Sanctarian Intelligence Service
 Logo of the Sanctarian Intelligence Service | |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | May 1, 1976 |
| Jurisdiction | Government of Sanctaria |
| Headquarters | The Juggernaut, Mitre Park, Sanctus |
| Employees | 5,080 |
| Annual budget | S£5.81 billion (2020) |
| Minister responsible | |
| Agency executive | |
| Map | |
 The Juggernaut, headquarters of the SIS | |
The Sanctarian Intelligence Service, commonly known as the SIS, is the foreign intelligence service of Sanctaria, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligence in support of Sanctaria's national security. The SIS is one of three Sanctarian intelligence agencies, and the Director of the Sanctarian Intelligence Service is directly accountable to the Secretary for Homeland Security.
Established in 1976 under the purview of the Department of Foreign Affairs, the existence of the SIS was not officially acknowledged until 1988. Since 2015, the SIS has been under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security, and is subject to public oversight by select committees in the House of Deputies and the Senate.
The stated priority roles of the SIS are counter-terrorism, counter-proliferation, providing intelligence in support of cyber security, and supporting stability overseas to disrupt terrorism and other criminal activities. The SIS works exclusively in foreign intelligence gathering; it is only permitted to carry out operations only against persons and organisations outside of the Divine Federation.
Since 2019, the SIS headquarters have been in the purpose-built Juggernaut building in Mitre Park on the east side of Sanctus, the nation's capital.
History
Founded in May 1976 as a part of the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Sanctarian Intelligence Service originally had no legislative underpinning, and was intended to be a small office that analysed telegrams, cables, and others forms of intelligence gathered by diplomatic and embassy staff in Sanctarian embassies worldwide. Analysts at this time passed on pertinent information they had discovered to relevant agencies or government departments; if an intercepted cable indicated that there was a security threat within a third country, for example, the information was passed to the Sanctarian diplomats stationed in that country to relay that analysis.
By the early 1980s, however, it was determined by the department that there was an over-reliance on diplomats to pass on sensitive information and that this could be seen as compromising their ability to represent the nation fully and without any conflicts of interest. The Department of Foreign Affairs greatly increased the staffing of the service, including by recruiting members of the Sanctarian Defence Forces and the Sanctarian Police Force, and tasked them more specifically with covert operations such as counter-espionage, counter-terrorism, and disrupting criminal activities. Funding for this enlargement was allocated in the annual budget, and subsequent budgets, to a "special operations office" within the Department of Foreign Affairs; it was not until a freedom of information request in 1988 that the Government of Sanctaria acknowledged the existence of the Sanctarian Intelligence Service, and that information about its leadership was publicly revealed too.
Since confirmation of its existence in 1988, the SIS has been given legislative underpinning as an agency under the Department of Foreign Affairs, and later under the Department of Homeland Security, and its leadership and budgets regularly undergo scrutiny by parliamentary committees, though occasionally these committees meet in camera - non-televised meetings with no minutes published. The day-to-day activities of the service are regularly classified under various official secrets acts and, with the exception of the agency's leadership team, media and government do not identify employees of the service.