The Agenzia Informazioni e Sicurezza Interna (

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

for "Internal Information and Security Agency"), commonly known as AISI, is the

security agency A security agency is a governmental organization that conducts intelligence activities for the internal security of a nation. They are the domestic cousins of foreign intelligence agencies, and typically conduct counterintelligence to thwart other ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

. The AISI is the successor of the Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Democratica (SISDE) which was disbanded, and replaced by

Dipartimento delle Informazioni per la Sicurezza The ''Dipartimento delle Informazioni per la Sicurezza'' (DIS, 'Department of Information for Security') is a department of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers of Italy, instituted in 2007 as part of the reform of the Italian security ser ...

, after the Act of August 3, 2007 No 124 which restructured the Italian intelligence community. Article 6 of this act clearly prohibits the agency from conducting operations outside Italy. Counterparts in other countries include the United Kingdom’s

MI5 The Security Service, also known as MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Go ...

, United States'

NSA The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collectio ...

and the Russian FSB. The first director of the agency was

Franco Gabrielli Franco Gabrielli (born 13 February 1960) is an Italian police officer, prefect and civil servant. He has been director of SISDE (the civil intelligence service) and prefect of L'Aquila. In November 2010, he was named chief of the Italian Protezi ...

, who had led SISDE until it was disbanded. He was replaced by Carabinieri general Giorgio Piccirillo in 2009. The motto of the agency is ''"scientia rerum reipublicae salus" (knowledge of issues is the salvation of the Republic)''.

See also