Analysis of the Openness of Intelligence Services Towards Public

Abstract

This paper analyses the openness of intelligence services to the public, as a sensitive social and security area of their existence and activities. By selecting intelligence services from significantly different systems, respectively the countries of Switzerland, Germany, Montenegro and Croatia, as the subject of research, this paper comparatively analyses the content of certain forms of communication between the services and the public, and in particular the Annual Reports on the work and structure of the related Internet (web) pages, the aim is to judge and assess the openness, or the closedness of the intelligence services to the public. By extracting and analysing nine elements (characteristics) as variables of openness of services to the public, the relationship between secrecy and transparency is problematized. From the budget transparency, organizational structure and ways of communicating with the public through public procurement and employment systems to annual reports and forms of civic control, a form for evaluation and comparison is structured as a kind of standardization of characteristics that allows comparability. Despite the limitations due to the nature and structure of the analysed documents and data, and methodological imperfection, it can be assessed that the Swiss Federal Intelligence Service -FIS and the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution –BfV (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz) are more open to the public than the Croatian Security Intelligence Agency -SOA (Sigurnosno-obavještajnaagencija) and German Federal Intelligence Service –BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst). It can also be assessed that the Montenegrin National Security Agency –ANB (Agencija za nacionalnu bezbjednost) is more closed to the public compared to other analysed services.