Special Branch is a label customarily used to identify units responsible for matters of national security and intelligence in British, Commonwealth, Irish, and other police forces. A Special Branch unit acquires and develops intelligence, usually of a political or sensitive nature, and conducts investigations to protect the State from perceived threats of subversion, particularly terrorism and other extremist political activity.
Crest of the Royal Bahamas Police Force
Counterintelligence (counter-intelligence) or counterespionage (counter-espionage) is any 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 other intelligence activities conducted by, for, or on behalf of foreign powers, organizations or persons.
Political cartoon depicting the Afghan Emir Sher Ali with his "friends" the Russian Bear and British Lion (1878). The Great Game saw the rise of systematic espionage and surveillance throughout the region by both powers
The Okhrana, founded in 1880, had the task of countering enemy espionage against Imperial Russia. St. Petersburg Okhrana group photo, 1905
Civilian photo technicians (in back of jeep) working for Counter Intelligence Corps are accounted for at a checkpoint in Potsdam, Germany, July 14, 1945
