The intelligence field, also known as the intelligence business, the intelligence establishment, the intelligence complex, the intelligence industry, the field of intelligence, or the business of intelligence is the global industry revolving around intelligence in all of its forms. The intelligence field is composed of people, groups, and organizations who deal—directly or indirectly—with intelligence, and/or support those people that do.
This industry contains; lawyers (not only those practicing intelligence law), professors and academics (not just those in intelligence studies), diplomats, biologists, chemists, astronomers, photographers, videographers, information technology specialists, historians, economists, data scientists, graphic designers, psychologists and profilers, essayists, intelligence analysts, c-suite executives, hackers, coders, and software developers, among others. Individuals employed by intelligence organizations are usually fully employed officers of intelligence agencies called intelligence officers.
Those persons popularly called "spies" make up only a small part of the intelligence field—so small that some scholars have even argued that the work of spying, called espionage, is anachronistic and unnecessary in the modern intelligence field. In other words, just as not everyone in the film industry is an actor, not everyone in the intelligence field is a spy, or even deals with intelligence.
In sum, Hager Ben Jaffel and Sebastian Larsson write: ...doing intelligence today could mean anything from informing high politics and producing risk assessments, to dealing with the mundanities of the everyday labor of law enforcement, to managing vast databases involving intricate computerized surveillance solutions. One derogatory term that has been used to describe the intelligence field, especially in the United States, is the intelligence-industrial complex.
Global industry leaders
Due to the secretive, often covert, nature of the intelligence field, gaining accurate employment figures or profit and revenue figures in either the public sector or private sector anywhere is difficult for data scientists, human resources officers, or economists. From an etymological perspective, when the professions of intelligence were being developed, the intelligence field deliberately chose words that were mundane and obtuse, so their enemies would not know what these jobs really were. Job postings are even today often intentionally or unintentionally mislabeled by employers. Most of the employment figures below are best-estimates.
The one thing that is not measured below is the effectiveness of the industry leaders, because, while those measurements are often performed within the industry, those reports are mostly kept secret or classified.
Public sector Intelligence communities are the collective efforts of a country surrounding intelligence – but confusingly, most of the employment studies today only measure the size of individual intelligence agencies. It is inadequate to measure individual agencies alone, because, for example, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is only 1/18th of the entire United States Intelligence Community (USIC) – meaning that the CIA is only one of 18 intelligence agencies in the United States. Comparing the size of the CIA to the size of the KGB is not adequate, because it does not include all of the other people in those governments employed in the industry.
The following are, therefore, the top leading intelligence communities where figures are found. These rankings incorporate both the number of employees and the owned physical assets of these communities, like access to satellites and deployment times: RankIntelligence CommunityEstimated employeesAnnual budget1United States Intelligence Community (USIC)100,000 –200,000$101.6 billion (+)2Chinese intelligence community?(allocated from defense budget)3Russian Intelligence Community?(allocated from the ₽3.5 – ₽3.91 trillion national defense budget)4Israeli intelligence community?₪20 billion5Indian intelligence community₹4,2343 crore (+/- thousands)6Pakistani Intelligence Community15-20% of ₨1.8 – 2.55 trillion7United Kingdom Intelligence Community (UKIC)15,550 (+)£4.2 billion8Australian Intelligence Community (NIC)7,000 – 10,000$44.6 million – $2.05 billion9France20,000€67 million10Germany10,000 (+)€1 billion11Japan5,000(allocated from defense budget)12South Korea60,000(allocated from defense budget) The ten most powerful government intelligence agencies, when compared to the relative size of their intelligence communities, are the following: RankIntelligence agencyEstimated employeesAnnual budgetCountry1Central Intelligence Agency21,575 – 22,000$15 billion (+)United States2Secret Intelligence Service (MI6)3,500 (+)N/A (shares an account with MI5 and GCHQ)United Kingdom3Mossad7,000 (+)₪10 billionIsrael4Research & Analysis Wing5,000 (+)$100 – 500 millionIndia5Federal Security Service200,000 – 500,000?Russia6Ministry of State Security800,000 (+)?China7Bundesnachrichtendienst6,500 (+)€1.6 billion (+)Germany8Inter-Services Intelligence10,000 (+)₨200 – 300 billionPakistan9Australian Secret Intelligence ServiceAustralia10Directorate General for External Security7,200€1 billion (+)France
Private sector Many of the companies below are involved in more industries than only the intelligence field. The following are the most powerful private sector intelligence agencies in the world: RankCompanyEstimated employeesAnnual revenueCountry1Kroll Inc.6,500$1.31 billionUnited States2K2 Integrity350$74 – 121 millionUnited States3Surefire Intelligence50$5 – 30 millionUnited States4Booz Allen Hamilton34,200$2.9 billionUnited States5Constellis Holdings22,000$1 – 5 billionUnited States6AggregateIQ12–50$6 millionCanada7Hakluyt & Company200£130 millionUnited Kingdom8Black Cube50–200$1 – 5 millionIsrael9Earth League International50 (+)N/A (Nonprofit)United States?Leidos48,000$16 billionUnited States?CACI International25,500$9 millionUnited States?Science Applications International Corporation24,000$7.5 millionUnited States?Palantir Technologies4,000 (+/-)$3 billionUnited States?5 Stones Intelligence200 (+)$15 – 16 million?Pinkerton500N/A (now owned by Securitas)United States?AmazonUNKNOWNUNKNOWNUnited States?Alphabet Inc.UNKNOWNUNKNOWNUnited States
Criminal intelligence Where they do exist, the leading criminal intelligence organizations are the following: RankNameEstimated sizeAnnual budgetParent departmentBeijing State Security Bureau??Ministry of State SecurityUnited States Postal Inspection Service2,500$150 millionUnited States Postal ServiceCounterterrorism and Intelligence Bureau360(+)$230,000New York City Police DepartmentSO151,800?Metropolitan PoliceCounter-Terrorism and Special Operations Bureau300(+)$650,000Los Angeles Police DepartmentBureau of Counter Terrorism1,300$2.5 millionChicago Police DepartmentIntelligence Bureau??Los Angeles County Sheriff's DepartmentRegional Operations and Intelligence Center?$250 millionNew Jersey State PoliceSpecialized Investigations??Miami-Dade Police DepartmentPolice Intelligence Department15,000?Singapore Police Force
Industrial cultivation The global intelligence field, and especially the private sector, is today increasingly diversified in its portfolio, moving away from its core industrial production and management. This industry has often branched-out into secondary and tertiary goods and services, such as union busting, policy recommendation, estimates and planning, sanctioned assassinations, mass surveillance programs, malware production and deployment, and so on. One common adage for the intelligence field is that "intelligence is as intelligence does."
However, the singular product which remains at the core of this industry is intelligence. Intelligence as information is to have some secret knowledge of something. To governments and the public sector, this information is knowledge of and/or belonging to the enemy, which will often gain an advantage in armed conflict. To the private sector, intelligence is usually knowledge of a competitor, and/or "trade secrets" belonging to that competitor – such as blueprints and patents. However, because governments are often liable if they get caught spying on their own citizens, they will often hire-out private intelligence agencies to perform that same intelligence.
Unlike coffee, which is the core product of the coffee industry, or sugar, which is the core product of the sugar industry – intelligence is not a manufactured product, but it is nevertheless collected and cultivated in some manner.
Intelligence work can be conducted by government intelligence agencies, police forces, and military intelligence units. This work can also be engaged by private organizations, including; private intelligence agencies, multinational corporations, private investigators, drug cartels, narcotic cartels, terrorist groups, and others.
Intelligence collection (also known as espionage)
The traditional manner in which intelligence has been cultivated, gathered, or collected throughout history, is by using contractual agents known as "spies." It is the job of a spy to gather this information, and their career field is known as espionage. For governments, spying occurs during both wartime and peacetime, so to say that intelligence is knowledge of the enemy is an incomplete definition, because intelligence collection also occurs against allies. Spies are often single and mission-specific solitary contracting agents who are commonly known as "secret agents."
Espionage, as an occupation, is older than the intelligence field by thousands of years. Espionage is so old that it is often jokingly called "the world's second oldest profession." However, and especially with the advancement of modern technologies – the collection of information has grown far beyond the capabilities of the traditional spy.
Surveillance and mass surveillance
Surveillance is often considered as either a tool or a method, and it is one of the newer and non-traditional forms of intelligence collection, which has grown with the advent of modern technologies, such as the printing press and postal systems. The first mass surveillance systems ever created were those post offices in response to the proliferation of written correspondences after the former barriers to communication were lowered. While governments and companies provided the service of carrying the post and dispatches, they also engaged in postal censorship. In fact, the oldest law enforcement agency in the world was the Post Office Investigation Branch – until the British Royal Mail was privatized in 1996, splintering from Post Office Limited.
After centuries, newer communications technologies were invented using radio frequencies, especially the telegraph and the telephone. One such radio device was called a bug. The Thing was a famous bug deployed by the NKGB shortly after the end of World War II. It was a gift of the Soviet Union to US Ambassador W. Averell Harriman, and hung on the walls of the Embassy of the United States in London from 1945 to 1951.
Today, mass surveillance is carried out over the internet. Computer programs, softwares, and malware – like keyloggers and spyware – are deployed by any interested party in collecting massive pattern of life profiles through the monitoring of digital footprints. Revelations discovered after the Snowden disclosures by the former US government contract employee revealed that the National Security Agency (NSA) had already deployed malware against American citizens without their knowledge or consent.