Skip to main content

Finland: Rushing Intelligence

Finland: Rushing Intelligence

Finnish government presented a bill for the nations first law governing intelligence issues. The government is attempting to rush the law, that requires amending the constitution, as an urgent one. It’s very uncommon to rush constitutional changes in one parliamentary term. To pass, such a law has to be accepted by 5/6 of the parliament.
Although Finland was famous for its ability to gather and break Soviet and Russian communications all the way from World War 2 up until the late 1990’s, there hasn’t been a law that would allow either the military or the Suojelupoliisi (Finnish counter-intelligence) to conduct online surveillance or information gathering operations abroad.
Finnish signal intelligence working under Lenin’s nose
The Finnish Defense Forces have been restricted to traditional signal intelligence on the radio transmissions that reach Finnish territory. These restrictions have severely hampered the Finnish intelligence community as most of the Russian armed forces’ day to day communications are now network-based and radio communications are only used when the troops are on the march. This type of intelligence gathering can only warn about imminent enemy activity and any strategic decisions and preparations are left in the dark. Naturally this type of SIGINT is utterly useless against non-state actors such as ISIS, that rely solely on online communications.
Both the FDF and Suojelupoliisi have asked for online surveillance and intelligence gathering rights for a long time. It’s a well-known fact that ex-President Halonen and ex-FM Tuomioja strongly opposed any new powers to either the FDF or the Police. The same dynamic duo is also responsible for pushing Finland to sign the disastrous Ottawa mine ban treaty.
The new intelligence law will give the Suojelupoliisi and the military intelligence authorization to intercept, break open and read confidential electronic communications, hack devises to use them for audio and video surveillance, install audio and video surveillance equipment and use undercover operatives etc. These powers can be used against individuals and groups if there is suspicion of dangerous activities such as terrorism or espionage.
In the case of individuals the intelligence agencies must seek a court order to initiate the surveillance, with only some short term exceptions. The general rule is that the targets must be informed about the surveillance when it ends. But there are national security related exceptions to that.
Military intelligence will be allowed to freely conduct surveillance and intelligence gathering against state actors (that would be Russia and their cronies). No court order is needed to initiate military intelligence operations. The Finnish Defense Forces will be required to report to the local police if they come across serious crimes during their surveillance.
Both the military intelligence and Suojelupoliisi will be forced to destroy without reading any unintentionally intercepted material. This will be enforced by a separation of intelligence gathering and analysis personnel.
In order to protect civil rights the parliament will establish an intelligence committee and an intelligence ombudsman. Both will be given open access to intelligence operations and both Suojelupoliisi and the military intelligence will be under a strict parliamentary supervision.
Most political parties in the parliament agree that an intelligence law is needed as they see the risks posed by the increased Russian activity and frequent ISIS inspired terrorist attacks in Europe. As Finland got sandwiched by the Saint Petersburg and Stockholm attacks within a week, most MP:s have opened their eyes. The main, thinly veiled opposition comes from thepro-Russian elements within the Social Democrats and from some leftists and Greens, who oppose the increased spending on military and law enforcement. Some privacy concerns have been voiced by individual parliamentarians.
The proposed intelligence law is quite balanced on how it treats the individual citizens, it gives wide powers to the intelligence services, but those services will be brought into closer parliamentary control and the judicial system will have a lot say over the implementation of the law into real world intelligence practices. Current geopolitical situation with an aggressive Russia practicing fast mobilizations of its armed forces on a regular basis and where the time window from the first observable troop movements into an invasion have shrunk from weeks to mere days or hours the Finnish army and decision makers need all the information they can acquire.

Comments

  1. I am glad you take pride in what you write. This makes you stand way out from many other writers that push poorly written contentfriv jogos online
    jogos online 2019
    friv jogos 4 school online

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Quick guide to identifying the Russian tanks Part 1: Updated Dec. 2021

  As most of the western nations have reduced their inventories to a few or mostly one type of main battle tank model in their active inventories, the myriad of tank platforms and distinct versions employed by the Russian armed forces may feel overwhelming. Here is a quick guide to identifying Russian MBTs. When you come across an image (or the actual thing), follow the steps to identify it properly. Updated 15.12.2021: T-90 modifications Family of the tank Russian Armed Forces currently operates, or at least storage, the following tank platforms/families: -            T-55 (<2000 in storage) -            T-62 (2000 in storage) -            T-64 (2000 in storage) -            T-72 (2000 active duty, 8000 in storage) -            T-80 (2000 active duty, 5000 in storage) -            T-90 (350 active duty, 600  in storage) -            T-14 (20 in field testing) So how can you identify what type of a tank are you looking at? There are two features that can be used to distinguishing th

The Russian ”Tank Circus”

The Russian media has published several articles about the latest round of live fire drills by the Russian tank forces. The first brief mentions caught my attention as they described a new tank tactic based on the experiences of the Russian expeditionary force in Syria.  T-72B1 at Pogonovo (Photo: © RIA Novosti / Andrey Stanavov) The details about the new tactic were scarce but there were mentions of continuous movement and a steady barrage of main gun fire. On 4th of July, the RIA published an in depth article about the 20th combined Arms Army’s field training of the new tactics (Translated to English by Sputnik ) The “Tank Carousel” is simply a drill in which a tanks of a formation, be it a platoon or a company, move around a set perimeter firing the from vantage points or openings in a berm and then move off to safety while another one moves in to the same spot to fire.  This does allow the unit to maintain sustained 125 mm tank gun fire at a target area. Another

Russian Tanks 2022: Thicker and Blinder

  Since the all out invasion of Ukraine the Russian army has lost at least 1700 tanks. This has caused the Russian army some supply problems, when they are re-forming their mauled units. Fighting has also revealed the need for upgrades on most of the Russian tank designs. The most obvious issues with the existing Russian tank fleet are the insufficient armor protection, the lack of reverse mobility and the vulnerability of the automatic loaders and their ammunition carousels. Although the last one has gifted us the sport of Turret Throwing. T-72B obr 2022 tanks Very little can be done for the mobility with the limitations of the existing transmissions and the autoloaders can’t really be replaced with better designs or human loaders either. The armor part on the other hand can be improved during the activation and refurbishment of the deep stored Soviet-era tanks. The first new design that appeared in the battlefield was an upgraded T-72B3 with additional armo,r mimicking the T-90M layo