| Federal Bureau of Investigation | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Common name | Federal Bureau of Investigation | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abbreviation | FBI | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Seal of the Federal Bureau of Investigation | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The National Security Branch (NSB) is the sub-service within the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation that is responsible for counterterrorism, counterintelligence and intelligence. Headed by an Executive Assistant Director of the FBI, the NSB is responsible to the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI Director and the U.S. Attorney General. The NSB was formed by the unification of the FBI's FBI Counterterrorism Division, the Directorate of Intelligence and the Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate.
It is speculated that this will lead to the formation of "career paths" for FBI Special Agents; meaning that once a new agent has completed Special Agent Training at FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, and has completed the mandatory probationary period, that he or she will choose to go into the National Security Branch, or go into the "Criminal" part of the Bureau and focus on crimes such as organized crime, narcotics, civil rights violations, fraud, and violent crime. Some advocates of this new program say that this re-organization will help the fight against terrorism by making it less bureaucratic.