General Intelligence Directorate (Eniarku)
 Logo of the GID | |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 24 October 2011 (original) 20 December 2016 (present form) |
| Jurisdiction | Eniarku |
| Headquarters | Palmaire, Palma |
| Employees | Classified |
| Annual budget | ₣5,000,000 |
| Minister responsible |
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The General Intelligence Directorate, more commonly known by its acronym, GID, is the principal intelligence and security agency of the Kingdom of Eniarku. It has jurisdiction over both internal security, counter-intelligence and surveillance, as well as intelligence activities outside the kingdom. It is officially an agency of His Majesty's Government, though it falls under the jurisdiction of the Council of State and, often, the Crown directly.
The intelligence agency has had a long and storied existence, and has gone relatively unchanged since its establishment in 2011. It succeeded the only other documented agency of its kind in Eniarkian history – the DPRE's Committee for State Security – which functioned similar to the former Soviet KGB. Formed during early 2010 to ensure internal order was upheld, the Committee soon began expanding its activities to include foreign intelligence as well, continuing to do so until communist Eniarku was absorbed by the North American Confederation in mid-2010, at which point its duties were integrated into the greater federal government.
During the time of the empire, each executive secretariat maintained its own semi-independent intelligence agency, eliminating the need for a national-level one. When the monarchy ceased to exist in later 2011 and the confederation was established shortly thereafter, the directorate was not officially established by any official act of the National Council or decree of the federal president, allowing the agency near-limitless autonomy in its operations and wide purview in its jurisdiction. The GID has gone relatively unchanged structurally since its informal establishment in 2011, and maintains its position as the sole intelligence-gathering agency in the Eniarkian government. It maintains a close relationship with the His Majesty's Armed Forces to allow for mutually-beneficial sharing of intelligence, information and (occasionally) manpower, though operational activities are not explicitly within the agency's job description. Notwithstanding, tactical units (similar to Russian Spetsnaz troops) are known to exist and see action when it becomes necessary for the directorate to carry out immediate field operations, and these groups are often deployed for foreign intelligence-gathering rather than military units in order to avoid war.
Today, the GID still has a number of functions in common with other countries' intelligence agencies. Its headquarters – formerly entrenched in the defunct Vicis Special Administrative District during the time of the confederation – now sits in an office within the Woodford Palace complex in Palma.
Sometimes, the GID is referred to as Other Government Agency (OGA), usually when operations in an area are an open secret. Other commonly used terms include The Agency, The Company, and Palma.
Organization
The GID is mainly composed of the general staff and a wide range of permanent and temporary agents that are at their disposal. There is only one subdivision of the agency (the Special Service), but there are several agency-wide functions such as all-source intelligence gathering, research and analysis of information, as well as clandestine and covert operations management.
General staff
The Director-General of Intelligence (DGI) reports directly to the Council of State and the sovereign; in practice, however, he or she deals with the Parliament and His Majesty's Government in general, merely monitoring the internal activities of the agency. The general staff also facilitates the GID's support of His Majesty's Armed Forces by providing the military with pertinent intelligence it gathers and cooperating on field activities. The senior members of the GID and the military often collaborate to assess threats and generate strategy.
The senior members of the general staff usually are at the head of most clandestine and covert operations or projects, and often report to the Director-General of Intelligence on their findings, who later disperses the information to other members of the government.
Special Service
The Special Service (SS) is the section of the directorate officially tasked with covert and special operations at home and abroad. The service is generally considered the most elite and secretive operations force in the country, and is known to participate in highly-sensitive operations involving protection of Eniarkian interests. It is composed of "intelligence agents" – the official title for any directorate employee handling intelligence matters, though many of these individuals are colloquially termed "paramilitary operations officers" or "specialized skills officers" when performing activities with which the Eniarkian government does not wish to be overtly associated.
Criticisms
Numerous times throughout Eniarku's history, especially at the times in which its government relied almost exclusively on information gathered by the GID, the agency has been heavily criticized by many government members and even citizens for being "too involved" in operations conducted by the government and military, while others have likened it to a secret police. The agency itself does not usually respond to these accusations, however, the Director-General of Intelligence will occasionally brief Parliament in regards to these matters in an attempt to boost public opinion of the directorate. However, given the covert nature of the organization, many speculate it plays a much larger role in the bureaucracy than the government claims.