Security agencies

A security agency is a governmental organization that operates as a secret service conducting intelligence and high policing activities for the internal security of a state. They are the domestic cousins of foreign intelligence agencies, and typically conduct counterintelligence to thwart other countries' foreign intelligence efforts. In the United States, both the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) are secret services, though the FBI combines functions of a national police, an internal security agency, and a counterintelligence agency whereas the CIA is the secret service operating as an external intelligence agency dealing primarily with foreign intelligence collection overseas. A similar relationship exists in Britain between MI5 and MI6. Some nations, such as the Netherlands, Spain and Turkey, have one agency that is responsible for both security and intelligence.