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Latest news on intelligence agencies worldwide, covering the CIA, MI5, MI6, GCHQ, NSA (National Security Agency), FBI, Mossad, Shin Bet, FSB, CSIS, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office, plus espionage, spies and spying, counterintelligence, cybersecurity, the secret service and trade secrets.

An intelligence service gathers and analyses information to protect a state from threats, from terrorism and hostile powers to cyber attacks. The Five Eyes partners, the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, share signals intelligence on a large scale. In the UK the Joint Intelligence Committee assesses intelligence for ministers, while in the United States the National Intelligence Council produces national assessments.

Modern security agency work spans counter-terrorism, state espionage, foreign interference, sabotage and online threats. Cybersecurity and digital espionage now sit alongside traditional spying, with agencies tracking state-backed hackers and hostile networks. Counterintelligence, or counter-intelligence, teams also work to stop the theft of trade secrets, while Special Branch and counter-terrorism police support them at home.

The field raises hard questions about privacy, oversight and secrecy. Disclosures by the NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013 sparked a global debate about mass surveillance. Earlier, the MI5 whistleblower David Shayler and the Echelon interception network, and the Menwith Hill base in North Yorkshire, fed concerns about accountability. Agencies say such powers are needed to prevent attacks, and courts and parliaments now scrutinise them.

Spy stories also capture the public imagination, from wartime codebreaking at Bletchley Park to Cold War defectors and modern espionage trials. Many agencies now publish declassified records, recruit openly online and speak more publicly about their work. The human side, including agents, analysts and whistleblowers, remains a rich source of news.

The history is long. MI5 and MI6 trace their roots to 1909, GCHQ to the code-breakers of 1919, the CIA to 1947 and the NSA to 1952. Mossad and Shin Bet date from Israel's early years, CSIS was created in Canada in 1984, and the FSB succeeded the Soviet KGB after its collapse.

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