Spotlight on four CIA centers

In addition to the CIA’s four directorates, there are several centers within the Agency that serve a specific function to support the mission, the Agency explained in a recent article posted on its own Web site.

Each center includes representatives from across the Intelligence Community (IC). CIA’s centers include the Counterterrorism Center (CTC), the Crime and Narcotics Center (CNC), the Open Source Center (OSC) and the Counterintelligence Center (CIC).

Counterterrorism Center (CTC)

CIA’s efforts to prevent and disrupt terrorist threats is coordinated and run from the CTC, which has both operational and analytic functions. The fusion between operations and analysis is what makes CTC especially effective, says the Agency. All-source analysis is critical to supporting and driving operations against terrorists in the post-9/11 era. The CTC, working with other U.S. government agencies and foreign liaison partners, targets terrorist leaders and cells, disrupts their plots, severs their financial and logistical links, and makes it difficult for terrorists to find a safe haven.

Crime and Narcotics Center (CNC)

The CNC is dedicated to confronting three major threats to U.S. national security:

• international drug trafficking;
• transnational criminal networks;
• war crimes.

CNC officers prepare analytic assessments on the impact, trends and implications of these threats. They also work globally to develop actionable intelligence to identify, disrupt and dismantle major criminal networks, and bring to justice violators of human rights, explains the article. To achieve these goals, CNC works closely with U.S. law enforcement, policy, homeland security and military organizations, as well as with foreign law enforcement agencies and intelligence services.

Counterintelligence Center (CIC)

The CIC protects CIA operations from being compromised by foreign adversaries. To do this, CIC analyzes the capabilities, intentions and activities of foreign intelligence services. CIC officers advise the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and other Agency components on counterintelligence (CI) and counterespionage objectives, strategies and resources. They also foster CI awareness and expertise among Agency officers and provide advice on operational security.

DNI Open Source Center (OSC)

The OSC is the U.S. Government’s center for open source intelligence. The OSC collects, translates, produces and disseminates open source information for national security stakeholders. This includes policymakers, the military, state and local law enforcement, operations officers, and analysts throughout the U.S. Government. The OSC produces more than 2,300 products daily, covering issues that range from foreign political topics to counterterrorism and other homeland security topics.