FBI vs CIA. What are the differences?Which one is more powerful?

@iszo07 (472)
Malaysia
May 21, 2007 4:42am CST
I’m not from US, so I don’t really understand the different between these two organizations. Which one is more powerful? Are they even powerful than the president himself?
2 responses
@wolves69 (755)
• United States
21 May 07
Both organizations are similar, but have different areas of responsibilities. To keep it simple: the FBI deals with domestic issues and the CIA deals with foreign issues. The FBI has law enforcement authorities, while the CIA is clandestine in collecting and thwarting threats. Many areas overlap, but both are antagonistic towards one another.
21 May 07
Excellent answer, and I'd just like to add a little footnote. In many areas of policing, each US state has control over its own legislation, and different states can have differing laws. Where a crime exceeds the boundaries of one state, it becomes the FBIs jurisdiction. In the UK, we have our police forces, Criminal Intelligence (CI0-13), Military Intelligence (MI0-13), NCIS (not to be mistaken for the American Naval Division) and National Domestic Security Service. All 4 of these organisations battle each other for budget funding, and are often antagonistic towards each other, too. In the US, they have the CIA, FBI, Pentagon, and now their new Counter-Terrorism Department. This will not lead to better results, just more backstabbing. If either of you'd like to read a good story about the lack of harmony within the UKs Intelligence branches (though set during the Cold War), read John Le Carre's 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy'.
@iszo07 (472)
• Malaysia
22 May 07
Thank you for the info. I was just wonder what their responsibilities are.
@wolves69 (755)
• United States
22 May 07
I was never sure what the UK intelligence services did or were responsible for...so thanks for the info. The Joint Counter terrorism force you refer to is supposed (key word) supposed to deconflict information between the other intelligence services and act as a primitive command and control for complex cases; however, this hasn't been working to the degree it was supposed to expect.
@bda_rock (135)
• Bermuda
21 May 07
The simple answer: FBI spies on its own people (in the USA) CIA spies on the rest of the world.