Defence Intelligence Liason Staff North America (DI LSNA)
DI-LSNA is the US-based office of the British Defence Intelligence Staff or DIS. It is also part of the British Defence Staff in the United States (BDS-US) which, alongside the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and other Government Departments, serves the interests of Her Majesty’s Government in the US. The role of DI-LSNA is to represent the DIS in the US and to sustain and strengthen the transatlantic Defence Intelligence relationship. It also provides support to Her Majesty’s Ambassador and the Defence Attaché.
The DIS is the UK’s only all-source intelligence organisation and is an essential element of the UK’s national intelligence machinery. Unlike SIS, GCHQ or the Security Service the DIS is not a stand-alone organisation but part of the Ministry of Defence (MOD). It brings together expertise from all three Armed Forces as well as civilian staff and is funded within the Defence budget. The head of the DIS is the Chief of Defence Intelligence.
The Chief of Defence Intelligence is responsible for the overall co-ordination of defence intelligence throughout the MOD and the Armed Forces. The main function of the DIS analytical staff is to provide all-source defence intelligence assessments and strategic warning of threats to the UK and its interests. Defence Intelligence has a range of collection capabilities including signal, human, imagery, environmental, open source, acoustic and other forms of measurement and signature collection. Material gathered by these means is processed, analysed and disseminated to customers in the most suitable and useable formats.
