ABSTRACT
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is the main foreign intelligence agency of the United States. The CIA was created in 1947 to be a defender of the civil liberties and rights of the American people. However, the CIA is a powerful two-edged sword. Its practice of secrecy can as easily protect or do harm to civil liberties. Many of the CIA's first personnel were former members of the World War II Office of Strategic Services who had conducted many special operations. The CIA has on several occasions violated its charter by gathering intelligence on Americans in the United States. In the early decades of the CIA, congressional oversight consisted more of turning a blind eye to overlook what the agency did than in exercising supervision. Despite the revelations of spy tools, poisons, and attempts to use the Mafia to assassinate Castro, the CIA was not found to be a "rogue elephant".
