ABSTRACT
The United States government contains a substantial number of officials and organizations that require intelligence to fulfill their responsibilities, whether those responsibilities involve making policy or implementing it. Intelligence activities fall into four categories: collection, analysis, counterintelligence, and covert action. Human intelligence, concerning military, political, or economic matters, may be obtained from recruiting a foreign national to secretly provide information. The concept of the "intelligence cycle" puts the collection and analysis activities conducted by various intelligence units into perspective—that is, it relates those activities to the requirements of the government officials who use the intelligence produced. The varieties of intelligence include political, military, scientific and technical, financial, economic, sociological, and medical/biometric. Political intelligence encompasses both foreign and domestic politics. Scientific and technical intelligence includes both civilian- and military-related scientific and technical developments. Sociological intelligence involves group relations within a nation. Medical intelligence can involve both the conditions of single individuals and threats to large groups.
