New types of threats confronts the authorities responsible for the safety with new tasks. The unpredictability of social processes, multiversity, differentiation of structures. The catalogue of challenges is wide. Various models of political and economic states where the secret services are affiliated affects their architecture (intelligence, counterintelligence, civil and military division). The factors determining their structure are mainly: political regime, administrative tradition, historical factors, political and legal culture. It is recognized that the agencies meet at least one of the following functions (usually by combining them): process (as the law enforcement agencies of major crimes for example: American FBI, Polish ABW, or Russian FSB), protective and control (counterintelligence in particular for the protection of confidential information resources), information (the process of gathering information, analyzing it and delivering the finished product to the decison-makers). Intelligence data comes from different sources: (a) personal, referred to as HUMINT (human intelligence), (b) radio-electronic – SIGINT (signals intelligence), including radio – COMINT (communications intelligence), and radio-electronic – ELINT (electronic intelligence), which in turn are divided into NUCINT (nuclear intelligence), RADINT (radar intelligence), and ACOUSTINT (sound under water), (c) the analysis spy aerial photographs, referred to as IMINT. Today’s threats are neither easy to define nor to locate. The general trend is to extend the methods and tools of information retrieval. Visible is the phenomenon of increasing the competence of security services and at the same time reducing the sphere of citizens’ privacy. It is necessary that a rational combination of independence and the effective operation skills must meet the conditions of observance of the constitutional norms.