United States Intelligence Community

The United States Intelligence Community (IC) is a group of separate U.S. federal government intelligence agencies and subordinate organizations that work to conduct intelligence activities which support the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States. Member organizations of the IC include intelligence agencies, military intelligence, and civilian intelligence and analysis offices within federal executive departments. The IC is overseen by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), which is headed by the director of national intelligence (DNI) who reports directly to the president of the United States. The IC was established by Executive Order 12333 ("United States Intelligence Activities"), signed on December 4, 1981, by President Ronald Reagan. The statutory definition of the IC, including its roster of agencies, was codified as the Intelligence Organization Act of 1992 (Pub. L. 102–496, H.R. 5095, 106 Stat. 3188). The Washington Post reported in 2010 that there were 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies in 10,000 locations in the United States that were working on counterterrorism, homeland security, and intelligence, and that the intelligence community as a whole would include 854,000 people holding top-secret clearances.