The CIA is the United States’ foreign intelligence service: the government department that tries to find out, often in secret, what other countries are doing. The letters stand for Central Intelligence Agency. People say the three letters; they almost never say the full name in speech. It is not the American police, and it is not the army. The FBI works mainly inside the United States, on federal crime; the CIA’s classic job is overseas information, spies, and analysis. You will meet CIA constantly in news and films. The letters can stand for other things too (there is a famous cookery school in America with the same initials); this word is the US intelligence service. In Taiwan, news writes CIA or 美國中央情報局.