The National Intelligence Agency (NIA) ( th, สํานักข่าวกรองเเห่งชาติ) is a

counterintelligence Counterintelligence is an activity aimed at protecting an agency's intelligence program from an opposition's intelligence service. It includes gathering information and conducting activities to prevent espionage, sabotage, assassinations or ...

and

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 ...

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...

. It serves as part of the Office of the Prime Minister. Its headquarters is in

Paruskavan Palace Paruskavan Palace (Thai วังปารุสกวัน) is a historic mansion in Bangkok. The house was built for King Chulalongkorn's son, Prince Chakrabongse Bhuvanath and his Ukrainian wife ( Kateryna Desnytska or Catherine Desnitski), ...

Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estimated populati ...

History

The government established the Department of Administrative Intelligence under the

Cabinet of Thailand The cabinet of Thailand or, formally, the Council of Ministers of Thailand ( th, คณะรัฐมนตรี; is a body composed of thirty-five of the most senior members of the government of the Kingdom of Thailand. The cabinet is the prim ...

on 1 January 1954. Phao Sriyanond was appointed as its first director. On 2 December 1959 it was renamed the Department of Central Intelligence and renamed again as the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) during the government of Prime Minister

Prem Tinsulanonda Prem Tinsulanonda ( th, เปรม ติณสูลานนท์, , ; 26 August 1920 – 26 May 2019) was a Thai military officer, politician, and statesman who served as the Prime Minister of Thailand from 3 March 1980 to 4 August 1988, ...

. In 1985, the "National Intelligence Act, B.E. 2528 (1985)" made the NIA the lead Thai intelligence agency. The reality as of 2016 was that seven Thai intelligence agencies—the NIA, Army Intelligence, Navy Intelligence, Air Force Intelligence, Supreme Command Headquarters' Intelligence,

Special Branch Bureau The Special Branch Bureau or SBB () is a Law enforcement agency under the Royal Thai Police, Royal Thai Police Headquarters. Special Branch Bureau has major security functions to the king, queen and all the royal family along with the action on t ...

, and National Security Command Headquarters—mostly function independently of one another. In 2017, a plan was hatched to consolidate the efforts of 27 separate Thai intelligence agencies. News reports appearing in early 2020 indicate that Thailand was a customer of

Crypto AG Crypto AG was a Swiss company specialising in communications and information security founded by Boris Hagelin in 1952. The company was secretly purchased for US $5.75 million and jointly owned by the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) a ...

, a Swiss company secretly owned by the US CIA and West German

Federal Intelligence Service The Federal Intelligence Service (German: ; , BND) is the foreign intelligence agency of Germany, directly subordinate to the Chancellor's Office. The BND headquarters is located in central Berlin and is the world's largest intelligence head ...

(BND) that manufactured compromised encryption machines. Use of the devices may have allowed its coded messages to be deciphered.

Budget

The FY2019 budget of the NIA is 717.8 million

baht The baht (; th, บาท, ; sign: ฿; code: THB) is the official currency of Thailand. It is divided into 100 ''satang'' (, ). The issuance of currency is the responsibility of the Bank of Thailand. SWIFT ranked the Thai baht as the 10th-m ...

References

{{National intelligence agencies Thai intelligence agencies Government departments of Thailand Office of the Prime Minister (Thailand)