The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

     Since I have been talking about various agencies, such as the FBI and ATF, I knew it was a matter of time before  I would cover the CIA. The CIA is the Central Intelligence Agency, which is one of the main intelligent-gathering agencies for the U.S. government, and is headquartered in Langley, Virginia. It succeeded the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and was formed officially by the National Security Act of 1947, under President Harry S. Truman. The person in charge is known as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (D/CIA), who is nominated by the President with consent of the Senate. As you can see, being in charge of the CIA seems parallel to picking a Supreme Court justice. The main functions of the CIA are gathering information about foreign governments/corporations; analyze that information in order to provide national security assessments to the President and US policymakers; and to conduct covert activities by its own employees. Here is a picture of the CIA logo, and of the CIA headquarters in  Langley, Virginia.

     One similarity that the CIA and the FBI share is that new employees and existing employees must take a polygraph test. According to a fiscal 2013 budget, the CIA has five main priorities: counter terrorism, counterintelligence, cyber intelligence, nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, and warning American leaders of overseas events. If you were to work for the CIA, you would see that there are a lot of jobs that require a wide variety of specialties, which include: operation officers working overseas recruiting foreign agents, intelligence analyst writing about nuclear forces/terrorism, and a security officer. Some of the professions that are still in demand are engineers, economists, accountants, and computer specialists. Sadly, there are no public tours of the CIA's headquarters because of security considerations and logistical problems, but there is a virtual tour available at www.cia.gov that can provide you with additional information and insight about the organization.

The NSA is watching you . . .

One day I watched the movie, Good Will Hunting, where a kid played by Matt Damon goes through therapy for his damaged past. Despite being in trouble with the law several times, he is very smart, primarily in math; which catches the eye of the NSA, who offers to recruit him. After watching it, I looked up the NSA on my computer. The NSA is the National Security Agency, which is the one of the largest U.S. intelligence agencies (estimated 30,000-40,000 employees), and is the main manager of signals intelligence for the United States. The agency was started on November 4, 1952, and is headquartered in Fort Meade, Maryland. In fact, the NSA is actually the leading employer for the state of Maryland. Here is a picture of the NSA headquarters in Maryland.

 

The NSA is known quite well for their surveillance abilities. Under the Bush administration, the NSA was under the "terrorist surveillance program", which authorized them by executive order to be able to monitor (without search warrants) phone calls, Internet activity, and any other communication involving any party believed to be outside the U.S. According to the newspaper, The Baltimore Sun, the NSA has the single largest group of supercomputers. As a result, it makes sense that the NSA wanted Will Hunting because of his amazing math skills, which are important for computer science. The interesting thing about applying for the NSA is you must go through a polygraph test. It serves as a security protocol, and they even do it for existing employees every 5 years. Since the NSA takes care of the country's most sensitive and important intelligence activities, the application process can include a medical screening, drug test, and a extensive background check. Hopefully this insight that I have provided will spark interest in you to start a career in criminal justice world.

 

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF)

This past week for my AP English class we started the book, Columbine, by Dave Cullen. In this book, the author explains with great detail the shooting and its effects on the community. The book mentioned how the ATF had to come to the school to check that everything was all clear. I researched ATF and learned that the acronym stands for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. This bureau is a federal law enforcement organization consisting of 4,770 employees. Its main responsibilities are pretty self-explanatory from the name: investigating violations of federal alcohol/tobacco tax regulations, and violations of federal firearms/explosives laws. To be more specific, the ATF works with the investigation of bombings/acts of arson, track illegal trafficking of alcohol/tobacco products, and many other activities in conjunction with task forces made up of state/federal law enforcement officers. Here are pictures of an ATF Special Response Team (Special Weapons and Tactics team for the ATF) and of an ATF building.

                                                              








In regard to applying, the ATF is competitive; about 5% of applicants actually get hired. In order to become an ATF agent, you need to complete a 27 week training program, which is one of the longest training programs in the United States (much longer that the training process for FBI, CIA, etc.) Despite their smaller size, there are many field offices throughout the nation: Atlanta, GA; San Francisco, CA; Seattle, WA; St. Paul, MN; Philadelphia, PA. However, there are field offices outside the country, such as in Canada, Mexico, El Salvador, and Colombia. Once becoming an official member of the ATF, you are given a Glock 22 or a Glock 27 as a sidearm. If you are part of the Special Response Team (the picture above), then you are armed with a Heckler & Koch MP5 sub-machine gun. The nice thing about being an ATF Special Agent is that they are given lead investigative authority in any federal crime committed with a firearm or explosive. Hopefully, this blog post has given you some interest in the ATF or has made you start to consider pursuing a criminal justice career in the future.