The State Safety & Security Agency is the supreme public security apparatus. In 1973 political security responsibilities were transferred from the Ministry of Public Security to the State Security Department [also known as the State Political Security Agency], an autonomous agency reporting directly to the President. The Ministry of State Political Security was separated from the State Administration Council altogether in April, 1982 and renamed the State Security Agency. It was renamed the State Safety & Security Agency in early 1993.
The State Safety & Security Agency carries out a wide range of counterintelligence and internal security functions normally associated with "secret police." The Agency carries out duties to ensure the safety and maintenance of the system such as search for and management of anti-system criminals, immigration control, activities for searching out spies and impure and anti-social elements, collection of overseas information, and supervision over ideological tendencies of residents. It is charged with searching out antistate criminals--a general category that includes those accused of antigovernment and dissident activities, economic crimes, and slander of the political leadership. Camps for political prisoners are under its jurisdiction. It has counterintelligence responsibilities at home and abroad, and runs overseas intelligence collection operations. It monitors political attitudes and maintains surveillance of returnees. Agency personnel escort high-ranking officials. The Agency also guards national borders and monitors international entry points. The degree of control it exercises over the Political Security Bureaus of the KPA--which has representatives at all levels of command--is unclear.
Total personnel number some 50,000 persons. The State Safety & Security Agency is supervised by the director, and there are several deputy directors for organization, investigation, censorship, and other specialized responsibilities. There are state security bureaus in each province (or metropolitan area) and city (or county). Security staffers are stationed in the smallest municipalities, and are dispatched even to individual institutions and public corporations. The agency is likely under direct control of Kim Jong-il, as no one was selected to succeed the late director Lee Jin-soo after his death in Oct. 1987.