FBI & CIA
Intelligence-gathering is an integral part of a country’s security exercise, and the FBI and CIA are the U.Ss security agencies. “The FBI, as a law-enforcement agency, apprehends wrongdoers, while the CIA, the other security agency, monitors and keeps suspicious people under surveillance, rather than arrest them,” says Stephen (2012). It would be hard to distinguish their predominant working styles, but in a nutshell, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), is the law agency that works within the country to gather intelligence information and fight federal crimes, while the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is the intelligence agency that collects information from outside the country. Most domestic security issues within the country are carried out by the FBI, and include such activities that deal with “kidnapping, tax evasion and securities frauds” (diffen.com).
The CIA spies on activities that are detrimental to the security of the United States outside her borders. They spy on governments and people in foreign countries to prevent national security threats, and their responsibilities include “counter-terrorism and intelligence, cyber-warfare, public corruption, the duties of protecting civil rights, dealing with racketeering, frauds, and drugs,” to name a few (diffen.com). There has always been animosity between the two agencies on under whose jurisdiction a particular case came within the country. The FBI is known to investigate cases of murder, arson, gang wars and so on, but when it comes to assassinations, especially of those in politics, the CIA also begin their investigation to find a foreign connection. It is during such investigations that the FBI and CIA find themselves fighting for authority. The CIA largely plays an active role outside the United States and is known to provide intelligence information to U.S forces fighting terrorists in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. It was the CIA that found Osama Bin Laden hiding in Pakistan, which led to the special U.S commandos to storm and kill him. The CIA is also known to support coups in countries that are unfriendly to the U.S.
References
Stephen, A, (2002), The new Department of Homeland Security will become a monstrous bureaucracy; it's the biggest change in US government since 1947, Yet it will not include the FBI and the CIA, Academic Search Alumni Edition, New Statesman, 13647431, 12/2/2002, Vol. 131, Issue 4616
CIA vs. FBI, (2014), Accessed July 3, 2014, from <http://www.diffen.com/difference/CIA_vs_FBI>
