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Who We Are and What We Do
The Intelligence Cycle
- Planning and Direction
This is how we decide how to do the job assigned to us. We list what we know and what we don't know and how we will get it to the policy maker.
- Collection
We set out to collect the raw information that we need to do the job. We collect the information from many sources: newspapers, magazines, and foreign radio or TV broadcasts, which are overt or "open." Some sources are "covert"--that is, other people's secrets. We persuade these people to tell us their secrets. The other way we collect information is with electronics and satellite photography (taking pictures from space).
- Processing
We take all the information we have collected and put it into an easy form to understand called an intelligence report. It could be anything from a translation of a document in a foreign language to a description of what we see in a satellite photo.
- Analysis and Production
OK, here's where we sit down with all the information we've gathered, sort through it, and write a paper to answer the question or tasking!
- Dissemination
This is it, the final step---we give that paper to the policy maker, the same policy maker who started the whole cycle! After reading it and learning the answer to the question, the policy maker could ask more questions. And then we would start the whole process over again!
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