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]