SECRET SERVICE AS PART OF NATIONAL SECURITY

Abstract

Recent years mark a period of profound redefinition of threats and dangers to national security, also in Poland. The end of the Cold War, stabilization in Polish-German relations, normalization of the situation in the other neighbouring countries and an averted threat of the so- called ‘Russian military generals rebellion’ scenario – so popular with some Hollywood screenwriters in the past – finally, Poland’s accession to NATO, significantly cut the risk of an open, direct outside aggression. The term ‘intelligence services’ refers to governmental agencies involved both in the collection of confidential information and in counter-intelligence activities. Intelligence agencies are devoted to gathering and protecting information crucial to national security, both domestic and external.In democratic countries their operations occasionally raise issues of ministerial control and accountability to parliamentary procedures. Intelligence agencies carrying out national security operations abroad sometimes break local law. The intelligence agencies of totalitarian regimes and non-democratic states sometimes employ various practices and techniques prohibited by their own law, such as bribery, blackmail, treacherous assassination, illegal weapons and drugs trade.