The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is an intelligence agency of the United States Government. Its primary function is obtaining and analyzing information about foreign governments, corporations, and persons, and reporting such information to the branches of the Government. Its secondary function is propaganda or public relations, overt and covert information dissemination, both true and false, and influencing others to decide in favor of the United States Government. The third function of the CIA is as the hidden hand of the U.S. Government, by engaging in covert operations at the direction of the President. This last function has caused most controversy for the CIA, raising questions about the legality, morality, effectiveness, and intelligence of such operations.

Its headquarters are in the community of Langley in the McLean CDP of Fairfax County, Virginia, a few miles up the Potomac River from downtown Washington, D.C. The CIA is part of the American Intelligence Community, led by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The role and functions of the CIA are roughly equivalent to those of the United Kingdom’s MI6 and Israel’s Mossad.