is there only MI5 and MI6? why no other numbers?
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MI5 and MI6 are not in fact the official names of those organisations; they’re pop-culture holdovers from a time when there were many Military Intelligence departments. During WW1 and 2 collectively there were some 19 MI divisions. While the official names of MI5 and 6 are different, there’s enough marketing in the familiar names that the govt includes them on organisational logos.
MI5 is officially the Security Service (there’s a reason people think of it as MI5 and not the SS…) and is responsible for domestic security and counter-terrorism, which means it (official) operates solely within the UK.
MI6 is officially the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS could, I think, be too easily confused with the S*A*S) and is responsible for foreign intelligence, which is to say spying on other countries.
The easy comparison to make is that MI5 is akin to the FBI, while MI6 is more of a CIA. That said, I don’t actually know if MI5 has the same law-enforcement mandate that the FBI has. I don’t *believe* that it does.
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