The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 (Military Intelligence, Section 6) is the agency which supplies Her Majesty's Government with foreign intelligence. It operates under the formal direction of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) alongside the internal Security Service (MI5), the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and the Defence Intelligence (DI).
It is frequently referred to by the name MI6 (Military Intelligence, Section 6), a name used as a flag of convenience during the Second World War when it was known by many names. The existence of MI6 was not officially acknowledged until 1994.
In late 2010, the head of SIS delivered what he said was the first public address by a serving chief of the agency in its 101-year history. The remarks of Sir John Sawers primarily focused on the relationship between the need for secrecy and the goal of maintaining security within Britain. His remarks acknowledged the tensions caused by secrecy in an era of leaks and pressure for ever-greater disclosure.
Its headquarters, since 1995, are at Vauxhall Cross on the South Bank of the Thames.
Read more about Secret Intelligence Service: Chiefs of The SIS
Famous quotes containing the words secret, intelligence and/or service:
“Just walking around,
An object of curiosity to some,
But you are too preoccupied
By the secret smudge in the back of your soul
To say much, and wander around,
Smiling to yourself and others.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“If woman alone had suffered under these mistaken traditions [of women’s subordination], if she could have borne the evil by herself, it would have been less pitiful, but her brother man, in the laws he created and ignorantly worshipped, has suffered with her. He has lost her highest help; he has crippled the intelligence he needed; he has belittled the very source of his own being and dwarfed the image of his Maker.”
—Clara Barton (1821–1912)
“For those parents from lower-class and minority communities ... [who] have had minimal experience in negotiating dominant, external institutions or have had negative and hostile contact with social service agencies, their initial approaches to the school are often overwhelming and difficult. Not only does the school feel like an alien environment with incomprehensible norms and structures, but the families often do not feel entitled to make demands or force disagreements.”
—Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)