Covert Action
A covert action is defined as "an activity or activities of the United States Government to influence political, economic, or military conditions abroad, where it is intended that the role of the United States Government will not be apparent or acknowledged publicly". A covert operation differs from a clandestine operation in that emphasis is placed on concealment of the identity of the sponsor rather than on concealment of the operation.
Covert operations include paramilitary and psychological activities. See Psychological Operations (United States) for a more general discussion of U.S. psychological operations, including those operations for which the CIA is responsible and those that belong to other agencies.
Executive Order 12333 bans assassinations by persons employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government.
Read more about this topic: National Clandestine Service
Famous quotes containing the words covert and/or action:
“This declared indifference, but as I must think, covert real zeal for the spread of slavery, I can not but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world ... and especially because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“Insurrection:... insurrection as soon as circumstances allow: insurrection, strenuous, ubiquitous: the insurrection of the masses: the holy war of the oppressed: the republic to make republicans: the people in action to initiate progress. Let the insurrection announce with its awful voice the decrees of God: let it clear and level the ground on which its own immortal structure shall be raised. Let it, like the Nile, flood all the country that it is destined to make fertile.”
—Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872)