[This is the first 30K of a total text of over 200K. For a full copy of this report, please send an email request to intelligence-adi@wanadoo.fr] AN INVENTORY OF EUROPEAN INTELLIGENCE SERVICES by Peter Klerks (Domestic Security Research Foundation) April 1993 The Domestic Security Research Foundation (Stichting voor Onderzoek naar Binnenlandse Veiligheid) was established as a registered charity in 1990 to stimulate public interest in intelligence studies and matters of domestic security. The Foundation is privately-sponsored. It brings out reports and contributes to publications, seminars and public debates. The foundation can be contacted at: Domestic Security Research Foundation, Peter Klerks, chair, P.O. Box 11178, 1001 GD Amsterdam, The Netherlands; email . Copyright Peter Klerks 1993 About the author. Peter Klerks (1958) holds an M.A. in political science and a B.A. in sociology from the University of Amsterdam. He has published a book on antiterrorist policies in Holland and several articles and chapters on intelligence, policing, international police cooperation, political violence and human rights. He currently works as a researcher at Erasmus University Rotterdam on organized crime. AN INVENTORY OF EUROPEAN INTELLIGENCE SERVICES Table of Contents. Contents, Introduction, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, References, Appendix - Proposals and issues for an accountable security service. INTRODUCTION Intelligence and security services are only infrequently the subject of public discussion, although this situation seems to be changing gradually at least in some countries. This brief report attempts to give the uninitiated reader a first impression of the different services and organizations responsible for collecting and analyzing information of political, economic or military relevance in 17 European countries. The information is incomplete for obvious reasons, as this is a first effort on almost pristine terrain. International cooperation is of increasing importance to the intelligence community of any European country. Apart from the obvious bilateral contacts, security and intelligence services meet and exchange information in a number of ways. There are certain "regional" cooperation groups, in which the services of some countries meet to discuss specific subjects of common interest. Examples are the Berne and Vienna groups. The Trevi group, which has been described in detail by many authors recently and therefore needs no further introduction, is perhaps the most important platform for the exchange of intelligence in Western Europe (cf. Bunyan 1993, in print). From discussions with participants in this group one can conclude that the very different cultures of the participants sometimes lead to misunderstandings, hesitations or even open conflicts. These cultural differences not only have to do with distinctive national views on what the world should look like, but also with organizational backgrounds (civil vs. military, political/strategic vs. judicial/tactic, etc.) and personal attitudes. Reportedly the differences become most apparent in concrete efforts for cooperation and information exchange, while the drafting of common threat analyses seems to present much less controversies. Another organizational structure in which the exchange of data on international political violence takes place since 1977 is the so-called Kilowatt group. This information alliance between the services of some 15 countries has been kept a virtual secret since it started off: only in 1982 was its existence revealed when Iranian students brought out materials captured at the American embassy in Teheran in which Kilowatt was mentioned. Taking part in this network are the EC- countries and Canada, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the CIA and FBI, as well as the Israeli Mossad and Shin Beth. Kilowatt is believed to be dominated by Israel because of her near- monopoly position in the information exchange on the activities of Arab groups and individuals in Europe and the Middle East. Cooperation in the network is of great importance for the services of the smaller countries because the group gives out information without immediately demanding something in return. A condition is, however, that the terrorism department of any connected security service makes available any information it has on terrorists, their movements and their treats to other Kilowatt members. According to recent information from Swiss and Dutch sources the network is now functioning under another name. The chiefs of West-European and allied intelligence and security services meet regularly to discuss current affairs. In 1991 for example, violent extremism and fundamentalism as well as the threats posed to state security by organised crime were discussed in this committee. It is not clear whether these meetings are in fact identical to the Kilowatt network. Another platform for the exchange of information on extremism, activism, terrorism and other potential threats is NATO, which has its own analytic capabilities. Under the reviewed strategic NATO concept of November 1991 international terrorism is explicitly recognized as a potential threat to a member state. This formal recognition in a sense legitimized the fact that NATO has been used as a platform to discuss, plan, coordinate and implement anti-terrorist policy and concrete measures since at least the mid-1980s, cumulating in the unparalleled efforts to contain possibly violent reactions to the 1990-1991 Gulf campaign. Bilateral contacts are frequent, and multilateral meetings take place twice a year. In the politico-military field the Western European Union (WEU) could be mentioned as an international organization with intelligence functions. The WEU is presently developing satellite intelligence capabilities working from a ground station in Spain, which would enable the alliance to gather and analyze its own information without having to depend on the U.S. To avoid interference with ongoing research this report contains no information on the stay-behind networks that became known throughout Europe as "Gladio" in November 1990. Present Areas of Interest for European Security Services Most European security services are in one form or another attempting to convert from a traditional perspective predominantly oriented on counterespionage and countersubversion to a modern "early warning" role. The demise of the Soviet Union and the waning relevance of the revolutionary Left has initiated a sometimes frantic search for a new raison d'ˆtre. If we look at what is being discussed at the Trevi meetings and what issues are taken up by the security services in the various countries, an incomplete shortlist can be drawn up which displays some distinctive trends. Economic intelligence is increasingly high on the agenda, combining active intelligence gathering (or industrial espionage if "they" do it) with counterintelligence, i.e. the protection of valuable high-tech and know-how against theft and uncontrolled dissemination. A recent book written by Peter Schweitzer lists several recent cases in which Japanese, French, German and Israeli intelligence services acquired U.S. industrial secrets by covert means (Friendly Spies. New York: Atlantic, 1993). Several senior European intelligence officials have recently spoken of the emergence of professional and powerful commercially-operating intelligence services that steal industrial and perhaps other valuable secrets either on order or to offer them for sale. From a civil liberties point of view economic and industrial espionage may not seem all that important, considering that in the end the damage is largely financial. But with government intelligence agencies being as difficult to control as they are, just think how hard it is to check out snooping bodies whose existence you are unaware of, not to mention the risk of government agencies farming out their dirty work to such private spooks, who often happen to be former colleagues. Uncontrolled and massive migration is perceived by governments and parts of the population as a serious menace to western societies, and several security services have been producing threat analyses, situation reports and strategic forecasts with respect to the possible consequences of civil wars, famine and poverty in Africa, Asia and the former communist countries. European monitoring systems are currently being set up to coordinate the collection and flow of intelligence on these issues. Short-term attention is now focused on detecting the underground networks that bring people to Europe, but in several countries there are indications that support networks and solidarity groups working with "illegal aliens" are considered legitimate targets for surveillance and penetration. The proliferation of non-conventional arms and nuclear technology is another hot issue in more than one way. Over the last 18 months black market operators have offered nuclear material for sale in about thirty instances in central Europe. German policemen have investigated more than 100 cases in 1992 involving smuggled nuclear material, against 29 investigations in 1991. No hard evidence has yet emerged of extensive or state-sponsored organised crime rings trading in radioactive materials. Of course the dubious role of several foreign intelligence agencies such as the CIA, the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), the German Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) and the French Direction G‚n‚rale de la S‚curit‚ Ext‚rieure (DGSE) in supporting the sales of arms and products used to manufacture chemical weapons and missiles is well-known especially after Iran-Contra, Iraq-gate and the publications in the French and German press over the last three years. It won't come as a surprise that in quite a few countries severe conflicts between the domestic and foreign services have arisen on these issues. The protection of vital and vulnerable civil infrastructures such as nuclear installations, computer and communications systems, fuel plants, etc. is a constant intelligence concern. Intelligence agencies increasingly participate in gathering and analyzing information on organised crime insofar as it constitutes a threat to vital institutions and functions in society. Identifying potentially corruptible functions or persons can be mentioned as an example here. The violent extreme right movement has begun to draw the attention of the security services. The situation in different European countries varies greatly in both the magnitude of the threat and the vigor with which the police and security services confront it. Islamic fundamentalism, extreme nationalism and other extremist phenomena occurring in certain ethnic groups are invariably mentioned as reasons for concern by security service spokespersons. Terrorism; the PIRA and on a lesser scale the ETA remain active both in their home region and abroad. Some smaller separatist movements (Corsican FNLC, a Sd-Tirol group) have recently engaged in bomb attacks. Islamic fundamentalist groups, possibly sponsored or orchestrated by Iran, are also active with bomb attacks in a number of countries. Radical groups campaigning on issues of poverty, unemployment and other sources of dissatisfaction such as environmental pollution or genetic engineering can as per usual count on the warm attention of the proper government agencies (i.e. not the Social or Health Ministries). The list is not exhaustive, but does seem to illustrate a remarkable shift from chasing Reds, anarchists and government critics to a much wider range of target groups and -areas. A modern security service nowadays markets its expertise in risk control and -management, not too different from the risk assessment branch in a multinational company. All in all a modern an rather clean image. Still, it should be noted that especially in the larger countries such as France or the U.K., or in those situations that a government is faced with opponents that it considers to be a serious threat to the state or the public such as the Basque ETA, secret services may be used as a quick fix to complicated problems. And this is where harassment, large-scale and intensive surveillance or even shoot-to-kill policies (re)appear. Some Trends Present areas of interest for European foreign intelligence agencies are still rather divergent. Many countries have their own traditional regions of influence: the French DGSE for example is becoming ever more active in Africa, often in competition but sometimes working in unison with U.S. services. The Maghreb is becoming more important for a number of reasons. Morocco for instance has taken on the function of a buffer for African migrants on their way to a clandestine existence in Europe. Islamic fundamentalism is perceived as one of the more serious threats of the future, manifesting itself in countries such as Algeria, Egypt, Libya and Sudan. Fundamentalism is also spreading among the Palestinian population and in Turkey. The Spanish CESID has reportedly boosted its activities in certain Latin American countries, presumably hoping to reinforce Spanish strategic and economical influence in the region. The German BND is believed to be particularly active in the Commonwealth of Independent States in an effort to establish solid information positions which could give it an edge in any future crisis situations, especially in the event that the region should fall back into isolation and dictatorship. On the whole both foreign and military intelligence services are closely monitoring developments in unstable areas in southeastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Interestingly, there is a tendency towards some amalgamation in certain aspects of the work that security and foreign intelligence agencies traditionally do. In smaller countries such as Holland, Austria, Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries which have only small foreign intelligence services, the domestic services are taking over some of the traditional foreign intelligence responsibilities, such as the monitoring of unstable regions or migration patterns and negotiations and consultations on "European" security. Domestic security in a sense has become European, at least EC security. Military intelligence and security services are of course still concerned with their traditional tasks of gathering and analyzing information relevant to the military and preventing potential opponents from doing the same. While traditional anti-communism seems to have become a thing of the past -mainly for lack of communists rather than because of more tolerant security doctrines- distrust and therefore activities in relation to diffuse, hard to situate and potentially threatening groups such as "autonomists", anarchists, squatters, and activists in general will remain. There seems to be a more or less general belief among what is called "security experts" that in spite of the demise of the traditional enemy and its supposed "subversion from outside", stability in contemporary society is even less secure than in the past. Also, substantial capital flows and institutional holdings for example are no longer (fully) controlled by the traditional elites, let alone by the government, but by hard- to-trace foreign centres of power or by what appear to be "criminal syndicates". Rightwing extremism should be considered a serious threat, but in some countries it is not perceived as such primarily because of the concrete danger it poses to minorities, to the left, or to tolerance in general. Rather it is feared because its emergence jeopardizes the silent support of a considerable part of the population for the existing order in society that has always taken for granted. It could bring about the loss of power by traditional elites, and possibly even the endangerment of the state's monopoly on force. The influence of the extreme right in the police, the army, the civil servants etc. in a country such as Belgium is very worrying indeed. In the lower and middle levels of especially some local government bureaucracies it has become almost normal that civil servants are racist, and anti-racists and especially minorities have to reckon with social isolation and verbal aggression. In the good news department we see a move in quite a few countries toward formal legitimation and recognition of the security and intelligence services, often accompanied by the introduction of some sort of accountability mechanism. In Belgium, Norway, Portugal, in certain German states and in the U.K. there is some movement on the cloak & dagger front. New, more progressive legislation is expected, reform programs are initiated or other adaptations made, although some would object that these are all meaningless and cosmetic reforms. In several countries we see operations in progress to clean up the burdening heritage of the Cold War, the immense archives holding files on considerable sections of the population. As the public increasingly begins to question the sanctity of intelligence files, security service managers realise the potential risks of being tarnished by embarrassing disclosures about long-forgotten skeletons in the closet. Historians, journalists and others begin to grasp the potential value of vast intelligence archives for students of the labour movement, progressive culture and cult figures, national and international politics etc., and we can now envisage a situation in which not some secret service employees but professional archivists, historians and judicial authorities will decide on whether or not certain information should to be kept from the public. In the U.S., Canada, Australia, Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands initiatives to reach some form of openness have met with varying degrees of success. Elsewhere, the intelligence archives have been or will be extensively weeded or even destroyed unless the administrators are fully confident that no future government would ever contemplate some form of access to old records. A most interesting trend that can be witnessed in several European countries as well as on an international level (e.g. Trevi) is the gradual convergence of intelligence and policing. This complicated process can be attributed to the introduction of new information management methods and technologies in the police, but also to the fact that law enforcement and security services increasingly deal with the same opponents and phenomena such as organised crime, corruption, extreme right street violence and terrorism. On the level of methods and doctrines there are also clear overlaps, in that certain sections of the police increasingly adopt so-called "proactive" methods of crime fighting. Infiltration, the extensive monitoring of communications, covert observations, the deployment of agents-provocateur, so-called "data surveillance", but also the use of scientific analysis methods by the police all betray a new orientation on intelligence not only as a tool but as a principle. I would go as far as to signal a paradigm shift in that the main goal in countering serious forms of crime is no longer "getting the bad guys behind bars" but incapacitating the criminal organization in the hope of rendering harmless the menace as such. The judicial settlement then becomes only a necessary formality to which lip service is paid, but the prison system is in fact seen as an inadequate means in the fight against organised crime. Design and Sources of This Report The intention of this concise report is to provide the interested reader with some basic information on the intelligence and especially the security services in most of the European countries. Such information would seem indispensable for an informed debate on European domestic security cooperation and the problems associated with it. A recent example of such a problem could be the current backstage debate between senior civil servants and intelligence representatives on what categories of "subjects" from an intelligence point of view will be stored in the Schengen Information System to allow surveillance throughout the entire Schengen area. Reportedly most of the participating countries show little enthusiasm over the Greek desire to register all their draft dodgers, and other countries such as France or Spain also try to introduce their anomalities, i.e. the persons that they consider to be threats to the state or public order. Such a debate, it seems, should not be limited to (and virtually decided by) a closed group of professionals, but should take place in democratically elected bodies such as the European Parliament. An uninformed constituency will always run after the facts. While this is not intended as an academic report and only a few footnotes are included, something should be said about the sources that were used. There seem to be no comprehensive studies, encyclopedias or similar basic works in which information of this kind can be found. The book that comes closest is probably Jeffrey Richelson's Foreign Intelligence Organizations (1988), but even this pioneering work only has the U.K., Italy, West Germany, and France in common with the present report. Comparative intelligence studies is still a very new field from which no contributions could be expected to base this report on. To be perfectly clear, this report does not pretend to be a comparative study, since at this stage no substantial analyses or comparisons are attempted. The still scarce journals and magazines specifically dedicated to intelligence such as Intelligence and National Security and Top Secret proved to be of little use for providing basic material on the lesser-known services. Besides, most of the (better) journals (e.g. the International Journal for Intelligence and Counterintelligence, Unclassified, Defense Intelligence Journal, Foreign Intelligence Literary Scene, Covert Action Information Bulletin) are primarily oriented on the North- American scene. It is relatively easy to get information on the security and intelligence establishment of some countries. The German and Dutch services for example are regulated by law, their organizational structures, dimensions and budgets are at least partly known. Their operations, especially the failures receive some coverage in the national press, and their functioning and even their existence has been the subject of public debate. In countries where all of this is not the case, it proved virtually impossible on short notice and without extensive visits and interviews to get an adequate impression of the security and intelligence apparatus. Furthermore, the language is sometimes a problem: the author of this report does not read Portuguese, Greek or Turkish. Most of the literature on intelligence concerns itself only with one country or even one service. Some rather good and revealing books are available on the French services, and the German situation is quite well documented through the services of the Burgerrechte and Polizei (Civil Liberties and Police) working group at the Freie Universit„t Berlin and the unsurpassed weekly magazine Der Spiegel. In other countries such as Belgium, The Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and Austria, activists or critical journalists have documented the situation from their specific point of view. Quite a lot of information was derived from the invaluable Paris biweekly Intelligence Newsletter, and for the rest newspaper clippings and some interviews and conversations over the last four years provided the raw material on which this report is based. A rather extensive survey was mailed to all of the relevant ministries of the EC countries, but only Belgium, Germany, the Irish Republic, Greece and Luxembourg reacted by sending some documentation, for which I want to express my sincere thanks. Needless to say, none of the information in this report is drawn from classified sources unless they have been published or discussed in public first. Unfortunately, the available material reflects only a very small part of what really happens in the proverbial shadowy world of the "secret services". Readers are reminded that misinformation is an essential element of any intelligence operation, and that the information contained in this report does not necessarily cover all aspects or activities of the services described herein. Fragmented anecdotes of one or two operations that took place five or ten years ago do not give a reliable impression of the current modus operandi or organizational doctrine of a specific service, especially considering the drastic changes in the world around 1990. The reader is referred to another report published by this author in early 1993, The State of Europe, for more information on the political, human rights and civil liberties context in each of the countries. Some of the clippings and reports that I collected over the years later turned out to be inaccurate or outright disinformation. Some of the services are described in this report on the basis of partly outdated material, but in such cases more current information was not available or I am simply unaware of the new situation. I will attempt to use this report as a starting point to bring together more and newer information in order to come to a better documented (and footnoted) report planned for 1994. Readers are therefore encouraged to send photocopies or draw my attention to any new information that could be useful for this project, as well as to inform me of their criticisms. Amsterdam, April 1993 Peter Klerks ========================= AUSTRIA In the mid-1960s Austria already had its scandal over extensive political police activities: the Staatspolizei (Stapo) had assembled 1,156,000 dossiers (a considerable part of them dating back to the Nazi government of Second World War), and several leading mainstream politicians and other dignitaries had to experience what it means to have your private life discussed in public. A commission was installed, in 1965 some 56,000 files were apparently destroyed (or archived on microfilm) and the whole affair was soon forgotten. In 1990 information from some of these "destroyed" files surfaced again in new investigations. In that same year the political police encountered new criticism when it became known that the Stapo performed extensive tasks in supplying firms with information on employees and applicants. Subsequently nearly 20,000 Austrians applied to see their security files. Government officials told the privacy council that foreign corporations considering investments in Austria had been assured that they would get "stapogeprfte Arbeitnehmerware". This was later denied by the Minister of the Interior. The Austrian Ministry of Defence's Heeresnachrichtenamt (HNA, army intelligence bureau) and Heeresabwehramt (HAA, army security bureau) claimed they had been "forced to supply the Americans" with information routinely collected on Austrian citizens under the threat of an all-out intelligence embargo. Nearly all the citizens who had requested to see their files were told that no files were kept on them. In a number of cases, sometimes due to poor coordination between the police and the Ministry, there were strong indications that files were in fact kept in spite of official denials. The occasional dossiers that were released showed that the police had been overzealous: for instance at least until the mid-1980s participating in a Volksbegehren (referendum) would be entered in one's file, even though such referenda are part of the constitutional democratic procedures in Austria. While in the 1960s and early seventies the traditional communists (mainly the Austrian communist party (KP™, representing less than 1% of the voters) got most of the attention, in later years the anti- nuclear campaigners, the student movement, pacifists and those living in communes gradually took the lead in filling the Stapo files. In the 1980s a fragmentation of political and social protest into a myriad of sometimes very small groups took place. The Stapo justifies drawing up extensive reports on even the most insignificant meetings by pointing to that one well-known participant who is believed to be a key figure and should therefore be closely followed. Also the German doctrine of "Befassung mit anschlagrelevanten Themen" (involvement with attempt-relevant themes) is introduced to rationalise registering and infiltrating individuals and groups voicing or engaging in protests against gene technology, computer technology, environmental pollution, the military, EC politics, etc. To put it somewhat exaggerated, one could say that if ever anywhere (in Europe) an act of sabotage was committed against a research plant, a corporation or some other symbol or installation, this appears to legitimize monitoring everyone who holds critical views on that subject. From the examples known so far it seems that once an individual has come to the attention of the Stapo because of being a member of an "extremist" organization, organising a protest manifestation, or other such conspicuous acts, a file is opened on him or her and all further activities, innocent though they may seem to the untrained eye, are registered for further analysis. Membership of Amnesty International, writing a letter to a newspaper, going on a holiday, attending progressive academic or other study groups, signing petitions, contacting journalists, etc., all of these warrant an entree in one's file. The political police in Austria has never been organizationally separated from the ordinary police. Its tasks have been fulfilled by the regular police authorities with the Federal Ministry of the Interior on top. The state security police is one of the five "groups" (Gruppe II/C) in the Directorate- General for Public Security in the Ministry. Furthermore there are security directorates (Sicherheits-direktionen) for the provinces, and district offices (in the countryside) or separate police directorates (in major cities). The Staatspolizei's task has always been to protect the constitutional order, but also to execute some administrative functions such as the issuing of passports, the registration of foreigners and the regulation of associations and gatherings. Internationally Austria takes part in several intelligence exchange networks and regular meetings (cf. the Wiener Club), and it has observer status with the Trevi Group. In 1990 the Staatspolizei numbered about 775 functionaries with an estimated annual budget of close to one billion Schilling. According to the Ministry of the Interior it held some 59,000 files. In 1991 new legislation on the security police was enacted which introduced for the first time a limited judicial and parliamentary control over the Stapo (Busch 1992). Under the new law a complaint procedure is introduced, and information on individuals may not be collected and registered for purely preventive means. Yet the law contains such flexible and ambiguous formulations as to enable virtually all registrations under some pretext or other. Civil servants are held to cooperate with the Stapo in any investigations and the service has access to almost any information it would require. Trade unions and privacy jurists have protested against the Sicherheitspolizeigesetz calling it an "Emmentaler in privacy protection". [This is the first 30K of a total text of over 200K. For a full copy of this report, please send an email request to intelligence-adi@wanadoo.fr] *