"Intelligence is a means to an end. This end is the security, and even prosperity, of the entity that provides for the collection and subsequent analysis of intelligence. In the contemporary international system, states are the principal customers of intelligence and the key organizers of collection and analysis agencies. However, a range of sub-state actors, commercial, non-commercial and criminal, also perceive the need to collect and analyse intelligence and guard against the theft of their own secrets.

The intelligence process is usually explained by reference to the intelligence cycle, typically held to comprise five stages:
• Planning and direction.
• Collection
• Processing
• All-source analysis and production
• Dissemination.
Intelligence is therefore the process of gathering and analysing information with a view to providing forewarning and shaping policy so as to protect or enhance relative advantage. Conducted in secret, it has the potential for good by increasing public security, but it can also do great harm by trampling on human rights.

There are a number of basic questions that need to be answered regarding this process:
• Why is intelligence conducted?
• Who does it?
• How do they do it?
• What are its limits?
• How can it be controlled so that it does more good than harm?"