Editing Secret service

{{Short description|Type of government agency}}
{{About|the form of government policing|other uses|Secret Service (disambiguation)}}
A '''secret service''' is a [[government agency]], [[intelligence agency]], or the activities of a government agency, concerned with the gathering of intelligence data. The tasks and powers of a secret service can vary greatly from one country to another. For instance, a country may establish a secret service which has some policing powers (such as [[surveillance]]) but not others. The powers and duties of a government organization may be partly secret and partly not. The person may be said to operate openly at home and secretly abroad, or vice versa. [[Secret police]] and the FBI can usually be considered secret services.<ref>{{cite web|title=F. Dvornik, Origins of Intelligence Services - 1|url=http://macedonia.kroraina.com/en/fdois/fdois_1.htm|access-date=2023-01-30|website=macedonia.kroraina.com}}</ref>

Various states and regimes, at different times and places, established bodies that could be described as a secret service or secret police – for example, the ''[[agentes in rebus]]'' of the late [[Roman Empire]] were sometimes defined as such. In modern times, the French police officer [[Joseph Fouché]] is sometimes regarded as a pioneer of secret intelligence; among other things, he is alleged to have prevented several murder attempts on [[Napoleon]] during his time as First Consul (1799–1804) through a large and tight net of various [[informant]]s. William Wickham is also credited with establishing one of the earliest intelligence services that would be recognized as such today and a pioneer of basic concepts of the profession, such as the "intelligence cycle."<ref>Michael Durey, "William Wickham, the Christ Church Connection and the Rise and Fall of the Security Service in Britain, 1793-1801" ''The English Historical Review'' (June 2006), pp. 714-745  https://www.jstor.org/stable/3806357</ref><ref>Elizabeth Sparrow, ''Secret Service: British Agents in France. 1792-1815'' (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1999) </ref>

==See also==
* [[Espionage]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{Commons category-inline}}
{{gov-stub}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:National security]]
[[Category:Government agencies by type]]
[[Category:Espionage]]