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Romanian Intelligence Service

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Romanian Intelligence Service
Serviciul Român de Informații
Agency overview
Formed26 March 1990
Preceding agency
HeadquartersBd. Libertății nr. 14D, sector 5,Bucharest
EmployeesClassified
Annual budgetEUR541 million (2020)[1]
Agency executives
  • General Răzvan Ionescu, Acting Director
  • Lieutenant General Cristian Bizadea, Deputy Director
  • Lieutenant General Adrian Ciocîrlan, Deputy Director
  • Lieutenant General Gheorghe-Stancu Răducu, Deputy Director
Websitewww.sri.ro

TheRomanian Intelligence Service(Romanian:Serviciul Român de Informații,abbreviatedSRI) isRomania's main domesticintelligence service.Its role is to gather information relevant tonational securityand hand it over to relevant institutions, such asRomanian Government,presidencyandlaw enforcement departments and agencies.The service is gathering intelligence by ways such as signals intelligence (SIGINT),open-source intelligence(OSINT) and human intelligence (HUMINT).

History[edit]

Previous intelligence services in Romania[edit]

Main articles:SiguranțaandSecuritate

In 1865, theRomanian General Staff(inspired by the French system) created the 2nd Section (Secția a II-a) to gather and analyzemilitary intelligence.[2]By 1925, after several years of efforts,Mihail Moruzovmanaged to convince the General Staff about the necessity of asecret servicethat uses civilian employees to gather intelligence for theRomanian Army.[2]In 1940 it was founded as the Special Service of Intelligence (Serviciul Special de Informații), withEugen Cristescuas director.[2]

Through thecommunist period,the service was used as an oppressive instrument against the anti-communists and people who opposed the government's official policies. TheSecuritate( "Security" ) was thepolitical policethat was involved in repressingdissent.During theRomanian Revolution,soon after taking power,Ion Iliescusigned the decree which integrated the Securitate into theMinistry of Defense,thus bringing it under his control.[3]

Iulian Vlad[ro],the head of the Securitate, together with some of his deputies, were arrested on December 31, 1989; Iliescu namedGelu Voican Voiculescuas the new head of the Securitate.[4]Voiculescu assured the Securitate agents that he does not intent to wage a war against individual Securitate officers and, by mid-January 1990, the Securitate officers continued their activity in their old headquarters.[4]The press was informed (but not allowed to verify) that the equipment for tapping phones had been decommissioned.

Creation[edit]

The Romanian Intelligence Service was officially created on March 26, 1990, taking over the buildings, staff, equipment, and virtually everything that belonged to the Securitate.[4]Its creation occurred only a few days following theethnic clashes of Târgu Mureș,being quickly created through a decree. Its first director wasVirgil Măgureanu.[4]At that time, there were two other intelligence services:UM 0215and theForeign Intelligence Service.[5]

Securitate archives[edit]

SRI inherited Securitate's archives and it has been accused of destroying parts of it or supplying sensitive parts to certain politicians.

On June 22, 1990, SRI officers unloaded a truck full of Securitate documents in a forest inBerevoești,Argeș County,after which they buried them with soil.[4]The documents intended to be destroyed were discovered by locals and, a year later, a group of journalists began digging the decaying documents and theRomânia liberănewspaper published several of them, including information on dissidents, being not only Securitate, but also of the newly created SRI.[4]This led to the adoption of a law on state secrets, which banned publication of any SRI documents.[4]

It was only in 2005 that the archives of the Securitate began to be transferred to an outside institution (CNSAS) with a first batch containing two-thirds of the total number of documents.[6]The goal was to transfer all Securitate documents which "do not affect national security".[7]

Involvement in the Mineriad[edit]

See also:Mineriad

The extent of the involvement of the Romanian Intelligence Service in the violent repression of the1990 anti-government protestshas been a matter of debate. On June 12, 1990, the government decided that the Police and Army, in collaboration with the Intelligence Service, evacuate the protesters ofUniversity Square.[8]During the violence that followed, the protesters attacked the headquarters of the Romanian Intelligence Service with rocks andMolotov cocktails.[8]

The following days, miners brought by the government from theJiu Valleyviolently repressed the protesters (killing several people and wounding thousands) and destroyed the opposition parties' headquarters.[8]According to a letter to President Iliescu drafted by then-Prime MinisterPetre Roman,the whole repression was organized by the secret services under the leadership of Virgil Măgureanu using the network of the Securitate.[9]This view is supported by military prosecutor Dan Voinea, who said that all the miner groups were escorted by police and SRI agents who led them to the headquarters of parties and NGOs.[10]

During the 2000s,Virgil Măgureanu,the head of the SRI at the time, has been investigated by prosecutors (together with other leaders including PresidentIon Iliescu) for several counts includinggenocideandtorture,however they decided in 2009 not to charge him with any crime.[11]

Phone tapping[edit]

A Counter-Terrorism Battalion of the SRI on parade in 2008.

In 1996, a former SRI employee, Constantin Bucur was thewhistleblowerwho alerted the media that the Romanian Intelligence Service was performing illegal phone tappings of politicians, journalists and other public figures.[12]Bucur was convicted for revealingtop secretinformation,[12]but he won a trial against the Romanian state after appealing at theEuropean Court of Human Rights.[12]

Mircea Toma, one of the journalists whose phone had been tapped also sued the Romanian state for wiretapping and preserving private conversations with his daughter, Sorana. He also won a compensation the disrespect of theArticle 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.[12]The Romanian Intelligence Service refused to collaborate with the European Court of Human Rights, arguing that its documents are state secrets.[13]

The president of the Group of Political Investigations (a Romanian organization that independently monitors the activity of state agencies), Mugur Ciuvică, has stated that he has evidence of ongoing illegal phone tappings.[14]

According to Ilie Botoș, a former Attorney General of Romania, between 1991 and 2003, the phones of 20,000 people have been tapped.[15]Between 1991 and 2002, a number of 14,000 authorizations were given by the government fornational security-related issues.[15]Between 1996 and 2003, further 5,500 authorizations were given related to organized and white-collar crime; out of these 5,500 suspects, only 238 were convicted.[15]For the year 2005, a number of 6370 phones belonging to 2373 people were tapped, the average tapping being of 220 days.[15]

In 2006, a new illegal wiretapping scandal erupted after transcripts of businessmanDinu Patriciu's phone discussions with his associates were leaked to the press.[16]Patriciu sued the Intelligence Service and won a compensation of 50,000 lei in 2011.[16]A further case of potentially illegal wiretappings is the one of European Court of Human Rights judge Corneliu Bîrsan, whose wiretappings under the guise of "national security" are now being investigated by a parliamentary commission created by the Romanian Senate on April 8, 2013.[17]

Relationship with the press[edit]

The Romanian Intelligence Service had an uneasy relationship with the press, which it monitored, infiltrated and accused of being a national security liability. In 2010, "the press" has been included in the list of national vulnerabilities in the "National Strategy for the Defence of the Country".[18]

An early controversy occurred in 1996, when Tana Ardeleanu (a journalist forZiuawho had published some articles about PresidentIon Iliescu) had beenshadowedby SRI agents.[19]Amid press anger, SRI directorVirgil Măgureanuadmitted that SRI agents followed Ardeleanu and argued that the surveillance was a "mistake" and that the agents thought they were following two suspected spies.[19]

The existence of infiltrated SRI agents in the press has been publicly known since 2006, when the press officer of SRI claimed that the Service has always hadmolesin the Romanian press arguing that it's not illegal.[20]This claim has been quite controversial, as, according toCristian Tudor Popescu,journalists are not a threat to national security[20]and, according to historianMarius Oprea,this leads to suspicions about whether the SRI haspolitical policeactivities.[20]

TheJurnalul Naționalnewspaper fired itseditor-in-chief,Valentin Zaschievici, in August 2012, accusing him of being an infiltrated SRI agent, following the leak of some SRI documents byCotidianul.[21]The Romanian Intelligence Service admitted that the documents were indeed genuine, but it claimed that their agent was only monitoring the leaking of secret documents to the press.[21]

In 2013,George Maior,the Director of the Service, accused the press of organizing an attack campaign against the Romanian Intelligence Service, giving as example the investigations over the illegal CIA prisons in Bucharest (Bright Light), which he argued that is exposing Romania to terrorist attacks.[22]

Known operations[edit]

In March 2005, three Romanian journalists were kidnapped in Iraq by unknown abductors (later described as members of the Muadh ibn Jabal Brigades) in theBaghdad's al-Mansur district. A few weeks after being kidnapped, the terrorists broadcast a tape on Al-Jazeera stating that they would kill the journalists if Romania did not withdraw its 860 troops from Iraq. However, due to efforts of the Romanian intelligence community and the collaboration between several intelligence agencies, the group were freed on May 23, 2005, when they were placed in the hands of the Romanian Embassy in Baghdad. It is believed that Florian Coldea (the former deputy director of the SRI) coordinated the rescue operation.

On 28 February 2008, the Romanian counter-intelligence officers arrested aBulgarianmilitary attaché,Petar Marinov Zikolov, and a Romanian NCO, Floricel Achim. They have been prosecuted with charges of espionage. It is believed that the leaked information might have been sent toRussiaorUkraine.The Bulgarians have denied any connection with Zikolov. This has been one of the few espionage cases that have received media attention.

Programs[edit]

Integrated Information System[edit]

The Integrated Information System (Romanian:Sistemul Informatic Integrat,SII) is a computing system that allows SRI to aggregate data from various governmental agencies. It was created in 2003 under the initiative of SRI directorRadu Timofte,who sent a request to theSupreme Council of National Defence(CSAT) led by PresidentIon Iliescu.[23]The system has its activities based onsecret lawsthat were not published inMonitorul Oficial.[23]The only public information on the system is found in the government decision that followed, which mandated all state institutions to give the system all the information they have.[23]The public law does not include any kind of control mechanisms or ways to prevent abuses.[23]

As such, all information on Romanian and foreign citizens that the state has (such as dates of entering/exiting the country, what car one owns, what phone numbers or phone metadata or what taxes you paid) is fed into the system.[23]The names of the members of the Integrated Information System council and its headquarters are a state secret.[23]

Civil rightsNGO APADOR-CH (Human Rights Defense Association of Romania) contested in justice the way it worked, arguing that such a government institution couldn't have been legally created by the way of secret laws and that it broke theArticle 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.[23]The NGO lost the trial.[23]

In 2016, the SRI obtained a€25 million in financing from theEuropean Unionfor a project calledSII Analytics.[24]The project is financed by theE-governmentprogram of the EU, but parts of it such as interception of communications andfacial recognitionshow that one of the goals issurveillance.[24]The project includes a "good behavior" file for each citizen, which aggregates data from all government agencies.[24]APADOR-CH argued that these citizen files can be used for nefarious purposes against some citizens (MPs, judges, prosecutors, businessmen, etc.).[24]

National Alert System[edit]

The National Alert System (SistemulNațional deAlertă Teroristă inRomanian) is the Romanian terrorist barometer. SNA is a system that, based on existing intelligence from SRI,SIEand possibly other agencies, ranks the risk of a terrorist attack on Romanian territory. The system is color based (green-low to red-imminent). The color can be changed (and therefore security measures increased) with the prior approval of the executive of SRI.

Currently, SNA is colored blue-cautious; this means that the intelligence on hand suggests there is a relatively low risk of a terrorist attack.

The color has only been changed once (to yellow-moderate) at the2008 NATO Bucharest summit.

Resources[edit]

Personnel[edit]

The Romanian Intelligence Service is amilitarizedinstitution, although it is not a part of theRomanian Armed Forces.The hierarchy from the service is defined bymilitaryranks. The highest ranking employee has the rank ofgeneral officer(with four stars).Civilianpersonnel is composed mostly of accountants,ITandlawspecialists.[25] The number of employees is classified. However, rumors about the number of employees exists. The newspaperAdevărulwas able to find in 2006 an estimate of 12,000 agents, a figure confirmed by former SIE directorCătălin Harnagea.[26]According to former DIE generalIon Mihai Pacepa,this figure is double the number of agents of the similar service of France (which has a population three times larger than Romania's) and larger than Germany's secret services, Pacepa noting the unusual size of Romania's secret services,[26]leading to claims that Ceaușescu'spolice statehas been incompletely dismantled and that the number of officers has actually increased since 1989.[26]In an interview inJurnalul Național,George Maior denied the numbers Harnagea claimed, saying that the SRI has an estimated number of 3,000 operative employees. According to Maior, the average salary in the service is 2,500Lei(€560), a salary above the average income in Romania.[27]

To become an employee of the SRI, a person has to fulfill several conditions, including having Romanian citizenship, matching the age criteria, clean criminal record and no serious medical conditions. If so, the person is allowed in therecruitmentprocess. This process consists of background checks, medical exams,aptitudetests,personalitytests,physical fitnesstests and apaperexam (for example, ageneral knowledgetest).[25]

The main gate to enter theintelligenceservice is theNational Intelligence Academy(Academia Națională de Informații Mihai Viteazul) fromBucharest.[28]

The Anti-Terrorist Brigade[edit]

The Anti-Terrorist Brigade (Brigada Antiteroristă), also known asBATis SRI's special actions unit and the mainanti-terrorist unitfrom Romania. Created during the mid 1970s (as a response to the1972 Munich Massacre) under the name of ARTA, the unit has changed its name later intoThe Special Anti-Terrorist Unit(USLA -Unitatea Specială de Luptă Antiteroristă).

Eight USLA members were killed during theRomanian Revolutionin December 1989.

The size of the brigade isclassified,but it is known that the unit has in ranks the best operatives from the Romanian military and law enforcement sector. Most of them are athletes, with excellent results in sports such asboxing,karate,rugby,judo,and othercombat sports.

Also, the brigade is providing security on all important airports from Romania and members of the brigade are working asair marshalson all Romanian flights.

Budget[edit]

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
1,039 million lei[29] 1,032 million lei[30] 957 million lei[31] 907 million lei[32] 989 million lei[33] 1,043 million lei[34] 1,100 million lei[35] 1,392 million lei[36]/ 1554 million lei (after budget revision)[37] 1,850 million lei[38]

References[edit]

  1. ^"Buget 2020: Bugetele Serviciilor cresc semnificativ, cu excepţia SIE. SRI primeşte cel mai mult".businessmagazin.ro(in Romanian).
  2. ^abc"Momente cheie - Serviciul Român de Informații".www.sri.ro.Retrieved23 February2018.
  3. ^Monitorul Oficial,Partea I nr. 2December 25, 1989
  4. ^abcdefgMarius Oprea."Moștenitorii Securității - în primii ani de democrație".Sfera.Archived fromthe originalon 13 March 2014.Retrieved16 April2013.
  5. ^"1990 – Anul 0 era noastră. Cum a fost înființat SRI".Digi24.26 March 2015.Retrieved2016-07-31.
  6. ^"Două treimi din arhivele Securității vor fi transferate la CNSAS".HotNews.March 1, 2005.Retrieved16 April2013.
  7. ^Romanian Intelligence Service,Comunicat de presă
  8. ^abcMiclescu, Corneliu (June 13, 2007)."Șaptesprezece ani de la 'mineriada' din iunie 1990".BBC.Retrieved24 July2013.
  9. ^Ciliac, Alexandra (June 17, 2013)."Mineriada din 1990 a fost ORCHESTRATĂ de Virgil Măgureanu. Fostul șef SRI e acuzat în dosar".Evenimentul Zilei.Retrieved24 July2013.
  10. ^Ruscior, Cosmin (June 14, 2010)."Voinea: Mineriada, un act terorist al instituțiilor represive ale statului".Radio France Internationale.Retrieved24 July2013.
  11. ^"Iliescu, iertat definitiv pentru Mineriada".România Liberă.June 19, 2009.Retrieved24 July2013.
  12. ^abcd"Constantin Bucur si Mircea Toma, despagubiti de CEDO, in urma unor interceptari SRI".hotnews.January 8, 2013.Retrieved16 April2013.
  13. ^"România plătește la CEDO telefoanele ascultate în țară",Apador-CH, January 10, 2013
  14. ^Roportal.ro,The GIP President, Mugur Ciuvică: SRI snoops on the National Liberal Party at Băsescu's orders
  15. ^abcd""Timpanul" SRI costă cât bugetul Culturii ".Adevărul.February 15, 2006.Retrieved16 April2013.
  16. ^ab"ICCJ: Dinu Patriciu va primi 50.000 de lei despagubiri de la SRI, pentru ca i-au fost ascultate ilegal telefoanele".HotNews.February 18, 2011.Retrieved16 April2013.
  17. ^"Comisia parlamentara de ancheta privind interceptarea telefoanelor magistratului Birsan - la prima sedinta".HotNews.April 16, 2013.Retrieved16 April2013.
  18. ^"Câteva cazuri de ofițeri acoperiţi din presa românească".Cațavencii.September 5, 2012. Archived fromthe originalon 20 March 2013.Retrieved16 April2013.
  19. ^abBăleanu, Virgil George (1996).A Clear and Present Danger to Democracy: The New Romanian Security Services are Still Watching.Conflict Studies Research Centre,Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.
  20. ^abc"SRI, ia-ti cartitele din presa!".Evenimentul Zilei.July 25, 2006. Archived fromthe originalon July 5, 2013.Retrieved16 April2013.
  21. ^ab"Redactor-șef de la" Jurnalul Național ", dat afară pentru colaborare cu SRI".Adevărul.August 16, 2012. Archived fromthe originalon August 20, 2012.Retrieved16 April2013.
  22. ^"George Maior, directorul SRI: presa ne împiedică să ne facem activitatea și ne expune pericolului terorist".Jurnalul Național.February 22, 2013. Archived fromthe originalon 25 February 2013.Retrieved16 April2013.
  23. ^abcdefgh"Legile pentru Sistemul Integrat, secrete de stat".România liberă.23 April 2007.Retrieved2016-08-12.
  24. ^abcd"SRI primește fonduri europene într-un proiect de supraveghere generalizată a cetățenilor, deghizat în eGuvernare | APADOR-CH"./www.apador.org.8 August 2016.Retrieved2016-08-12.
  25. ^ab"Cariera în SRI".Archived fromthe originalon 2015-02-06.Retrieved2014-04-18.
  26. ^abc"Mai mulţi ofiţeri de informaţii pe cap de locuitor decât în perioada comunistă".Adevărul.April 4, 2006.Retrieved16 April2013.
  27. ^"George Maior".Jurnalul Național.Archived fromthe originalon 23 February 2018.Retrieved23 February2018.
  28. ^"Home page of Academia Națională de Informații" Mihai Viteazul "".Archived fromthe originalon 2014-04-19.Retrieved2014-04-18.
  29. ^http://www.cdep.ro/proiecte/2008/700/10/1/ax362.pdf[bare URL PDF]
  30. ^"N-avem bani de pensii, dar avem pentru SRI".Business24.ro(in Romanian).Retrieved2019-09-25.
  31. ^"Bugetul SRI, avizat în forma propusă de Guvern".Retrieved23 February2018.
  32. ^"Buget 2011 - Bugetele SRI, SIE si STS scad, cel al SPP creste".Ziare.com(in Romanian).Retrieved2019-09-25.
  33. ^"Bugetul SRI pe 2012 a fost avizat de comisia pentru controlul parlamentar al activitatii Serviciului".Retrieved23 February2018.
  34. ^"Ce buget va avea SRI în 2013 - Ziarul Financiar".www.zf.ro.Retrieved23 February2018.
  35. ^"Bugetele Academiei, ANI, SRI, SPP şi STS, avizate în Comisiile de Buget".Retrieved23 February2018.
  36. ^"Bugetul SRI pe 2015, avizat de comisie. Pop: Efortul financiar, în special pe securitate cibernetică".Retrieved23 February2018.
  37. ^https://www.sri.ro/fisiere/Buget/Buget_SRI_2015.pdf[bare URL PDF]
  38. ^https://www.sri.ro/fisiere/Buget/Buget_SRI_2016.pdf[bare URL PDF]

External links[edit]

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