engleski

Cooperation of law enforcement and intelligence agencies in prevention and suppression of terrorism – European perspective

Over the past decades the clear/classical distinction between prevention and repression shifted towards a more liberal and somewhat blurred interpretation in theory and practice, automatically affecting our understanding of the role intelligence and law enforcement communities play in this respect. Prevention in the sense of ensuring that a potential security threat does not develop into a real one, was meant to be the primary task of the intelligence community, whereas repression with its retributive and preventive (both special and general) task was ensured by the law enforcement community. As the perception of various security threats like organised crime, international terrorism, proliferation or drug trafficking changed through time, and due to the stiff administrative division and unsatisfactory cooperation between intelligence and law enforcement agencies, it was simply a matter of time until a turning point would be reached, where one should choose between the further evolution of uncoordinated intermingling and overlapping of law enforcement and intelligence or simply taking a few steps backward facing the strict distinction of the two, while ensuring transparent and coordinated cooperation. There are excellent arguments, both in favour and against each of these alternatives, leaving the final decision up to policymakers. Nevertheless, it seems unavoidable to open up a serious and overdue discussion on the above issue amongst experts in the security and counterterrorism field, for their findings will surely affect the whole decisionmaking process. Therefore this article aims at highlighting some of the major issues in the field of law enforcement and intelligence cooperation in response to terrorism from a European perspective. Recent developments towards creating an intelligence nucleus in the European Union’ s Joint Situation Centre (SitCen) indicate the possibility of an evolving European intelligence agency, possibly an intelligence counterpart to Europol and Eurojust, finally completing the basic triangle for European counterterrorism. For this could mark the beginning of a new era in terms of European security cooperation in counterterrorism. But the key issues in focus concern not only the question of interagency cooperation and analyses of the changing approach in law enforcement and intelligence agencies in their counterterrorism efforts, but also human rights and civil liberties concerns, especially related to privacy and data protection in the Council of Europe and European Union. Because, as we shall see, the constant intermingling between law enforcement and intelligence under the influence of a changing approach in criminal law has opened certain possibilities to law enforcement in counterterrorism that were previously reserved exclusively for the intelligence community, without the slightest chance for their outputs to be ever used in criminal proceedings before court. The intermingling and its effects on human rights and civil liberties could prove to be a far greater threat to modern western society than any terrorist group could ever hope for, as it feeds on the very fundaments of liberal society from within.

terrorism; prevention; surpression; law enforcement; intelligence agency

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