its effectiveness or to detect and neutralize foreign espionage. This is done by identification, penetration, manipulation, deception, and repression of individuals, groups, or organizations conducting or suspected of conducting espionage activities in order to destroy, neutralize, exploit, or prevent such espionage activities.
Counterinsurgency: Military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological, civic, and any other actions taken by a government to defeat rebellion and subversion within a country.Counterintelligence. Activities conducted to destroy the effectiveness of foreign intelligence operations and to protect information against espionage, individual against subversion, and installations against sabotage; also refers to information developed by or used in counterintelligence operations. See also Counterespionage.Courier. A messenger responsible for the secure physical transmission and delivery of documents and materials.
Cousins: British MI6 [Secret Intelligence Service (SIS)] name for CIA.Cover. A protective guise used by a person, organization, or installation to prevent identification with clandestine activities and to conceal the true affiliation of personnel and the true sponsorship of their activities.Cover-name. An alias.
Covert action: A clandestine activity designed to influence foreign governments, events, organizations, or persons in support of U.S. foreign policy, and that conceals the identity of the sponsor or else permits the sponsor's plausible denial of the operation; sometimes called covert operations, clandestine operations, and clandestine activity.
Cryptanalysis: The breaking of codes and ciphers into plain text without initial knowledge of the key employed in the encryption.
CRYPTO: A designation applied to classified, cryptographic information that involves special rules for access and handling.Cryptography. The enciphering of a plain text so that it will be unintelligible to an unauthorized reader or recipient.
Cut-out: A person used to conceal contact between members of a clandestine activity or organization.Damage assessment. An evaluation of the impact of a compromise in terms of loss of intelligence information, sources, or methods, which may describe and/or recommend measures to minimize damage and prevent future compromises.
Dangle: Someone who intentionally draws the attention of a hostile intelligence service so that, through mere contact, information may be learned about that service.
DCI: Director of Central Intelligence. The President's principal foreign intelligence advisor, appointed by him with the consent of the Senate to be the head of the intelligence community and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and to discharge those authorities and responsibilities as they are prescribed by law and by Presidential and National Security Council directives.
DCID: Director of Central Intelligence Directive. A directive issued by the DCI that outlines general policies and procedures to be followed by intelligence agencies under his direction; usually more specific than a National Security Council Directive (see NSCID).
Defector: A person who, for political or other reasons, repudiates and flees his country, usually to an adversary nation interested in what intelligence he could provide about the country of origin.Defense intelligence community. Refers to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the National Security Agency (NSA), and the military services' intelligence offices including Department of Defense (DOD) collectors of specialized intelligence through reconnaissance programs.
Desk man: Controller or sub-controller at headquarters.DIA. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Department of Defense agency responsible for producing military intelligence, created by directive of the Secretary of Defense in 1961.
Disinformation: False or misleading information to confuse or discredit the opposition.
Double agent: A person engaging in clandestine activity for two or more intelligence or security services who provide information to one service about the other, or about each service to the other, and who is wittingly or unwittingly manipulated by one service against the other.
Drop: Clandestine transference of intelligence information. Leaving material in a secret place for pick-up later is a dead drop, as opposed to a live drop, when people meet to pass material. The word "Dubok" is Russian for a dead drop.
ECM: Electronic countermeasures. That division of electronic warfare involving actions taken to prevent or reduce an adversary's effective use of the electromagnetic spectrum. Electronic countermeasures include electronic jamming, which is the deliberate radiation, reradiation, or reflection of electromagnetic energy with the object of impairing the use of electronic equipment used by an adversary; and electronic deception, which is similar but is intended to mislead an adversary in the interpretation of information received by his electronic system.
Elicitation: The acquisition of intelligence from a person or group which does not disclose the intent of the interview or conversation; a human intelligence (see HUMINT) collection technique generally of an overt nature, unless the collector is other than what he or she purports to be.
ELINT: Electronic intelligence. Technical and intelligence information derived from the collection (or interception) and processing of foreign electromagnetic radiations (noncommunications) emanating from sources such as radar.Espionage. Clandestine collection of intelligence.Executive action. Generally a euphemism for assassination, used by the CIA to describe a program aimed at overthrowing certain foreign leaders, by assassinating them if necessary.
Fabricator: An agent who provides false information.False flag. A recruitment involving a deliberate misrepresentation of one's actual employer to achieve the recruitment.
Farm, the: Training school for CIA at Camp Peary in Virginia.Field
Flap: A commotion, controversy, or publicity that is the result of a bungled intelligence operation.
Flaps and seals man: Expert at undetected opening and closing of the mails.
Flutter: To conduct a polygraph or lie detector test, CIA term.
Friends: A British term of reference used by MI5 for MI6.
Galoshes day: When galoshes were issued by the KGB to its officials for winter work - "a bad day."
Gebist: Russian slang for the SVRR officer, formerly used for KGB officers.
Gray propaganda: See Black propaganda.
Hard target: A country, installation or institution that is difficult for an agent to penetrate. Thus, also soft target meaning the reverse.
Honey trap: Operation to compromise an opponent sexually.
HUMINT: Human intelligence. Intelligence information derived from human sources.
IC: Intelligence community. Refers, in the aggregate, to the following American executive branch organizations: the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, offices within the Department of Defense for the collection of specialized national foreign intelligence through reconnaissance programs, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research of the Department of State, intelligence elements of the military services, counterintelligence elements of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, intelligence elements of the Department of the Treasury, intelligence elements of the Department of Energy, intelligence elements of the Drug Enforcement Administration and staff elements of the Office of the Director of Central Intelligence.
Illegal: An officer or employee of an intelligence organization who is dispatched abroad and who has no overt connection with the intelligence organization with which he is connected or with the government operating that intelligence organization.
Illegal residency. An intelligence apparatus established in a foreign country and composed of one or more intelligence officers, and which has no apparent connection with the sponsoring intelligence organization or with the government of the country operating the intelligence organization.
Illness: Russian slang term for arrest.Infiltration. The placing of an agent or other person in a target area within hostile territory or within targeted groups or organizations.
Informant: A person who wittingly or unwittingly provides information voluntarily, under pressure or for money to any agent, intelligence, or counterintelligence or law enforcement agency. In reporting such information, this person will often be cited as the "source."
Informer: Pejorative term for an informant.
INR: Bureau of Intelligence and Research. The U.S. Department of State's intelligence service.In place. A recruited agent who has not physically defected and remains in his official position is said to be an "agent in place."Intelligence analyst. A professional employee of an intelligence organization who engages in analysis of information gathered by clandestine and open means.
Intelligence cycle: The steps by which information is assembled, converted into intelligence, and made available to consumers. The cycle comprises four basic phases: (1) director, the determination of intelligence requirements, preparation of a collection plan, tasking of collection agencies, and a continuous check on the productivity of these agencies; (2) collection, the exploitation of information sources and the delivery of the collected information to the proper intelligence processing unit for use in the production of intelligence; (3) processing, the steps whereby information becomes intelligence through evaluation, analysis, integration, and interpretation; and (4) dissemination, the distribution of information or intelligence products in oral, written, or graphic form to departmental and agency intelligence consumers.
Intelligence estimate: An appraisal of intelligence elements relating to a specific situation or condition to determine the courses of action open to an enemy or potential enemy and the probable order of their adoption.
Intelligence officer: A professional employee of an intelligence organization who engages in clandestine intelligence activities.
Interception: Generally refers to the collection of electromagnetic signals such as radio communications by sophisticated collection equipment without the knowledge of the communicants for the production of certain forms of signals intelligence.
Interrogation: A systematic effort to procure information by direct questioning of a person under the control of the questioner.
Invisible ink: The oldest tool still used by spies. Lemons are still useful when technology fails.(See also Secret Writing)
Legend: Invented name and biography to hide the identity of a spy.
MI: Military intelligence. Basic, current, or estimative intelligence on any foreign military or military-related situation or activity.
Microdot: Photograph of a message reduced for concealment to microscopic size.
Mole: A penetration agent, an individual working for a foreign intelligence service within his own country's intelligence organization; the term was popularized in the novels of John LeCarre [David Cornwall].
Monitoring: The observing of, listening to, or recording of foreign or domestic communications for intelligence collection or intelligence security (e.g., COMSEC) purposes.
Music box: Radio transmitter.
Naked: Operating without back-up or cover.
Nash: "One of ours," Russian for a recruited agent.National intelligence. Intelligence produced by the CIA that bears on the broad aspects of U.S. national policy and national security. It is of concern to more than one department or agency.
Neighbor: Other branch of intelligence service.
Network: A spy ring working for one chief.
NFIB: National Foreign Information Board. A body formed to provide the Director of Central Intelligence with advice concerning: production, review, and coordination of national foreign intelligence; the National Foreign Intelligence Program budget; interagency exchanges of foreign intelligence information; arrangements with foreign governments on intelligence matters; the protection of intelligence sources or methods; activities of common concern; and such other matters as are referred to it by the DCI. The board is composed of the DCI (chairman) and other appropriate officers of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Office of the DCI, Department of State, Department of Defense, Department of Justice, Department of the Treasury, Department of Energy, the offices within the Department of Defense for reconnaissance programs, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation; senior intelligence officers of the army, navy, and air force participate as observers; a representative of the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs may also attend meetings as an observer.
NIA: National Intelligence Authority. An executive council created by President Truman's executive order of January 22, 1946, which had authority over the simultaneously created Central Intelligence Group (see CIG); predecessor of the National Security Council.
NIE: National Intelligence Estimate. An estimate authorized by the DCI of the capabilities, vulnerabilities, and probable courses of action of foreign nations; represents the composite view of the intelligence community.
NSC: National Security Council. Established by the National Security Act of 1947 and placed within the Executive Office of the President in 1949, the NSC advises the President on matters relating to national security with respect to the integration of domestic, foreign, and military policies; comprised of the President, Vice-President, Secretary of State, and Secretary of Defense, with the Director of Central Intelligence and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff acting as advisors.
NSCID: National Security Council Intelligence Directive. Intelligence guidelines issued by the NSC to intelligence agencies. NSCIDs are often augmented by more specific Director of Central Intelligence Directives and by internal departmental or agency regulations. See also DCID.
Onetime pad: Simple encoding method with five letter groups used only once.
Order of battle: Information regarding the identity, strength, command structure, and disposition of personnel, units and equipment of any military force.
Overt: Legally gathered information from published or quotable sources.
Paper mill: A fabricator who provides false information consistently and in volume; see also Fabricator.
Paroles: Key words for mutual identification among agents.
Piscine: Literally, swimming pool. Headquarters of the French DGSE.
Penetration: The recruitment of agents within or the planting of agents or technical monitoring devices within a target organization to gain access to its secrets or to influence its activities.
PHOTINT: Photographic intelligence. Information or intelligence derived from photography through photographic interpretation.
Pickle Factory: Insiders' name for the Central Intelligence Agency.
Pitch: The act of persuading a person to be an agent; a pitch made without the benefit of any prior cultivation of the person in question is a cold pitch.
Plain text: Unencrypted communications; specifically, the original message of a cryptogram expressed in ordinary language.
Playback: Information which captured or compromised agents are forced to continue transmitting.
Plumbing: Assets or services supporting the operations of CIA field stations, such as safe houses, unaccountable funds, investigative persons, surveillance teams.Pocket litter. The misleading documents and materials an agent carries to protect his identity and cover background if apprehended.
Polygraph: A lie detector. A machine to indicate whether a suspect is lying by measuring nervous reflexes.
President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB): A group of prominent private citizens appointed by the American President to advise him on matters of foreign intelligence. PFIAB's influence varies with each administration. It has been used as a supplementary Inspectorate General over clandestine operations.
Principal agent: An agent who recruits other agents and then manages the resulting network.
Product: Finished intelligence reports disseminated by intelligence agencies to appropriate consumers.
Proprietaries: Ostensibly private commercial entities capable of doing business, which are established and controlled by intelligence services to conceal governmental affiliation of intelligence personnel and/or governmental sponsorship of certain activities in support of clandestine operations.
Raven: Originally a Russian term for a male seducer used to lure a woman into sexual compromise; see also honey trap.
Raw intelligence: A colloquial term meaning collected intelligence information that has not yet been analyzed and converted into intelligence product.
Resident director: Russian: "Rezident"; the chief of a Soviet or Russian foreign intelligence group, the rezidentura, operating under official cover from an embassy.
Requirement: A general or specific request for intelligence information made by a member of the intelligence community.
Safe house: A seemingly innocent house, apartment or premises maintained by an intelligence organization for conducting clandestine or covert activity in relative security.
Sanitize: To delete from or revise a report or document to prevent identification of the intelligence sources and methods that contributed to or are dealt with in the report.
Secret writing: Messages written with an invisible substance, ranging from lemon juice to sophisticated chemicals that appear under certain conditions.
Sensitive: Requires special protection from disclosure, which could cause embarrassment, compromise or threat to the security of the sponsoring power.
Sheep dipping: Using a military instrument (e.g an airplane) or officer in clandestine operations, usually in a civilian capacity or under civilian cover, although the instrument or officer will covertly retain its or his military ownership or standing. Also, placing individuals in organizations or groups in which they can become active in order to establish credentials so that they can be used to collect information of intelligence interest on similar groups.
Shoe: False passport.
SIGINT: Signals intelligence. The interception, processing, analysis, and dissemination of information derived from foreign electrical communications and other signals; includes communications intelligence (see COMINT) and electronics intelligence (see ELINT).
Sleeper: A previously placed spy ready to be activated at a suitable moment.
Source: A person, device, system or activity from which intelligence information is obtained.
Spook: American slang for a spy.
Sterilize: To remove from material to be used in overt and clandestine actions any marks or devices that can identify it as originating with the sponsoring organization or nation.
Strategic intelligence: Intelligence required for the formation of policy and military plans and operations at the national and international levels.
Stringer: An occasional or free-lance spy; same term as is used for a free-lance journalist.
Surveillance: Systematic monitoring or observation of a target.
Swallow: Russian for a female seducer used to lure a man into a honey trap; generally in plentiful supply among the Russian nationals employed at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.
Swim: To travel (Russian).
Tactical intelligence: Intelligence supporting military plans and operations at the military unit level. Tactical intelligence and strategic intelligence differ only in scope, point of view, and level of employment.Take, the. Intelligence fruits of spying.
Target: A person, agency, facility, area, or country against which intelligence operations are directed.
Targeting: With regard to COMINT, the intentional selection and/or collection of telecommunications for intelligence purposes.
Target of opportunity: An entity (e.g., government entity, installation, political organization, or individual) that becomes available to an intelligence agency or service by chance, and provides the opportunity for the collection of needed information.
Tapping: Telephonic intercepts.
Terminated with Extreme Prejudice: American slang for murdered.
Tradecraft: The techniques of espionage; also, the technical equipment used in such activity, such as electronic eavesdropping equipment and miniaturized radios.
Turned: Persuaded or bribed to change sides.
Walk-in: Anyone who walks in volunteering services or information, usually a foreigner who enters another nations' embassy.
Watchers: Officers keeping persons under surveillance.
Watch list: A list of words, such as names, entities or phrases, that can be employed by a computer to select required information from a mass of data.
Wet job: Russian: "Mokri dela" ["wet affair"], an operation in which blood is shed, a murder.
Witting: Knowing, conscious as in a "witting conspirator."
