Annual Report 2011-2012
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REVIEW COMMITTEE ON THE INTELLIGEN C E AND SE C U R ITY SE R VI C E S (CTIVD) ANNUAL REPORT 2011-2012 The annual report covers the period that ended on 31 March 2012. Table of contents Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 5 Chapter 1. The reporting year in broad outline ...................................................................... 7 - General ................................................................................................................ 7 - In-depth investigations ......................................................................................... 7 - Sample monitoring .............................................................................................. 8 - Complaints .......................................................................................................... 9 - Working procedure of the Committee ............................................................... 10 - Regular contacts ................................................................................................. 11 Chapter 2. The use of Sigint by DISS ..................................................................................... 13 Chapter 3. GISS and holders of or candidates for political office ......................................... 15 Chapter 4. International contacts ......................................................................................... 17 Appendices: I. The Committee (background) ............................................................................ 19 II. Overview of review reports ................................................................................ 25 Review reports issued in the reporting year and available in English: III. Review report 28: the use of Sigint by DISS ........................................................ 29 IV. Review report 29: the official messages issued by GISS in the period October 2005 - May 2010 .............................................................111 3 4 CTIVD ANNUAL REPORT 2011-2012 Introduction In the year of 2011 there has been an understandable amount of looking back upon the events of 11 September 2001 and their aftermath. A recurring question was: how can we prevent such things from happening again? Are the intelligence and security services sufficiently equipped for the adequate performance of their tasks? Do they really know what is happening here and everywhere? The outbreak of what has come to be called the Arab Spring has made it abundantly clear how difficult it is to answer these questions. The collapse within a few months of the regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and subsequently also Libya can only be described as unforeseen. For the Dutch services these events meant that they had to adjust their areas of attention. North Africa had not been high on their agendas, but now it has clearly gained in importance moved up, partly as a result of the incident of the failed evacuation mission in Libya, which led to a Dutch helicopter crew being detained in that country for some time. Libya was also an affair that put the cooperation between DISS and GISS to the test. In this respect both services slipped up here and there. The authorities involved will undoubtedly draw lessons from these inadequacies. At the same time, the services naturally did not lose sight of what was happening in their own country and the possible influence of such happenings on national security. Throughout all these events the Committee has been on the alert to ensure that GISS and DISS would not exceed the limits of their lawful powers when performing their tasks. ‘Had not exceeded’ is probably more correct, since the Committee performs its oversight task in retrospect, although it aims at keeping as close a track of the services’ conduct as possible. In this connection it is proper to record that in general the conduct of GISS and DISS has borne the scrutiny of criticism very well. Where the Committee held the opinion that this was not the case, which the Committee has always reported in public documents, its criticism was taken 5 seriously. Although a proper distance must be maintained at all times between an oversight body and the agencies it reviews, the conclusion regarding the present reporting year is again that both services cooperated properly with the Committee wherever this was necessary. An important point in this connection is, that while it is not the Committee’s aim to teach the services a lesson, it does aim at ensuring that they go by the book. 6 Chapter 1 The reporting year in broad outline General The Review Committee for the Intelligence and Security Services (CTIVD, further referred to as: the Committee), reviews whether the intelligence and security services GISS and DISS perform their tasks lawfully. For this purpose the Committee conducts in-depth investigations resulting in review reports, where necessary with secret appendices; it follows certain activities of the services by sample monitoring; and it acts as complaints advisory committee in the case of complaints about the services. The Committee is an independent government body.1 The Committee is composed of three members. At present they are: - Mr. A.H. van Delden, chairman - Mr. E.T. van Hoorn, member - Ms. S.J.E. Horstink-von Meyenfeldt, member The Committee members all work part-time. Mr. N. Verhoeven terminated his work as secretary to the Committee and was succeeded in this capacity by Ms. H.T. Bos-Ollermann on 1 February 2012. During the reporting year two new review officers have taken office, so that the staff of the Committee is now composed of five review officers and an administrative adviser. In-depth investigations The Committee completed four in-depth investigations in the reporting year. Early in 2011 an attempt to evacuate a Dutch national from the Libyan port of Sirte failed. The helicopter crew and two evacuees were captured. When this came up for discussion in parliament, the Committee was asked to investigate the roles of GISS and DISS in the evacuation mission. In addition to issuing a letter to be used in the parliamentary debate in early 2011, the Committee presented the findings of its investigation in the autumn of 2011 in a review report on the roles of DISS and GISS in an evacuation mission in Libya (review report 27). 1 See appendix I for a more detailed account of the Committee. 7 For DISS, the use of signals intelligence (Sigint) is an important category of special powers. The Committee investigated the lawfulness of the use of Sigint. This resulted in a review report which describes the procedures followed by DISS and compares them to the parameters set by the law (review report 28, see §2 below and appendix III). In 2005 the Committee for the first time investigated the official messages sent by GISS to government agencies such as the Public Prosecution Service and the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (review report 9a, see www.ctivd.nl). In the present reporting year the Committee issued a report on its investigation of the official messages issued by GISS since that time. In addition to the official messages to the aforementioned recipients, the Committee also discussed the messages issued to the ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation and to the chairpersons of political parties, the person charged with forming a new government and the prime minister (review report 29, see §3 below, and appendix VI). The Committee regularly investigates to what extent GISS and DISS have implemented the recommendations made by the Committee in its review reports. In the reporting year the Committee issued a report on this subject with respect to DISS (review report 30a). A similar report has been drafted with respect to GISS, which will be issued in the course of 2012. In the reporting year the Committee made considerable progress with large-scale investigations into the cooperation between DISS and foreign intelligence and security services, the classification of state secrets by GISS and the official messages issued by DISS. The use made by GISS of the wiretapping power and the power to use Sigint is a subject of investigation by the Committee on an annual basis. The review report for the period September 2010 – August 2011 has been drafted and will be issued in the course of 2012. The investigation of the use of these powers since September 2011 is ongoing. Furthermore, the Committee has started a new investigation of long-term agent operations of GISS. The Committee has further announced that it will conduct a follow-up investigation of the performance by GISS of its obligation to notify. Sample monitoring The Committee aims at obtaining a wide understanding of the core activities of GISS and DISS. For this purpose it selects subjects which it monitors either systematically or occasionally by sample monitoring. If the Committee finds there is reason to do so, it reports its findings to the management of the service concerned, the responsible minister, or the parliament. Such sample monitoring can also lead to an in-depth investigation. In the reporting year the Committee used sample monitoring to examine how security screenings were carried out, official messages issued, and applications for inspection of files dealt with. 8 In the reporting year the Committee also started identifying the fields of activity of the two services to which it will pay greater attention in the near future. In addition, the Committee corresponded