Five Eyes in the context of "National Center for Medical Intelligence"

The Anglosphere, also known as the Anglo-American world, is a Western-led sphere of influence among Anglophone countries. The core group of this sphere of influence comprises five developed countries that maintain close social, cultural, political, economic, and military ties with each other: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Although extended definitions do include non-Western and developing countries that were once part of the British Empire and retained English influence and common law upon independence, the Anglosphere is a distinct grouping that is not simply synonymous with countries in which the English language has official status.

Anglosphere countries are generally aligned with each other on global issues and collaborate extensively in matters of security, as exemplified by alliances like Five Eyes. The core countries of the Anglosphere are either NATO members or designated by the United States as major non-NATO allies.

The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 (Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligence on foreign nationals in support of its Five Eyes partners. SIS is one of the British intelligence agencies and the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (known as "C") is directly accountable to the Foreign Secretary.

Formed in 1909 as the foreign section of the Secret Service Bureau, the section grew greatly during the First World War, officially adopting its current name around 1920. The name "MI6" originated as a convenient label during the Second World War, when SIS was known by many names. It is still commonly used today. The existence of SIS was not officially acknowledged until 1994. That year the Intelligence Services Act 1994 (ISA) was introduced to Parliament, to place the organisation on a statutory footing for the first time. It provides the legal basis for its operations. Today, SIS is subject to public oversight by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal and the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament.

ECHELON, originally a secret government code name, is a surveillance program (signals intelligence/SIGINT collection and analysis network) operated by the five signatory states to the UKUSA Security Agreement: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the United States, also known as the Five Eyes.

Created in the late 1960s to monitor the military and diplomatic communications of the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc allies during the Cold War, the ECHELON project became formally established in 1971. By the end of the 20th century, it had greatly expanded.

The United Kingdom – United States of America Agreement (UKUSA, /juːkuːˈsɑː/ yoo-koo-SAH) is a multilateral agreement for cooperation in signals intelligence between Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The alliance of intelligence operations is also known as the Five Eyes. In classification markings this is abbreviated as FVEY, with the individual countries being abbreviated as AUS, CAN, NZL, GBR, and USA, respectively.

Emerging from an informal agreement related to the 1941 Atlantic Charter, the secret treaty was renewed with the passage of the 1943 BRUSA Agreement, before being officially enacted on 5 March 1946 by the United Kingdom and the United States. In the following years, it was extended to encompass Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Other countries, known as "third parties", such as West Germany, the Philippines, and several Nordic countries, also joined the UKUSA community in associate capacities, although they are not part of the mechanism for automatic sharing of intelligence that exists between the Five Eyes.

During the 2010s, international media reports revealed new operational details about the Anglophone cryptographic agencies' global surveillance of both foreign and domestic nationals. The reports mostly relate to top secret documents leaked by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The documents consist of intelligence files relating to the U.S. and other Five Eyes countries. In June 2013, the first of Snowden's documents were published, with further selected documents released to various news outlets through the year.

These media reports disclosed several secret treaties signed by members of the UKUSA community in their efforts to implement global surveillance. For example, Der Spiegel revealed how the German Federal Intelligence Service (German: Bundesnachrichtendienst; BND) transfers "massive amounts of intercepted data to the NSA", while Swedish Television revealed the National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA) provided the NSA with data from its cable collection, under a secret agreement signed in 1954 for bilateral cooperation on surveillance. Other security and intelligence agencies involved in the practice of global surveillance include those in Australia (ASD), Britain (GCHQ), Canada (CSE), Denmark (PET), France (DGSE), Germany (BND), Italy (AISE), the Netherlands (AIVD), Norway (NIS), Spain (CNI), Switzerland (NDB), Singapore (SID) as well as Israel (ISNU), which receives raw, unfiltered data of U.S. citizens from the NSA.

AUSCANNZUKUS is an abbreviation for the naval Command, Control, Communications and Computers (C4) interoperability organization involving the Anglosphere nations of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It is also used as a security caveat in the UKUSA Community, where it is also known as "Five Eyes."

The Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), formerly the Defence Signals Directorate, is a statutory agency of the Government of Australia responsible for signals intelligence, providing intelligence support to Australian military operations, conducting cyberwarfare and ensuring information security. The ASD is a part of the larger Australian Intelligence Community, and its role within the so-called Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance is to monitor signals intelligence in South and East Asia. The Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) is an agency within the ASD.

The unit was established in 1947 by executive order as the Defence Signals Bureau within the Department of Defence, and underwent several name changes until its current name ASD was adopted in 2013. ASD was converted to a statutory body by the Intelligence Services Act 2001. ASD is based in Canberra, at the Defence Department Headquarters at Russell Offices. As of February 2020, Rachel Noble is the Director-General of ASD, replacing Mike Burgess, who was appointed Director-General of Security in September 2019.