Serviciul Român de Informaţii
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Romanian Intelligence Service ( ro, Serviciul Român de Informații, abbreviated SRI) is Romania's main domestic intelligence service. Its role is to gather information relevant to
national security National security, or national defence, is the security and defence of a sovereign state, including its citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of government. Originally conceived as protection against military atta ...
and hand it over to relevant institutions, such as Romanian Government, presidency and law 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


Previous intelligence services in Romania

In 1865, the Great
Chief of Staff The title chief of staff (or head of staff) identifies the leader of a complex organization such as the armed forces, institution, or body of persons and it also may identify a principal staff officer (PSO), who is the coordinator of the supporti ...
of Romania created (inspired by the French system) the 2nd Section (''Secția a II-a'') to gather and analyze military intelligence. By 1925, after several years of efforts,
Mihail Moruzov Mihail Moruzov (8 November 1887 – 26 November 1940) was the founder and first head of Romania's modern domestic espionage agency, the Secret Intelligence Service (SSI), forerunner of today's SRI. Biography Early life Moruzov was born in Ze ...
managed to convince the
Chief of Staff The title chief of staff (or head of staff) identifies the leader of a complex organization such as the armed forces, institution, or body of persons and it also may identify a principal staff officer (PSO), who is the coordinator of the supporti ...
about the necessity of a
secret service A secret service is a government agency, intelligence agency, or the activities of a government agency, concerned with the gathering of intelligence data. The tasks and powers of a secret service can vary greatly from one country to another. For ...
that uses civilian employees to gather intelligence for the military. In 1940 it was founded as the Special Service of Intelligence (''Serviciul Special de Informații''), with Eugen Cristescu as director. Through the
communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
period, the service was used as an oppressive instrument against the anti-communists and people who opposed the government's official policies. The '' Securitate'' ("Security") was the political police that was involved in repressing dissent. During the Romanian Revolution, soon after taking power, Ion Iliescu signed the decree which integrated the Securitate into the Ministry of Defense, thus bringing it under his control. , the head of the Security, together with some of his deputies, were arrested on December 31, 1989; Iliescu named
Gelu Voican Voiculescu Gelu may refer to: People * Gelou, 10th-century leader of the Vlachs and Slavs in Transylvania * Gelu Barbu (1932–2016), Romanian-born Spanish ballet dancer and choreographer * Gelu Lisac (born 1967), Romanian water polo player * Gelu Radu (b ...
as the new head of the Securitate. 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. The press was informed (but not allowed to verify) that the equipment for tapping phones has been decommissioned.


Creation

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. Its creation occurred only a few days following the
ethnic clashes of Târgu Mureș The ethnic clashes of Târgu Mureș (also called ''Black March'', hu, Fekete Március) refer to violent incidents against the Hungarian ethnic group in Târgu Mureș and surrounding settlements in Transylvania, Romania in March 1990. The clash ...
, being quickly created through a decree. Its first director was
Virgil Măgureanu Virgil Măgureanu, (; born March 19, 1941) is a Romanian sociologist that was the head of the main intelligence service of Romania, Serviciul Român de Informații, or SRI (Romanian Intelligence Service) between March 26, 1990 and April 25, 1997 ...
. At that time, there were two other intelligence services:
UM 0215 UM 0215 (Military Unit 0215, colloquially known as ''Doi și-un sfert'', "Two and a quarter," or "Quarter past two") was a Romanian intelligence agency in the 1990s that was built upon the Bucharest branch of the Socialist Republic of Romania's Secu ...
and the Foreign Intelligence Service.


Securitate archives

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 in
Berevoești Berevoești is a commune in Argeș County, Muntenia, Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hunga ...
,
Argeș County Argeș County () is a county ('' județ'') of Romania, in Muntenia, with the capital city at Pitești. Demographics On 20 October 2011, it had a population of 612,431 and the population density was 89/km2. * Romanians – 97% * Roma (Gypsi ...
, after which they buried them with soil. The documents intended to be destroyed were discovered by locals and, a year later, a group of journalists began digging the decaying documents and the '' România Liberă'' newspaper published several of them, including information on dissidents, being not only Securitate, but also of the newly created SRI. This led to the adoption of a law on state secrets, which banned publication of any SRI documents. 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. The goal was to transfer all Securitate documents which "do not affect national security".


Involvement in the Mineriad

The extent of the involvement of the Romanian Intelligence Service in the violent repression of the 1990 anti-government protests has 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 of University Square. During the violence that followed, the protesters attacked the headquarters of the Romanian Intelligence Service with rocks and Molotov cocktails. The following days, miners brought by the government from the
Jiu Valley The Jiu Valley ( ro, Valea Jiului ) is a region in southwestern Transylvania, Romania, in Hunedoara county, situated in a valley of the Jiu River between the Retezat Mountains and the Parâng Mountains. The region was heavily industrialised and th ...
violently repressed the protesters (killing several people and wounding thousands) and destroyed the opposition parties' headquarters. According to a letter to President Iliescu drafted by then-Prime Minister Petre Roman, the whole repression was organized by the secret services under the leadership of Virgil Măgureanu using the network of the Securitate. 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. During the 2000s,
Virgil Măgureanu Virgil Măgureanu, (; born March 19, 1941) is a Romanian sociologist that was the head of the main intelligence service of Romania, Serviciul Român de Informații, or SRI (Romanian Intelligence Service) between March 26, 1990 and April 25, 1997 ...
, the head of the SRI at the time, has been investigated by prosecutors (together with other leaders including President Ion Iliescu) for several counts including genocide and torture, however they decided in 2009 not to charge him with any crime.


Phone tapping

In 1996, a former SRI employee,
Constantin Bucur Constantin is an Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian and Romanian male given name. It can also be a surname. For a list of notable people called Constantin, see Constantine (name). See also * Constantine (name) * Konstantin The first name Konstant ...
was the whistleblower who alerted the media that the Romanian Intelligence Service was performing illegal phone tappings of politicians, journalists and other public figures. Bucur was convicted for revealing top secret information, but he won a trial against the Romanian state after appealing at the European Court of Human Rights. 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 the Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Romanian Intelligence Service refused to collaborate with the European Court of Human Rights, arguing that its documents are state secrets."România plătește la CEDO telefoanele ascultate în țară"
Apador-CH, January 10, 2013
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. According to
Ilie Botoș Ilie is a Romanian name. It is both a masculine given name, cognate of Elijah, and a surname. The given name may refer to: * Ilie Antonescu, Romanian general * Ilie Baicu, Romanian football player * Ilie Balaci, Romanian football player * Ilie Bă ...
, a former Attorney General of Romania, between 1991 and 2003 the phones of 20,000 people have been tapped. Between 1991 and 2002, a number of 14,000 authorizations were given by the government for
national security National security, or national defence, is the security and defence of a sovereign state, including its citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of government. Originally conceived as protection against military atta ...
-related issues. Between 1996 and 2003 further 5500 authorizations were given related to organized and white-collar crime; out of these 5500 suspects, only 238 were convicted. For the year 2005, a number of 6370 phones belonging to 2373 people were tapped, the average tapping being of 220 days. In 2006, a new illegal wiretapping scandal erupted after transcripts of businessman
Dinu Patriciu Dan Costache ("Dinu") Patriciu (; 3 August 1950 – 19 August 2014) was a Romanian billionaire businessman and politician. At the time of his death, Patriciu was the richest man in Romania. His wealth was based on the Rompetrol company (the seco ...
's phone discussions with his associates were leaked to the press. Patriciu sued the Intelligence Service and won a compensation of 50,000 lei in 2011. A further case of potentially illegal wiretappings is the one of European Court of Human Rights judge
Corneliu Bîrsan Corneliu is a Romanian given name, derived from Latin '' Cornelius''. Corneliu may refer to: *Corneliu Baba * Corneliu Bogdan *Corneliu Calotescu *Corneliu Carp *Corneliu Chisu *Corneliu Ciontu *Corneliu Zelea Codreanu * Corneliu Codreanu (football ...
, 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.


Relationship with the press

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". An early controversy occurred in 1996, when Tana Ardeleanu (a journalist for '' Ziua'' who had published some articles about President Ion Iliescu) had been
shadowed ''Shadowed'', also known as ''The Gloved Hand'', is a 1946 American film noir crime film directed by John Sturges and starring Anita Louise, Lloyd Corrigan, and Robert Scott. Plot Salesman Fred J. Johnson manages to hit a hole-in-one as he p ...
by SRI agents. Amid press anger, SRI director
Virgil Măgureanu Virgil Măgureanu, (; born March 19, 1941) is a Romanian sociologist that was the head of the main intelligence service of Romania, Serviciul Român de Informații, or SRI (Romanian Intelligence Service) between March 26, 1990 and April 25, 1997 ...
admitted that SRI agents followed Ardeleanu and argued that the surveillance was a "mistake" and that the agents thought they were following two suspected spies. 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 had moles in the Romanian press arguing that it's not illegal. This claim has been quite controversial, as, according to
Cristian Tudor Popescu Cristian Tudor Popescu (; often referred to as CTP; born October 1, 1956) is a Romanian journalist, essayist, engineer, short-story writer and political commentator. Author of science fiction stories during his youth, he also hosted talk shows f ...
, journalists are not a threat to national security and, according to historian
Marius Oprea Marius Oprea (; born 1964) is a Romanian historian (specialized in recent history), poet and essayist. Born in Târgovişte, he studied history at the University of Bucharest and he has a PhD with a thesis on the role and evolution of the Co ...
, this leads to suspicions about whether the SRI has political police activities. The '' Jurnalul Național'' newspaper fired its editor-in-chief, Valentin Zaschievici, in August 2012, accusing him of being an infiltrated SRI agent, following the leak of some SRI documents by '' Cotidianul''. 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. 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.


Known operations

In March 2005, three Romanian journalists were kidnapped in Iraq by unknown abductors (later described as members of the Muadh ibn Jabal Brigades) in the Baghdad'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 a Bulgarian military attache, 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 to Russia or Ukraine. The Bulgarians have denied any connection with Zikolov. This has been one of the few espionage cases that have received media attention.


Programs


Integrated Information System

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 director Radu Timofte, who sent a request to the Supreme Council of National Defence (CSAT) led by President Ion Iliescu. The system has its activities based on
secret law Secret law refers to legal authorities that require compliance that are classified or otherwise withheld from the public. Secret law in the United States Since about 2015 the branches of the United States federal government have accused one anot ...
s that were not published in '' Monitorul Oficial''. 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. The public law does not include any kind of control mechanisms or ways to prevent abuses. 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. The names of the members of the Integrated Information System council and its headquarters are a state secret. Civil rights NGO 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 the Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The NGO lost the trial. In 2016, the SRI obtained a 25 million € EU financing for a project called ''SII Analytics.'' The project is financed by the e-government program of the EU, but parts of it such as "interception of communications" and "facial recognition" show that one of the goals is
surveillance Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as c ...
. The project includes a "good behavior" file for each citizen, which aggregates data from all government agencies. APADOR-CH argued that these citizen files can be used for nefarious purposes against some citizens (MPs, judges, prosecutors, businessmen, etc.).


National Alert System

The National Alert System (Sistemul Național de Alertă Teroristă in
Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania **Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language ***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language **Romanian cuisine, traditional ...
) is the Romanian terrorist barometer. SNA is a system that, based on existing intelligence from SRI, SIE and 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 the 2008 NATO Bucharest summit.


Resources


Personnel

The Romanian Intelligence Service is a
militarized Militarism is the belief or the desire of a government or a people that a state should maintain a strong military capability and to use it aggressively to expand national interests and/or values. It may also imply the glorification of the mili ...
institution, although it is not a part of the Romanian Armed Forces. The hierarchy from the service is defined by military ranks. The highest ranking employee has the rank of
general officer A general officer is an officer of high rank in the armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry. In some usages the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colonel."general, adj. and n.". OED O ...
(with four stars). Civilian personnel is composed mostly of accountants, IT and law specialists. The number of employees is classified. However, rumors about the number of employees exists. The newspaper ''
Adevărul ''Adevărul'' (; meaning "The Truth", formerly spelled ''Adevĕrul'') is a Romanian daily newspaper, based in Bucharest. Founded in Iași, in 1871, and reestablished in 1888, in Bucharest, it was the main left-wing press venue to be published dur ...
'' was able to find in 2006 an estimate of 12,000 agents, a figure confirmed by former SIE director Cătălin Harnagea. According to former DIE general
Ion Mihai Pacepa Ion Mihai Pacepa (; 28 October 1928 – 14 February 2021) was a Romanian two-star general in the Securitate, the secret police of the Socialist Republic of Romania, who defected to the United States in July 1978 following President Jimmy Carter' ...
, 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, leading to claims that Ceaușescu's police state has been incompletely dismantled and that the number of officers has actually increased since 1989. In an interview in " Jurnalul Naţional", George Maior denied the numbers Harnagea claimed, saying that the SRI has an estimated number of 3000 operative employees. According to Maior, the average salary in the service is 2500 RON (560 Eur), a salary above the average income in Romania. 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 the
recruitment Recruitment is the overall process of identifying, sourcing, screening, shortlisting, and interviewing candidates for jobs (either permanent or temporary) within an organization. Recruitment also is the processes involved in choosing individual ...
process. This process consists of background checks, medical exams, aptitude tests, personality tests,
physical fitness Physical fitness is a state of health and well-being and, more specifically, the ability to perform aspects of Outline of sports, sports, occupations and daily activities. Physical fitness is generally achieved through proper nutrition, moderate ...
tests and a paper exam (for example, a general knowledge test). The main gate to enter the intelligence service is the
National Intelligence Academy The National Intelligence Academy (Romanian: ''Academia Națională de Informații'') is a Romanian university run by the Romanian Intelligence Service intended to train intelligence officers. In its 20 years of existence, it had trained over 4000 ...
(''Academia Naţională de Informaţii „Mihai Viteazul'') from Bucharest.


The Anti-Terrorist Brigade

The Anti-Terrorist Brigade (
Brigada Antitero ''Brigada'' (russian: Бригада), also known as ''Law of the Lawless'', is a Russian 15-episode crime television miniseries that debuted in 2002. It became very popular in Russia and ex-Soviet countries as well as Eastern Europe, but receiv ...
), also known as ''BAT'' is SRI's
Special Actions Unit The Special Actions Unit ('','' Jawi: اونيت تيندق خاص), commonly known as and abbreviated to UTK is a tactical unit of the Royal Malaysia Police (RMP). The unit is headquartered at the RMP buildings in Bukit Aman, Kuala Lumpur. T ...
and the main
anti-terrorist unit Special forces and special operations forces (SOF) are military units trained to conduct special operations. NATO has defined special operations as "military activities conducted by specially designated, organized, selected, trained and equip ...
from Romania. Created during the mid `70s (as a response to the
1972 Munich Massacre The Munich massacre was a terrorist attack carried out during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, by eight members of the Palestinian people, Palestinian militant organization Black September Organization, Black September, who i ...
) under the name of ARTA, the unit has changed its name later into ''The Special Anti-Terrorist Unit'' (''USLA - Unitatea Specială de Luptă Antiteroristă''). Eight USLA members were killed during the Romanian Revolution in December 1989. The size of the brigade is
classified Classified may refer to: General *Classified information, material that a government body deems to be sensitive *Classified advertising or "classifieds" Music *Classified (rapper) (born 1977), Canadian rapper *The Classified, a 1980s American roc ...
, 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 An athlete (also sportsman or sportswoman) is a person who competes in one or more sports that involve physical strength, speed, or endurance. Athletes may be professionals or amateurs. Most professional athletes have particularly well-develo ...
, with excellent results in sports such as boxing,
karate (; ; Okinawan language, Okinawan pronunciation: ) is a martial arts, martial art developed in the Ryukyu Kingdom. It developed from the Okinawan martial arts, indigenous Ryukyuan martial arts (called , "hand"; ''tii'' in Okinawan) under the ...
,
rugby Rugby may refer to: Sport * Rugby football in many forms: ** Rugby league: 13 players per side *** Masters Rugby League *** Mod league *** Rugby league nines *** Rugby league sevens *** Touch (sport) *** Wheelchair rugby league ** Rugby union: 1 ...
, judo and other combat sports. Also, the brigade is providing security on all important airports from Romania and members of the brigade are working as air marshals on all Romanian flights.


Budget


References


External links

*
Official site
*
Chronology
* Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, * Balkanalysis.com
The Romanian Secret Services, Politics and the Media: a Strategic Overview
{{Authority control Government agencies established in 1990 1990 establishments in Romania Romanian intelligence agencies Domestic intelligence agencies