Title: Romanian Government Extends Foreign Intelligence Service Powers

Document Number: FBIS-EEU-2001-1203
Document Date: 03 Dec 2001
Sourceline: EUP20011203000152 Bucharest Evenimentul Zilei in Romanian 03 Dec 01
p 6
Language: Romanian
Subslug: Report by Nicoleta Savin and Ondine Ghergut: "SIE Limited"

[FBIS Translated Text]     Holiday Gifts From the Government to Spies

    The government has amended and completed an emergency ordinance
amending the law on the organization and functioning of the Foreign
Intelligence Service (SIE).   The ordinance, approved at the 21 November
government meeting, was published in Monitorul Oficial [Official Gazette]
on 29 November.   The most important amendments made to the law,
originally passed by parliament in 1998, refer to financing the SIE from
extra-budgetary sources and to the authority this service now has to
establish and use undercover companies.   The new regulations allow the
SIE to obtain funds -- which is praiseworthy considering the austere
budget -- but they do not say a word about controlling such operations.
In other words, the ordinance limits parliamentary control over the SIE
because it is almost impossible to check the use of funds that do not
come from the budget.   The new law offers the SIE extended powers in
intelligence gathering and in hiding its own activity from key state
institutions.

    Allowed To Make "Gray" Money

    The ordinance approved by the Adrian Nastase cabinet solves a severe
SIE problem -- financing.   The SIE has repeatedly complained of not
having sufficient funds, but lawmakers after 1990 never approved the use
of extra-budgetary funds.   The current government gave the green light
for using such sources, without mentioning them by name.   More, the
ordinance does not provide for any control over such operations.   In the
old law, SIE activity was financed out of the budget, and "the planning,
record-keeping, and use of the funds was established by the CSAT [Country
Supreme Defense Council]."   Beyond extra-budgetary sources, the
ordinance also provides for other ways of making money: the SIE can
receive and manage assets that are the state's public or private
property; it can rent these assets, depending on the political regime,
and retain one-half of the rent.   The ordinance does not say what
assets, and public or private property of the state, will be managed by
the SIE.

    Ghost Companies

    Two other dreams dating back to the time when the former DIE [Foreign
Intelligence Directorate] was transformed into the SIE have come true,
just before Christmas, for Gheorghe Fulga's [SIE director] boys.   The
new law gives them the explicit right to use undercover legal entities,
established under the law.   And, as if this was not enough, another
article says in black and white that "the SIE shall conduct economic
activities under the law."   Those activities will surely be profitable,
because another article covers the use of the funds thus obtained: "The
money obtained from such activities and not spent shall be carried into
the following year."   In other words, they expect profits to exceed
expenditures, so the SIE is allowed to save money.

    State Institutions To Take Exams With the SIE

    Before this ordinance, the SIE had the right to request and obtain,
under the law, information, data, and documents from individuals and
legal entities only.   The new statute expands that area to all levels of
society, namely, "Romanian public authorities, economic agents, other
legal entities, and other individuals."   At the same time a new article
was introduced, according to which "the regulations in force on
transmitting to other institutions nominal record-keeping or statistical
data and information shall apply in the case of the SIE only to the
extent that supplying such data will not trigger the disclosure of
actions, locations, and personnel."   Therefore, the SIE cooperates with
other institutions now and then.   As for the rest, good times are in
store for the SIE: upon a proposal of the SIE director and with CSAT
approval, SIE officers can be engaged in concrete operations and
cooperation with partner services abroad, its civilian employees are
considered civil servants, and SIE may train its personnel in military or
civilian institutions abroad.

[Description of Source: Bucharest Evenimentul Zilei in Romanian --
popular, privately owned daily; known for investigative journalism and
criticism of the political establishment without regard to political
orientation]