Special Activities Center


The Special Activities Center is the center of the United States Central Intelligence Agency responsible for covert operations. The unit was named Special Activities Division prior to a 2015 reorganization. Within SAC there are at least two separate groups: SAC/SOG for tactical paramilitary operations and SAC/PAG for covert political action.
The Special Operations Group is responsible for operations that include clandestine or covert operations with which the US government does not want to be overtly associated. As such, unit members, called Paramilitary Operations Officers and Specialized Skills Officers, do not typically wear uniforms.
If they are compromised during a mission, the US government may deny all knowledge. The group generally recruits personnel from special mission units within the U.S. special operations community.
SOG Paramilitary Operations Officers account for a majority of Distinguished Intelligence Cross and Intelligence Star recipients during conflicts or incidents that elicited CIA involvement. These are the highest two awards for valor within the CIA in recognition of distinguished valor and excellence in the line of duty. SOG operatives also account for the majority of the stars displayed on the Memorial Wall at CIA headquarters, indicating that the officer died while on active duty. The Latin motto of SAC is Tertia Optio, which means "Third Option," as covert action represents an additional option within the realm of national security when diplomacy and military action are not feasible.
The Ground Branch of the Special Operations Group has been known to operate alongside the United Kingdom's E Squadron, the UK's equivalent paramilitary unit.
The Political Action Group is responsible for covert activities related to political influence, psychological operations, economic warfare, and cyberwarfare.
Tactical units within SAC can also carry out covert political action while deployed in hostile and austere environments. A large covert operation typically has components that involve many or all of these categories as well as paramilitary operations.
Covert political and influence operations are used to support US foreign policy. As overt support for one element of an insurgency can be counterproductive due to the unfavorable impression of the United States in some countries, in such cases covert assistance allows the US to assist without damaging the reputation of its beneficiaries.

Overview

SAC provides the United States National Security Council with alternative options when overt military and/or diplomatic actions are not viable or politically feasible. SAC can be directly tasked by the U.S. president or the National Security Council at the president's direction, unlike other U.S. special mission forces. SAC/SOG has far fewer members than most of the other special missions units, such as the U.S. Army's 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta or Naval Special Warfare Development Group.
As the action arm of the CIA's Directorate of Operations, SAC/SOG conducts direct action missions such as raids, ambushes, sabotage, targeted killings and unconventional warfare as an irregular military force. SAC/SOG also conducts special reconnaissance that can be either military or intelligence driven and is carried out by Paramilitary Officers when in "non-permissive environments". Paramilitary Operations Officers are also fully trained case officers and as such conduct clandestine human intelligence operations throughout the world.
The political action group within SAC conducts the deniable psychological operations, also known as black propaganda, as well as "covert influence" to induce political change in other countries as part of United States foreign policy. Covert intervention in foreign elections is the most significant form of SAC's political action. This involves financial support for favored candidates, media guidance, technical support for public relations, get-out-the-vote or political organizing efforts, legal expertise, advertising campaigns, assistance with poll-watching, and other means of direct action. Policy decisions are influenced by agents, such as subverted officials of the country, to make decisions in their official capacity that are in the furtherance of U.S. policy aims. In addition, mechanisms for forming and developing opinions involve the covert use of propaganda.
Propaganda includes leaflets, newspapers, magazines, books, radio, and television, all of which are geared to convey the U.S. message appropriate to the region. These techniques have expanded to cover the internet as well. They may employ officers to work as journalists, recruit agents of influence, operate media platforms, plant certain stories or information in places it is hoped will come to public attention, or seek to deny and/or discredit information that is public knowledge. In all such propaganda efforts, "black" operations denote those in which the audience is to be kept ignorant of the source; "white" efforts are those in which the originator openly acknowledges themselves, and "gray" operations are those in which the source is partly but not fully acknowledged.
Some examples of political action programs were the prevention of the Italian Communist Party from winning elections between 1948 and the late 1960s; overthrowing the governments of Iran in 1953 and Guatemala in 1954; arming rebels in Indonesia in 1957; and providing funds and support to the trade union federation Solidarity following the imposition of martial law in Poland after 1981.
SAC's existence became better known as a result of the "war on terror". Beginning in autumn of 2001, SAC/SOG paramilitary teams arrived in Afghanistan to hunt down al-Qaeda leaders, facilitate the entry of U.S. Army Special Forces, and lead the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan against the ruling Taliban. SAC/SOG units also defeated Ansar al-Islam in Iraqi Kurdistan prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and trained, equipped, organized and led the Kurdish peshmerga forces to defeat the Iraqi Army in northern Iraq. Numerous books have been published on the exploits of CIA paramilitary officers, including Conboy and Morrison's Feet to the Fire: CIA Covert Operations in Indonesia, 1957–1958, and Warner's Shooting at the Moon: The Story of America's Clandestine War in Laos. Most experts consider SAC/SOG the premier force for unconventional warfare, whether that warfare consists of either creating or combating an insurgency in a foreign country.
There remains some conflict between the CIA's Directorate of Operations and the more clandestine parts of the United States Special Operations Command, such as the Joint Special Operations Command. This is usually confined to the civilian/political heads of the respective Department/Agency. The combination of SAC and USSOCOM units has resulted in some of the more prominent actions of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the locating and killing of Osama bin Laden. SAC/SOG has several missions, one being the recruiting, training, and leading of indigenous forces in combat operations. SAC/SOG and its successors have been used when it was considered desirable to have plausible deniability about US support. Unlike other special missions units, SAC/SOG operatives combine special operations and clandestine intelligence capabilities in one individual. These individuals can operate in any environment with limited to no support.

Covert action

The CIA is authorized to collect intelligence, conduct counterintelligence, and conduct covert action by the National Security Act of 1947. President Ronald Reagan issued Executive Order 12333 titled "United States Intelligence Activities" in 1984. This order defined covert action as "special activities," both political and military, that the U.S. government would deny, and granted the exclusive authority to conduct such operations to the CIA. The CIA was also designated as the sole authority under the 1991 Intelligence Authorization Act and mirrored in Title 50 of the United States Code Section 413. The CIA must have a presidential finding in order to conduct these activities under the Hughes-Ryan amendment to the 1991 Intelligence Authorization Act. These findings are monitored by the oversight committees in both the U.S. Senate, called the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the U.S. House of Representatives, called the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
The Pentagon commissioned a study to determine whether the CIA or the U.S. Department of Defense should conduct covert action paramilitary operations. Their study determined that the CIA should maintain this capability and be the "sole government agency conducting covert action." The DoD found that it does not have the legal authority to conduct covert action or the operational agility to carry out these types of missions.
In an article for ABC News, former Deputy Secretary of Defense and retired CIA paramilitary officer Mick Mulroy explained that the term "covert action" is derived from Presidential Findings authorizing the CIA to conduct specific special activities to support U.S. national security objectives. He advocated for covert actions to be fully incorporated in the U.S. National Security Strategy and the 2018 National Defense Strategy in the form of a Covert Action Annex and for covert actions to be fully funded to operate in support of overall objectives in the form of a Covert Action Fund.

Selection and training

Special Activities Center has several hundred officers, mostly former members from Tier 1 units like SEAL Team Six and Delta Force, as well as other U.S. Special Operations Forces personnel. The CIA has also recruited individuals from within the agency. The CIA's formal designations for these individuals are paramilitary operations officers and specialized skills officers. Paramilitary operations officers often attend the Clandestine Service Trainee program, which trains them as clandestine intelligence operatives at an internal paramilitary training course.
The primary strengths of SAC paramilitary officers are operational agility, adaptability, and deniability. They often operate in small teams, typically made up of two to ten operatives, all usually with extensive military tactical experience and a set of specialized skills that does not exist in any other unit. As fully trained intelligence case officers, paramilitary operations officers possess all the clandestine skills to collect human intelligence – and most importantly – to recruit assets from among the indigenous troops receiving their training. These officers often operate in remote locations behind enemy lines to carry out direct action, counter-intelligence, guerrilla/unconventional warfare, counter-terrorism, and hostage rescue missions, in addition to being able to conduct espionage via HUMINT assets.
There are four principal elements within SAC's Special Operations Group, formerly called branches, now organized as departments: the Air Department, the Maritime Department, the Ground Department, and the Armor and Special Programs Department. The Armor and Special Programs Department is charged with the development, testing, and covert procurement of new personnel and vehicular armor, and maintenance of stockpiles of ordnance and weapons systems used by the SOG, almost all of which must be obtained from clandestine sources abroad, in order to provide SOG operatives and their foreign trainees with plausible deniability in accordance with U.S. congressional directives.
Together, the SAC/SOG comprises a complete combined arms covert paramilitary force. Paramilitary operations officers are the core of each branch and routinely move between the branches to gain expertise in all aspects of SOG. As such, paramilitary operations officers are trained to operate in a multitude of environments. Because these officers are taken from the most highly trained units in the U.S. military and then provided with extensive additional training to become CIA clandestine intelligence officers, many U.S. security experts assess them as the most elite of the U.S. special missions units.
Paramilitary operations officers require a bachelor's degree to be considered for employment. SAC officers are trained at Camp Peary, Virginia, "The Point", a facility outside of Hertford, North Carolina, and at privately owned training centers around the United States. In addition to the eighteen months of training in the Clandestine Service Trainee program required to become a clandestine intelligence officer, paramilitary operations officers are trained to a high level of proficiency in: