The National Security Agency ( arz, قطاع الأمن الوطني, , also Homeland Security) is an Egyptian security service, the main domestic security agency of

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

and the successor of the State Security Investigations Service ( arz, مباحث أمن الدولة ). (Two other security agencies are the

Military Intelligence Military intelligence is a military discipline that uses information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to assist commanders in their decisions. This aim is achieved by providing an assessment of data from a ...

and the General Intelligence Directorate which traditionally specializes in foreign intelligence gathering.) Its main responsibilities are counter-intelligence, internal and border security, counter-terrorism, and surveillance. The agency is under the jurisdiction of the Interior Ministry and is headquartered in

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...

. It "remains the most visible" of Egypt's security agencies and according to one estimate has about "100,000 employees and at least as many informants". The old Security Service has been described as "detested" and "widely hated", and following

2011 Egyptian revolution The 2011 Egyptian revolution, also known as the 25 January revolution ( ar, ثورة ٢٥ يناير; ), began on 25 January 2011 and spread across Egypt. The date was set by various youth groups to coincide with the annual Egyptian "Police ho ...

its headquarters was stormed by protesters who made off with records. The National Security Agency was "established" (according to at least one source it is simply the old State Security Investigations Service with a new name) after the 2013 coup d'état that ousted Morsi and installed General

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil el-Sisi; (born 19 November 1954) is an Egyptian politician and retired military officer who has served as the sixth and current president of Egypt since 2014. Before retiring as a general in the Egyptian mil ...

. Nearly a hundred of the sacked senior officers of State Security Investigations Service were rehired. Due to the wave of pro-military nationalism in Egypt and the agency's efforts to improve security during the Islamist unrest, the agency has gained much of the old Security Service's lost respect in

according to Sarah El Deeb of the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. ne ...

. After announcing the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group due to the December 2013 Mansoura bombing, the agency assigned hotlines for the public to report suspected Muslim Brotherhood members, and was reportedly "reclaiming a major role" and rebuilding its network of informants that had been weakened during the Arab Spring On the other hand, Declan Walsh of the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' states that after the agency was established, torture chambers were reopened.

Opposition leaders, fearing arrest, fled the country. Human rights monitors started to count the numbers of the ‘‘disappeared’’ — critics who vanished into state custody without arrest or trial — until the monitors, too, began to disappear.

El Deeb quotes a campaigner for reform of the security agencies, former police officer Mohammed Mahfouz, who complains that "no specific law regulates the agency's workings, making it largely unaccountable"; and another activist,

Wael Abbas Wael Abbas Bilal ( arz, وائل عباس, ) (born 14 November 1974 in Egypt) is an internationally renowned Egyptian journalist, blogger, and human rights activist, who blogs at Misr Digital (Egyptian Awareness). He reported an incident of mob ha ...

, who calls the NSA "a corrupt agency" that "has only changed names" and "is now more vicious than before."

References

{{authority control Law enforcement agencies of Egypt Organizations established in 2011 2011 establishments in Egypt Egyptian intelligence agencies