 The role and functions of the NIA are roughly equivalent to those of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the United Kingdom's Secret Intelligence Service (the SIS or MI6), the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS), the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki) (SVR), the Indian Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the French foreign intelligence service Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE) and Israel's Mossad.Staff of NIA are regarded to be highly skilled, intelligent and very discreet in their operations.According to Public Policy expert- Valentine Tobechukwu Achum, NIA has a manifest (albeit covert) role of preserving Nigeria’s eminence, pride and dignity through repossessing and intercepting secret information that is capable of imperilling Nigeria's National Interest and breaching its National Security.