ISA (Days of our Lives)

ISA is an initialism for International Security Alliance, a fictional intelligence agency on the soap opera "Days of our Lives". A highly secretive organization, its agents have been operating in the small Midwestern town of Salem at least since the early 1980s (although several characters' histories indicate involvement well back into the mid-to-late 1970s). It is the counterpart to a similar organization on rival soap "General Hospital", the WSB (World Security Bureau), which appeared on that show around the same time.

The ISA is a sort of combination of a law enforcement organization, such as the FBI, DEA, or Interpol, and a spy agency, such as the CIA or Britain's MI-6. Indeed, several of the agents on the show have been British, especially in the 1980s (e.g., Shane Donovan, Emma Donovan, Gillian Forester, Grace Forester, Simon Fairchild, Chief Tarrington), although the agency's main headquarters have always been purported to be in Washington, DC (but with an apparently important branch office in London), and in more recent years the agency has in fact been identified more specifically as a branch of the U.S. government. The agency's mandate does appear to be law enforcement, with a specialty in the sort of high-level, international organized crime that has tended to center in the otherwise quiet town of Salem.

The subjects of the ISA's investigations have typically been such highly sophisticated criminal conspiracies as those controlled by the DiMera, Kiriakis, and Alamain families, although an early storyline did involve the KGB's role in stealing a set of forged U.S. Treasury bonds; former agent Philip Kiriakis was recruited by the agency while on active duty with the U.S. Marines; and reference has been made to former agent Roman Brady's exposure to biological warfare while apparently on some sort of paramilitary mission in South America. The deep-cover nature of its agents notwithstanding, the organization demonstrates frequent and open cooperation with local police. However, the agency's methodology is straight out of Robert Ludlum or Ian Fleming, including sophisticated gadgets, top-secret operations, political intrigue and corruption, and even such questionable methods as assassination and kidnapping. In addition, the ISA has several of its own fairly advanced scientific and medical facilities throughout the world, dealing with such things as brainwashing and treating agents exposed to biological warfare.

The ISA has from time to time been represented as something of a paramilitary force rather than a civilian agency, and appears to operate with impunity throughout the world and across jurisdictional lines, but does not appear to take sides in any real-world political controversy of the day. It does not appear to be related to the real-life ISA, which is a clandestine intelligence-gathering branch of the U.S. Special Forces. However, along with corruption, the agency has also been occasionally susceptible to infiltration, counterespionage, and corruption by its targets, particularly henchmen and -women employed by the DiMera, Kiriakis, and Alamain organizations.

Several of Salem's more prominent citizens have served at one time or another as agents for the ISA, including the aforementioned agents Brady and Kiriakis, Steve Johnson, Gabrielle Pascal, John Black, Billie Reed, and Shane Donovan. Others such as Bo Brady, Hope Brady, Kimberly Brady, Diana Colville, and Marlena Evans, while not full-fledged agents, have assisted (willingly or unwillingly) in the agency's operations.