Reflexão vinda da Bulgária

FROM THE EDITOR: The State Agency for National Security
10:00 Fri 03 Oct 2008

In any democracy, the question of the relationship between the legislature and the security services is a difficult one.
Even in a democracy, there is a need for the operations of the security services to be covert and, by definition, secure. Transparency in just how campaigns against terrorism and organised crime has to be compromised for such campaigns to be effective.
At the same time, there is always the risk of security services operating in a way that is not in accordance with their legislative guidelines, and worse, being manipulated as a political tool.
The current saga involving Bulgaria’s State Agency for National Security started after requests to examine the phone records of some MPs. While accounts vary, the explanation has been offered that these requests were linked to an attempt to unmask a mole who had been leaking information to various media.
While there may be sensitivity about MPs being subjected to investigation by the security services, at least one MP whose phone records were requested has said that she did not believe that MPs should be beyond scrutiny in the event of a security breach.
Signals have been confused. One senior official has been dismissed but both the President and the Prime Minister have leapt to defend the agency, with President Georgi Purvanov reportedly suggesting that politicians should not be allowed to probe into security structures.
Clearly, whatever the intentions were with regard to the agency, things are not working as they should. Rather than the current ad hoc crisis management, and the unfortunate circumstance that the controversy has led to suggestions from some quarters that the agency is being used as a form of “political police” there need to be clear, properly enforced, guidelines in place for the operation of the agency, and this enforcement needs to be scrutinised by democratically elected structures, if needs be by a body composed of members themselves subject to security clearances and bound to confidentiality – a procedure for which there is precedent in democratic countries.