Domestic and Foreign Intelligence Services Research Paper

Domestic and Foreign Intelligence Services - Research Paper Example The domestic intelligence agency in United Kingdom is known as Security Service and commonly referred as MI-5.  (Ehrman, 2009). The role and responsibilities of MI-5 include response to security threats such as terrorism, counterintelligence, weapons of mass destruction and organized crimes within the confines of the United Kingdom territory (Vitkauskas, 1999). It is the agency that is charged with the protection and safeguarding of British economic interests and parliamentary democracy in the United Kingdom.   As a domestic intelligence agency, MI-5 is responsible for the protection of public utilities such as air, gas rail and key industries such as defense contactors, civil nuclear power, oil and other crucial industries in United Kingdom (Posner, 2005).   MI-5 boasts of a long term and established tradition of executing domestic intelligence operations in United Kingdom and the wider scope of responsibilities that have included electronic surveillance, recruitment and infil tration of terrorist groups (Burch, 2007). In relation to information sharing, MI-5 is the central domestic intelligence agency in United Kingdom that is charged with the collection and analysis of information and further relay them to United Kingdoms Joint Intelligence committee. The role Joint Intelligence Committee is to prioritize intelligence information from MI-5 and regularly update and provide intelligence assessments to ministers and other senior officials (Ehrman, 2009).  ... Comprehensive comparison and analysis of intelligence services mandates, functions and operations is thus hampered by the restriction that exist on information access and even though the internet and other sources of data from scholars can be exploited, they are often classified (Burch, 2007; O’connell, 2004). Current prospect suggest that comparison of intelligence services can be done in a transparent environment, it should be acknowledged that it is the secrecy that enable intelligent services to operate. Domestic and foreign intelligence services between countries can be compared based on various benchmarks and parameters. Example of benchmarks or frameworks that intelligence services might be compared include national security context, national security structure, organizational size and budget, organizational cohesion, management and oversight and information collection emphasis. In addition, intelligence service comparison can also be based on the analytic emphasis of t he respective agencies, intelligence-decision making relationships, operational emphasis, cooperation of intelligence agencies with other diplomatic and security organization and policies, practices and procedures for counter-intelligence (O’connell, 2004). Domestic Intelligence Both domestic intelligence services of United States and United Kingdom have common jurisdiction in relation to national security. The main function of the intelligence services include the provision of unique, special and secretive information that can aid and support security of both nations. In United States, domestic security intelligence is collected by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a law enforcement agency that also acts as a subordinate to