Difference between revisions of "Central Security Office (Kingdom of Italy)"

Latest revision as of 07:42, 15 June 2020

The Central Security Office (Italian: Ufficio Centrale di Sicurezza, U.C.S.) is a National Fascist Party body with Public Security functions. The organization's stated duty is to fight all political enemies of the Fascist Regime and provide coordination of the various law enforcement joint bodies.

The main instrument the U.C.S. operates through is O.V.R.A., tasked with the protection of the Regime and the carrying out of independent intelligence service. Its activities include intelligence-gathering, political-criminal investigation, overseeing foreigners, monitoring public opinion.

The Central Security Office is a functional body of the M.V.S.N. and as such subordinate to the Commandant General of the M.V.S.N. With regards to law enforcement responsibilities, the U.C.S. is subordinate also to the Director-General of Public Security.

Police and intelligence

There is a threefold logic underlying domestic intelligence: a classic logic of intelligence turned toward the interior of the national space (addressed to by the O.V.R.A. Internal Situation Division of the First Central Directorate); a police logic (i.e. intelligence activities being part of the policeman’s work) and a judicial logic. Because hostile acts detected by the intelligence service are likely to be qualified as crimes and offences, they are normally intended to be transmitted to justice. In particular, domestic intelligence consists of collecting, analyzing, and producing intelligence related to the security of the state.

These missions include uncovering and countering terrorism, espionage, sabotage, subversion, political, ethnic and religious dissent and extremism, organised crime, narcotics production and trafficking, money counterfeiting and laundering, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, illegal arms dealing, arms, human, contraband and other smuggling, unauthorised immigration, electronic and cyber attacks, hacking and data theft, and dissemination of pornography, etc. Missions other than counterrorism (shared by all Italian domestic intelligence bodies) are primarily assigned to one or another intelligence service. In order to deal with terrorism, Italy has a nuanced, unified, and intelligent counterterrorism response. In this response, police forces and intelligence services play a crucial role in domestic intelligence, the security of populations, and threat prevention.

The role of law enforcement in intelligence encompasses criminal intelligence, counter intelligence, and countering terrorism. With the development of the terrorist threat, police forces play fully their role in domestic intelligence. In particular, the mission of law enforcement intelligence is to prevent or mitigate crimes, threats and attacks from reaching fruition. This mission requires certain knowledge to be available to law enforcement — such as information on the criminal actors along with their motives, methods and targets. Owing to the proximity of law enforcement and local populations, law enforcement can have broad access to a large network of human intelligence.

Organization

Organizational chart of the public security establishment in the Kingdom of Italy.

The Central Security Office is divided into 15 offices and Directorates:

• Personnel and Organization Office
• Administration, Law, and Finance Office
• Archives and Propaganda Office
  • Central Political Records
• O.V.R.A. Liaison office - Internal political surveillance
• O.V.R.A. Liaison office - External political surveillance
• O.V.R.A. Liaison office - Leaders protection
• G.N.R. Liaison office - Internal Troops
• P.S. Liaison office - Political issues
• G.R.d.F. Liaison office - Financial issues
• Central Anti-drugs Directorate
• Central Anti-Mafia Investigative Directorate
• Central Directorate for Personal Security
• Central Directorate for Protection of Strategic Industrial Sites
• General Inspectorate for action against terrorism
• Political Confinement Office
• Special Court for State Security

All central offices and directorates, with the exception of the liaison offices, are directed by M.V.S.N. officers with specific skills in that field; internal subdivisions of each Directorate - which constitute the hearth of the operational activities - are directed by senior officers (or officials) of all police and security organizations involved.

G.N.R. Internal Troops

The internal troops are the main National Royal Guard force and they are functionally subordinated to the Central Security Office. They are used to support and reinforce the Public Security instrument, deal with large-scale crowd control, internal armed conflicts, maximum-security prison guard and safeguarding of highly-important facilities like nuclear power plants. During wartime, the G.N.R. Internal Troops falls under Armed Forces command and fulfil the missions of local defence and rear area security.
Internal Troops belong to the National Royal Guard and consist of the 18 "M" Battalions, the "M" Marines Regiment "San Giorgio" and the special forces units. They are operationally directed by the Director General of the Central Security Office.

Central Anti-Mafia Investigative Directorate

The Central Anti-Mafia Investigative Directorate (Direzione Centrale Investigativa Antimafia, Di.C.I.A.) is an investigative body, established in 1993 within the Central Security Office, with mono-functional competence, consisting of specialized personnel coming from all security and police forces, with the sole task of ensuring the application, in a coordinated manner, of preventive investigations relating to organized crime, as well as the subsidiary task of carrying out criminal investigations relating exclusively to Mafia. In particular, the preventive investigations are aimed at defining the structural mafia connotations and connections objectives and operating procedures, both at domestic and international level. The Directorate is the investigative arm of the National Anti-Mafia Directorate, headed by the National Anti-Mafia Prosecutor, who in turn depends on the Prosecutor General at the Court of Cassation.
The Directorate is headed by a Director, selected in rotation among the Inspectors General (Rank V) of Public Security, the General Officers of the Royal Guard of Finance and the General Officers of the M.V.S.N. who have gained specific experience in the field of combating organized crime. For the exercise of its functions, the Director uses two Deputy Directors who are responsible, respectively, for overseeing operational activities and administrative ones. The central support structure is composed of:

• Cabinet Division;
• Department I - "Preventive Investigations"
• Department II - "Judicial Investigations"
• Department III - "International Relations"
• Department IV - "Strategic analysis"

The Di.C.I.A. also makes use of a peripheral system, structured on twelve Operational Centres and seven Detached Sections that, through a clearly defined boundary system, have jurisdiction over the entire national territory.

Central Directorate for Personal Security

The entity responsible for the personal security is the Minister of the Interior, who performs his functions through the Central Security Office. In turn, the U.C.S. internal structure is the Central Directorate for Personal Security (Italian: Direzione Centrale per la Sicurezza Personale, Di.Ce.S.P.).
Its functional area of responsibility relates to the preservation and protection of eminent persons (both for institutional and political reasons) both domestic and foreign, as well as persons who are subject to hazards or threats, in the person of his or her family. Outside of the high political personalities, the dangers which the Central Directorate must respond to are of a terrorist nature or related to organized crime, drug trafficking, arms trafficking or radioactive material trafficking. Finally, the Central Directorate is responsible to avoid the dangers related to activities of foreign intelligence. The Central Directorate may also adopt measures to arrange flights to ensure the safety of the leading figures or other persons subject to dangers or threats.
The special tasks of the Central Directorate include the collection and analysis of all the information related to personal situations at risk that O.V.R.A., the Military Information Service, the judiciary, the police and security forces and the Militia are required to provide, taking care also connections with the provincial offices. The Directorate also deals with the services and personnel strategic and operational planning, technical training of personnel employed in the security services and the check of the special tools used for protection services and their supervision. Finally, the Central Directorate also provides the activation of the procedures of emergency.
The Central Directorate is a partial exception to the general leadership and composition rule: it is headed by a Prefect of 2nd Class, a Major General of the Royal Police Corps or a Consul General of the M.V.S.N. The head-quarters personnel can be assigned to the Central Directorate from all State administrations and corps, from all security forces, both Party and State ones, while the security services and surveillance are carried out from specialized offices and units of Public Security or the Militia.
For reasons of exceptional and temporary nature, drivers of vehicles in use at high personalities may be granted the powers and the functions of Agent of Public Security, in order to allow the performance of a more effective action to prevent and protect the life of these personalities. Drivers appointed Agents of Public Security are allowed to use in vehicles conducted siren and revolving blue light beacon.

Central Advisory Commission

The Central Advisory Commission (It: Commissione Consultiva Centrale) is a body of the Central Directorate; the Commission, at the request of the Director, provides its opinion on the adoption, modification and revocation of protection measures and surveillance, as well as on all other matters, related to measures of protection and supervision, that the Director deems to submit.
The Central Directorate uses the Commission for the adoption of protective and supervision measures. The Commission is chaired by the Director of the Central Directorate itself, and is composed of one representative from each of the police forces involved, a representative of the O.V.R.A., a representative of the Militia, a representative of the Military Information Service, and three representatives of the National Fascist Party.

Peripheral organization

Any measure taken by the Director is communicated to the Prefect and Quaestor of the province affected by the execution of the decision adopted. In every Prefecture, as part of the Sixth Division, operates the Provincial Office for Personal Security, responsible for collection and preliminary analysis of information related to personal situations at risk, as well as information connections with the Central Directorate. The Office makes use of the police forces in the province (Public Security and others), M.V.S.N. and officers specifically designated and appointed. The Prefect convenes and presides special coordination meetings, with the participation of the Quaestor, the commanders of the other police forces that may be present in the Province, the M.V.S.N. Commander and the official in charge of the Office for Personal Security. It can also be called on the Federal Secretary of the P.N.F.
The Prefect, relying upon data collected and on coordination meetings, makes recommendations to the Central Directorate.

Central Directorate for Protection of Strategic Industrial Sites

In Italy, goods and facilities protection varies according the owner and the status of the goods and facilities. Private, non-strategic goods and facilities are protected by the private security agencies, regulated by the Directorate-General of the Public Security and by the local Prefectures. If the industrial facilities are of strategic importance, they are protected by the Central Directorate for Protection of Strategic Industrial Sites (It.: Direzione Centrale per la Protezione di Siti Industriali Strategici, Di.Ce.Pro.S.I.S.) regardless their ownership. However, it is unlikely that such facilities are of private (i.e. non-IRI) ownership. The Directorate was separated from the Labour Militia in 1979.
The tasks of the Directorate are ensuring the protection of the specially designated workplace and keeping from entering their premises by unauthorized persons, the protection of such special workplaces from unauthorized filming, photographing, sketching and possible acts of sabotage and subversion, the protection of the workplace from public order disturbances, against damage, theft and robbery, including during transportation and handling. The Directorate has investigative/criminal intelligence tasks and duties; the external and perimetral surveillance duties are often entrusted to territorial M.V.S.N./C.P.R./C.C. units, while the site surveillance is carried out by the Directorate's personnel. Personnel of the Central Directorate for Protection of Strategic Industrial Sites has the right to identify persons within the workplace premises, conduct searches, stop a person caught in the act or suspected of having committed a crime in the workplace and all other powers entrusted to the agents and to the officers of public security. The Directorate must work in cooperation with units of fire protection and civil defence, must keep informed the Public Security and, through the Public Security, the judicial authority of of crimes and offences occurring on the premises. The Directorate personnel must therefore cooperate with all other security organs.
The Directorate is headed by a Director, selected among the Inspectors General (Rank V) of Public Security and the General Officers of the M.V.S.N. who have gained specific experience in the field. For the exercise of its functions, the Director uses two Deputy Directors who are responsible, respectively, for overseeing operational activities and administrative ones. The central support structure is composed of:

• Cabinet Division;
• Department I - "Preventive Investigations"
• Department II - "Judicial Investigations"
• Department III - "Field Operations"

Special Court for State Security

The Special Court for State Security (It: Tribunale Speciale per la Sicurezza dello Stato) is a special court of the Fascist Regime, competent to judge crimes against the security of the state and the regime, in order to conciliate security needs and respect of the rule of law. The Special Court is responsible for the punishment of a series of offences "against state security" and the reconstruction of dissolved associations, organizations or parties, anti-national propaganda activities abroad, terrorism, theft of public money and possession of explosives, if it is linked to a political reason. In war, the Special Court has other fields of jurisdiction, such as treason, espionage, fraud and breach of military supplies, or political offences such as association or subversive or anti-national propaganda committed by the military.
The state security courts (Courts+Presidency Council) is fully part of the regular court system. The Special Court as a whole has the power to warn, admonish, and convict the political defendants deemed dangerous to public order and security of the Regime: the Special Court operates according to the rules of the Military Penal Code of War.
The defence is only allowed after the indictment and the accused may be assisted by one defender, chosen from among the officers on duty at the court or among lawyers exercising their profession. However, the Sectional President at the request of the prosecutor can exclude the assistance of non-military defence, in cases where it deems it necessary for the public interest. In the proceedings before the Special Court is not allowed bail.
The right to appeal a conviction in state security courts is limited to procedural grounds and with special limitations. Against its judgements, the appeal to the Presidency Council is allowed within thirty days from the publication of the case motivations; against President Council decisions, appeal to the Supreme Court of Cassation is allowed only under special circumstances.

Composition

The Court is unique throughout the state, but operates in five sections geographically determined. Each Section consists of:

• A President, chosen among the general officers of the National Royal Italian Army, National Royal Italian Navy, National Royal Italian Air Force, Royal Police Corps (or other police corps with military status) and the Voluntary Militia for National Security, in permanent active duty and with proved competence in legal matters;
• Five judges, chosen among officers of the M.V.S.N. having the rank of Consul in permanent active duty and with proved competence in legal matters;
• An Amicus Curiae, without voting rights, chosen among the staff of military justice.

The Presidency Council (Consiglio di Presidenza) consists of the Prime President, appointed by the Duce of Italy, and of all five sectional Presidents.

See also

• Administration of Public Security (Italy)
• Chief of Police of the Kingdom of Italy
• Coast Guard (Kingdom of Italy)
• Corps of Penitentiary Police (Kingdom of Italy)
• General-Inspector of the Militarized Police Corps (Kingdom of Italy)
• Intelligence and Security Organization (Kingdom of Italy)
• Law enforcement in the Kingdom of Italy
• Royal Carabinieri
• Royal Police Corps (Kingdom of Italy)
• National Fascist Party (Kingdom of Italy)
• M.V.S.N. (Kingdom of Italy)