The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA /ˌsiː.aɪˈeɪ/), known informally as the Agency[6] and historically as the Company,[7] is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, and analyzing national security information from around the world, primarily through the use of human intelligence (HUMINT) and performing covert actions. As a principal member of the United States Intelligence Community (IC), the CIA report