Formed 21 January 1993 | Annual budget 38 946 000 € (2011) | |
Preceding agency (Czechoslovak) Federal Security Information Service Jurisdiction territory of the Slovak republic Headquarters Vajnorská Street 39, Bratislava Motto Caret periculo, qui etiam cum est tutus cavet | ||
Slovenská informačná služba (English: Slovak Information Service, SIS) is an intelligence agency of the government of Slovakia. It was established on January 21, 1993 as a descendant of the Federálna bezpečnostná informačná služba (the intelligence agency of Czechoslovakia).
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Slovenská informačná služba is one out of three secret services in Slovakia, the other two being Vojenské spravodajstvo (VS) and Národný bezpečnostný úrad (NBÚ).
History
Slovenská informačná služba was established on January 21, 1993 as a descendant of the Federálna bezpečnostná informačná služba FBIS (the intelligence agency of Czechoslovakia). Its first director was Vladimír Mitro, who two years later asked the President of Slovakia to accept his resignation. Mitro later claimed that the reason for this was huge political pressure on him, especially the command to establish surveillance of certain journalists.
The government of Vladimír Mečiar then changed the law to give the permission to name the SIS director to itself, rather than the President of Slovakia. Mečiar then named Ivan Lexa the director of SIS. Under Lexa, SIS became internationally known for numerous controversies including the kidnapping of President's son to Austria and his light torture in 1995, the Assassination of Róbert Remiáš in 1996 and many more.
On 3 May 2012 President Ivan Gašparovič appointed Ján Valko to the post of Slovak Intelligence Service director, after Valko was nominated by Prime Minister Robert Fico and his candidacy was approved by the Slovak Government on 27 April 2012.
Tasks of SIS
The Slovak Information Service, as with similar agencies in other countries, serves the following purposes:
SIS also handles tasks usually reserved for the police force:
Moreover, SIS is supposed to protect civil rights in Slovakia.