Intelligence Services’ Activity and the State System
The activity of the intelligence services is based on gathering, processing and subsequent distribution of information, depending on the needs of the state, in the field of internal and external security, in the field of national defence and relations with foreign countries and in the field of protection of national interests. The activity of intelligence services focuses on real as well as potential facts, situations and conditions which can occur within the country or abroad.
Intelligence services usually have special powers. They use specific intelligence methods. The requirements for national security and state protection are often in conflict with the entrenched concepts of privacy, civil liberties and civil rights that the state gives to its citizens. Democratic states have to find an agreement and balance between the above mentioned diverging interests in a politically and legally acceptable way. The extent of the governance of law shows the difference between democracies on the one hand and totalitarian and authoritarian countries and various pseudo-democracies on the other hand.
Source: Petr Zeman - lectures, trainings and public speeches