Internal Security Agency Research Articles

Termination of Employment Relationship in Uniformed Services in Connection with their Reorganisation or Dissolution–Constitutional Issues

Abstract This article addresses the legal issues arising from the transformation of internal security bodies within the structure of public administration, specifically focusing on how such events impact the service relationship of officers employed in those structures (the so-called ‘uniformed services’). The analysis covers regulations governing the service relationships of officers in the State Protection Office, Government Protection Bureau, and Customs Services in connection with the dissolution of these institutions and the establishment of the Internal Security Agency, the Intelligence Agency, the State Protection Service, and the Customs and Fiscal Service. Theoretical and legal models are identified, and substantive legal provisions are presented to assess their compliance with the relevant provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland.

Tracking and Tracing in Israel during COVID-19

Abstract In March 2020, the Israeli government decided that its internal security agency may collect, process, and use technological information measures to tackle the spread of COVID-19. This was done by tracking the cellphones of those who may have contracted the virus, along with obtaining details on those who were in proximity for more than fifteen minutes and fourteen days prior to the positive outcome of those traced. The article discusses the controversial track and trace measure and proposes an alternative model of using tracing technology, considering the obligation to preserve human life and the right to individual privacy among other rights and liberties. It is argued that measures infringing on the right to privacy must be effectively restricted in time and meet standards of necessity, proportionality, and scientific validity, as required by constitutional standards. The government needs to balance the right to health against the right to privacy.

Tasks and powers of criminal law enforcement authorities in combating terrorism in Poland - a legal perspective

This paper presents the tasks and powers of the law enforcement authorities in Poland in the area of combating terrorism from a legal perspective. Despite the vast amount of literature on this subject, this topic is still interesting, in particular due to the lack of comprehensive yet concise works presenting the tasks of the abovementioned authorities from the perspective of four phases of antiterrorist activities. These phases consist of both actions of preventive nature, coordinated by the Head of the Internal Security Agency (ABW), and actions carried out to take control of terrorist incidents, ensure response and restore the resources necessary to take control of such incidents, coordinated by the Minister of the Interior and Administration. The problems referred to above are presented from the perspective of the Polish system of combating terrorism. This paper analyses both its institutional scope, by indicating the authorities forming part of the system, and its material scope, by characterising procedures of anti-terrorist actions according to which the competent authorities carry out their tasks. This paper attempts to analyse these issues comprehensively and briefly. Furthermore, the considerations are supported by an empirical study of experiences accumulated since the Act of 10 June 2016 on anti-terrorist activities came into force.

PROTECTION OF CYBERSPACE IN POLAND AND THE CZECH REPUBLIC – THE ROLE OF SECRET SERVICES

Secret services are the key elements in the field of cyber security in Poland. Two of the national CSIRTs (Computer Security Incident Response Teams), i.e. CSIRT GOV and CSIRT MON are run by the following services: the Internal Security Agency and Military Counterintelligence Service. In the Czech Republic, CSIRTs/CERTs at the national level are operated by civilian entities and coordination in the event of a threat is the responsibility of the civilian National Cyber and Information Security Agency (NUKIB). The Polish Act on the National Cyber Security System does not provide for parliamentary control of the activities of national CSIRTs. In the Czech Republic, a special standing committee was established to control the activities of NUKIB. Fundamental differences in the structure of the cyberspace protection system in Poland and the Czech Republic may result from the adoption of different priorities in terms of values by political actors.

Terrorism Prevention Centre of Excellence – a new department within the counter-terrorism strand of the Internal Security Agency

Terrorism Prevention Centre of Excellence – a new department within the counter-terrorism strand of the Internal Security Agency

The Integration Problem of Japan’s Internal Security Agencies in the End of the Occupation:

The Integration Problem of Japan’s Internal Security Agencies in the End of the Occupation:

Organizational and legal bases of police activity in Russia and the USA (comparative legal analysis)

It is extremely necessary for each state to ensure internal security, to create a model of police that would meet all modern requirements. This problem is one of the key state tasks for the Russian Federation today. In this regard, the study of similar institutions in foreign countries becomes particularly relevant. Comparison of the Russian police with foreign internal security agencies and attempts to create a municipal police in Russia began in the middle of the 19th century, then subsiding, then growing with renewed vigor. A comparative analysis of the study of the organizational and legal foundations of the police of the two countries will reveal acute problems and aim at choosing the further path of development of the system of domestic internal affairs bodies.

COVID-19 surveillance in Israeli press: Spatiality, mobility, and control.

In March 2020, Israel passed emergency regulations authorizing its internal security agency to track citizens’ mobile phone geolocations in order to tackle the spread of COVID-19. This unprecedented surveillance enterprise attracted extensive media attention and sparked a vigorous public debate regarding technology and democratic values such as privacy, mobility, and control. This article examines press coverage of Israel’s surveillance of its citizens during the COVID-19 pandemic by four leading news sites to identify and map the frames that informed their reports. Based on a thematic analysis, our findings point to supportive and critical constructions of mobile phone location-tracking and organize them within two scapes: personal; and international. These attest to the collective imagining of intimacies and public life, respectively. We draw on the case study to articulate mobile phones as devices that reduce movement into manageable mapped information and individuals into controllable data. Mobile phone location-tracking during the COVID-19 pandemic is understood as turning mobility into order and control.

State security and individual security as exemplified by operational surveillance used by the Polish counter-intelligence service

The material scope of the research problem presented in the text encompasses the issues concerned with operational surveillance that the Polish civilian counter-intelligence service, i.e. the Internal Security Agency (in Polish abbreviated as ABW – Agencja Bezpieczeństwa Wewnętrznego), is authorised to. The main purpose of the analysis is to assess the changes introduced as a result of the passing of the so-called Surveillance Act in 2016. The Act was supposed to introduce new regulations with regard to the powers concerning operational surveillance and obtaining of ICT data, granted to particular secret and police services. The said changes were enforced by the judgment of the Constitutional Tribunal, which in 2014 found numerous violations of the provisions of the Constitutions of the Republic of Poland caused by the existing regulations authorising the services to engage in particular operational and investigative actions.
 In order to elaborate the material scope of the research problem, and to present the conclusions, the following research questions have been presented in the text: Do the legal regulations concerning the powers vested in the Polish civilian counter-intelligence service within operational surveillance infringe individual rights and freedoms (e.g. the right to privacy, protection of personal information, privacy of correspondence), and if so, then to what extent?
 Functional and pro-constitutional interpretations have been applied to assess the provisions regulating the powers of the Internal Security Agency with regard to operational surveillance and obtaining of ICT data. The functional interpretation focuses on the function of selected legal solutions, whereas the pro-constitutional interpretation focuses on the assessment of legal solutions in the context of the principles of a democratic state ruled by law, as well as human rights and freedoms. As regards the pro-constitutional interpretation, the tool used for assessment is the test of proportionality, i.e. the rule used for interpreting legal norms according to the degree and legitimacy of the interference in individual rights and freedoms.

Media coverage of COVID-19 state surveillance in Israel: the securitization and militarization of a civil-medical crisis

Israel, traditionally known as a nation-in-arms, has been undergoing processes of securitization and militarization from its inception to the present day. While several countries have employed surveillance technologies to tackle the spread of coronavirus, Israel was the only country in the world to authorize its internal security agency to track citizens’ cellphones to deal with this civil-medical crisis. Employing a reflexive thematic analysis to news media outlets, this study examined coverage of Israel Security Agency (ISA) surveillance by four leading Israeli news sites, inquiring into the socio-cultural imageries, and motifs that informed their reports. While two of the sites were mostly supportive and the other two were critical, the coverage as a whole was informed by national security imageries reminiscent of Israel’s nation-in-arms tradition. Our discussion contextualizes these findings within a three-decade tension that has prevailed in Israeli society and culture between securitization/militarization and democratization/demilitarization.

„Pilkoji zona“ Lietuvos gyventojų repatriacijos ir filtravimo sistemoje 1944–1952 m.

ANNOTATION. This article analyses the Soviet system of repatriation of Lithuanian citizens from the Third Reich, and the verification of their political credibility (filtration) in the Lithuanian SSR in 1944–1952. It aims to establish how people managed to come back and elude repatriation institutions and compulsory filtration procedures, how many people returned in this way, how they managed to adapt to the system, and how this group of people was treated by the regime’s internal affairs and security agencies. KEYWORDS: repatriation, filtration, war refugees, Soviet repatriation policy, verificationfiltration committees.

Institutions authorized to prevent and combat phenomenon of corruption in Poland

Corruption is a threat to people, society, the state and the economy. It is a phenomenon that particularly harms the basic principles of the functioning of the country. This article focuses on entities authorized to prevent corruption. Individual bodies, services and institutions obliged to fight corruption and equipped with a number of competences that facilitate the performance of their tasks are discussed. The Central Anticorruption Bureau, the Internal Security Agency, the Police, the Public Prosecutor’s Office and other entities forming the system of prevention and combating corruption crime in Poland are presented. To discuss the subject it is necessary to refer to legal acts and the literature. The aim of this description, however, is not a comprehensive presentation of the subject matter indicated in the title, as it seems impossible to provide an exhaustive study of each entity authorized to prevent corruption in only one article. Due to the limited scope of the article only a synthetic presentation of the subject matter has been presented.

Quantitative Aspects of Evacuation of Internal Affairs Bodies Officers to the Mordovian ASSR in 1941

Introduction. In the face of the loss of vast territories at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, human resources, including the NKVD and the NKGB staff became the most important value, which were supposed to fight against violations of law and ensure state security in new places. The purpose of the article is to study the quantitative and qualitative composition of officers of the internal affairs and security bodies which were evacuated to the Mordovian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic from the Union republics of the USSR in July – October 1941. Materials and Methods. The source base of the study was made up of materials extracted from the fund of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Mordovian ASSR of the Central State Archive of the Republic of Mordovia. The methodology of the work is based on the principles of historicism, objectivity and consistency, historical-genetic and idiographic methods, as well as quantitative analysis. Results. In the course of the study data was analyzed on where the evacuated personnel of law enforcement officers came to the MASSR, as well as the dynamics of the arrival of the evacuees by months, the timing of their stay on the territory of Mordovia. Discussion and Conclusion. The Mordovian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in July – October 1941 of the Great Patriotic War deployed on its territory 1 868 officers of internal affairs and state security agencies and their family members. The largest number of officers of the internal affairs and state security bodies came from the Ukrainian SSR; in second place was the Byelorussian SSR, in third one – the Lithuanian USSR. Much smaller number of employees were evacuated to Mordovia from the Latvian, Estonian, Moldavian and Karelo-Finnish Union republics. Many officers of the internal affairs and state security bodies were evacuated to the MASSR worked together at their former places of service. It could have a positive effect on the effective work of the newly reconstructed structures in the long run. Most of the officers of the bodies stayed on the territory of the MASSR for two months, after which they were sent to new places of service.

Polish Security Service Artifacts. Ministry of the Interior (1956-1989) Operational Equipment and its Presentation

ABSTRACT The article briefly presents the most important achievements of Polish Security Service in terms of the operating equipment. The equipment was used by technical-operational departments: Office “B,” Office “T”/the Technical Department, Office “W” to perform tasks delegated to them towards the Polish society and visiting foreigners. Increased activity of technical departments took place during political breakthroughs, since then the communist powers needed specific results from the Secret Service. A small part of that equipment was saved and is now owned by the police, Internal Security Agency and The Museum of Cursed Soldiers and Political Prisoners of the Polish People’s Republic in Warsaw. Thanks to Security Service documentation stored in National Remembrance Archive we can assess its usability and the ways the equipment was used.

Legal basis for the functioning of special services in Poland

The article presents the most important legal acts regulating the activities of special services in Poland in the years 1990-2018. As part of the political transformation, the Office of State Protection (Polish abbrev. UOP) was set up according to the Act of April 6, 1990. It replaced the previous civil intelligence and counterintelligence. In 2002, the Office was liquidated and replaced the Intelligence Agency (Polish abbrev. AW), and the Internal Security Agency (Polish abbrev. ABW) were established under the Act of May 24, 2002. The AW was created to protect the external security of the state, while the ABW was intended to protect the internal security of the state and its constitutional order. The mentioned Act divided the tasks between those services. Even though preventing and detecting crimes of corruption of public officers was one of the ABW’s tasks, the Act of June 9, 2006, established the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (Polish abbrev. CBA), giving it the status of a special service, although the CBA performs typical police tasks. On the other hand, the Act of June 9, 2006, on the Military Counterintelligence Service (Polish abbrev. SKW) and the Military Intelligence Service (Polish abbrev. SWW) constituted a legal basis for the operation of both services in place of the liquidated Military Information Services (Polish abbrev. WSI). The article focuses on the services currently operating. The legal regulations constituting the basis for their functioning were analyzed. These are mainly competence acts, to which many amendments were introduced. They resulted, among others, from the implementation of directives and regulations of European institutions, decisions of the Constitutional Tribunal, the introduction of new laws, concerning, e.g., the establishment of the State Protection Service (Polish abbrev. SOP) or changes in the Marshal’s Guard’s powers. Attention was drawn to numerous ordinances amending the statutes, particularly as regards the ABW, and thus reorganizing the structures of offices.

The Guiding Principles of Police: Use of Force

There can be no issue of greater consequence than the use of force for police and law enforcement professionals. In a transitional post-conflict country like Nepal, internal security agencies play a vital role in managing the complexity of political, social and economic transformation. Ever since the end of the feudal oligarchic militaristic Rana regime, internal security and law enforcement took precedence in providing safety and security for the Nepalese people. Since Nepal entered a democratic transition in 1950, it almost failed to consolidate and strengthen its internal security and law enforcement apparatus by appropriately restructuring and consolidating the Nepal Police and National Intelligence functions. Even after the democratic political transformation of 1950, it took five years to establish the national Nepal Police in 1955. Law enforcement agencies are now challenged to solve problems well beyond traditional scope. Therefore, internal security must come up with highly developed methods of policing and law enforcement. Technologically, this may not be possible yet, but it can provide management and training of its personnel based on world standards of policing and emphasizing knowledge and skill enhancement and professional behavior. This paper has tried to focus and analyze the use of force by internal security apparatus of the Government of Nepal in the past and brain-storm its future roles and challenges. The paper is divided into two parts. The first part will touch upon contextual commentary on the use of force in brief. The second part will highlight three time-tested models and procedure of the use of force.

System and Human Safety: Critical Infrastructure and Anti-Terrorist Attachment

Abstract The critical infrastructure (CI) has an important place in Polish security system. The article discusses legal acts and characterises the notion of critical infrastructure as an element essential for the functioning of the society. As a result of the entry into force of the Anti-terrorism Act from 10 June 2016 (Journal of Laws [Dz. U.], item 904), the current procedure of security plan Accepted was extended to include participation of the Internal Security Agency through the requirement to submit a so-called anti-terrorist attachment. The article is an analysis of the constituent parts of the document and procedures it covers. Moreover, the authors present conclusions and recommendations resulting from the analysis of AT attachments of CI facilities and other facilities subject to mandatory protection. The empirical system of reference is based on facilities located in Silesia. The authors described their experiences related to the process of preparation and Accepted of AT attachments as well as conclusions based on employee trainings conducted in workplaces where anti-terrorism procedures are in force.

Wiretapping in Polish Anti-terrorist Law

Passing the anti-terrorist law in Poland introduced a number of new legal solutions, including in the scope of carrying out operational tasks by services involved in anti-terrorist activities. One of the powers is the ability to independently manage wiretapping by the Head of the Internal Security Agency in relation to foreigners. This legal regulation is the subject of polemics in the context of discussions referring to the extent of state interference in civil rights to the protection of privacy. The study analyzed the regulation of Article 9 Anti-terrorism Law in relation to the established jurisprudence of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal and the ECHR in the scope of interference of special services through the use of operational techniques in civil liberties and supervision over the application of these methods by independent authority. In addition, the question of possible violation of the prohibition of discrimination by the indicated legal norm was raised.

Democratization and Intelligence and Internal Security Agencies: A Comparative Analysis of the Cases of Brazil and Portugal (1974-2014)

The development of intelligence and internal security institutions in Portugal and Brazil were directly influenced by the ways in which both countries transitioned to democracy and by the nature of their political regimes prior to the mid-1970s. This article compares these processes, highlighting how Brazilian and Portuguese intelligence and public security institutions and bodies developed over the course of the 20th century, and in particular following democratization of their political regimes. Our analysis examines the main factors explaining the arrangements adopted, and the obstacles and dilemmas encountered in the institutionalization of these services and of the new democratic regimes. The results suggest that the type of transition to democracy is the main factor explaining differences between the two cases. However, more comparative research is needed to deepen empirical and theoretical understandings and to allow for greater generalization about the relationship between changes in political regimes and reforms of coercive and intelligence institutions.

Preparation of changes to the law of Ukraine „On security service of Ukraine” with the consideration of foreign experience of legal regulation of the activities of internal security services

The authors examine the peculiarities of the legal regulation of the tasks of the Internal Security Agency of the Republic of Poland. A comparative analysis was conducted with domestic legislation, which defines the tasks of the Security Service of Ukraine, the advantages of the editorial staff of the Polish law "On the Agency of Internal Security and the Intelligence Agency" as well as the tasks of countering threats to the internal security of the state, among other things, are highlighted; neutralize the threats to the international authority of the state; the pre-trial investigation of crimes not only on the criterion of their belonging to the subject matter of the investigators of the Internal Security Agency of the Republic of Poland, but also on the criterion of their becoming a threat to the security of the state. It is concluded that such an approach of the Polish legislator allows more fully to define the competence of the state internal security authority than the approach used by the domestic legislator.According to the results of the analysis of legislative acts of Ukraine, which defines the tasks of the Security Service of Ukraine, attention was drawn to a certain inconsistency of the provisions of the Law of Ukraine "On the Security Service of Ukraine" in this part of the provisions of other normative legal acts of Ukraine. It also became clear that the tasks of the Security Service of Ukraine, formulated in the Law of Ukraine "On National Security of Ukraine" formulated in its competence, do not fully cover its main purpose in ensuring the state security of Ukraine. It is proposed to clarify the competence of the national intelligence service in the Law of Ukraine "On the Security Service of Ukraine" with the help of such components of its competence as functions and powers.In addition, taking into account the experience of legal regulation of the activities of the Internal Security Agency of the Republic of Poland, amendments were also proposed to the provisions of the Law of Ukraine "On the Security Service of Ukraine" defining the competence of the national intelligence service, in particular regarding the separation: counteraction of the Security Service of Ukraine to threats to the state security of Ukraine, in including - and countering threats to the international authority of the state; participation of the Security Service of Ukraine in the formation and implementation of state policy in the sphere of ensuring national security and direct provision of formation and implementation of state policy in the field of state security.