Marincea (SRI): Distorting figures does not have desired effect on SRI determination to fulfill missions

Distorting some figures does not have the desired effect on the determination of the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI) to fulfill its missions, but on the state of mind of citizens, the spokesperson of the SRI, Ovidiu Marincea, said in a press statement on Friday.

"The SRI believes that the taking over and distortion of some information, figures, erroneous facts does not have the desired effect on the determination of the Service to fulfill its legal missions, but one that is more profound on the state of mind of citizens, which can have graver effects on the state of national security. The SRI Director, Eduard Hellvig, wishes to assure our internal and external partners that the SRI remains committed in its missions to preserve national security in a fair relation to all partners and the civil society and in the service of Romanian citizens. We state our determination to continue correct and institutional cooperation with the Parliamentary Control Committee on the SRI's activity," Marincea said.

He mentioned that on Thursday the mass media was rife with three unofficial figures. "We have received several requests from you, from the media to explain those numbers, but I believe it's the role of those issuing them to explain them, as on behalf of SRI, nobody has send those numbers through any address to any institution. The first figure, 311,000 mandates and authorizations in total. I mention that the SRI has not sent any address to the Parliamentary Committee in which this figure is mentioned. I, as a spokesperson, have heard of this figure, I saw it in a study online on blog in Cluj. The second figure - an average of 20 persons listened to on one mandate. The Chairman of the Parliamentary Control Committee on the SRI's activity stated that, in his belief and that of the commission, of the total mandates for national security interspersed with those for normal crimes there were, I quote, on average, 20 persons listened to on one mandate. It is an inaccurate average, if we take into account that in most SRI mandates, for example, we have one or two persons on the mandate. The third figure is 6 million Romanians listened to. This figure is the result of multiplying an inexact coefficient with an unofficial figure from a blog," Marincea stated.

He said that the data that the SRI has made available to the Control Committee on the SRI's activity since November 2017 were also publicly relayed in the press release of the SRI remitted on Thursday, namely that in the 11.12.2004 - 16.02.2016 the total number of national security mandates (initial, extensions, completions) requested by the SRI was of 28,784, and of those, initial mandates were 9,292.

He mentioned that he is making this statement not as a reply to someone, but because it involves the SRI's responsibility towards its citizens, towards its internal and external partners.

Chairman of the Parliamentary Control Committee on the SRI's activity, Claudiu Manda, stated, on Thursday, that over six million people were listened to in the 2005-2016 period, as he read in a report elaborated by the Committee.

"One of the conclusions of the Committee's report is that the restraining of rights and liberties of citizens, guaranteed by the Constitution, was made on a large scale, using abusively those legal instruments that are national security mandates, technical surveillance mandates or authorizations for technical supervision set down by prosecutors. (...) In the context in which one surveillance mandate, as we have seen and have heard in the Committee, can contain an average of 20 persons or spaces listened to, we can assume that there were more than 6 million persons listened to in this entire period," Claudiu Manda said.