Showing posts with label totalitarian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label totalitarian. Show all posts

19 June 2007

About some of that time-travelling we're experiencing in Poland

Our deputy PM and Minister of education, notoriously infamous Roman Giertych decided to skip 20th century in his effort to immerse Poland in the darkness of the middle ages as he moves us straight to the era of penny black and Otto von Bismarck.

A new boys-only class is being formed in an elementary school in Świdnik. I wouldn't care much about that except that it's happening in a public school. Wonder whether those boys will also wear uniforms. Pupils were supposed to wear uniforms in Poland until the fall of communism. Even I had to wear it for a year. It was a smart way by country leaders to make some of the ground-school pupils into dissidents. Now, after 17 years our Minister of Education is encouraging schools to mandate children to wear them again. Combined with re-introduction of boys or girls-only classes it will surely erase the problem of drugs, violence and atheism in Polish schools.

For a whole collection of articles about uniforms in schools click here.

15 June 2007

CBA can blackmail their informers during the recruitment process

CBA agents can shut their eyes to crimes committed by their informants, but also force the unwilling to secretly collaborate by using blackmail - the Dziennik Daily newspaper has found out.

'If CBA's operational instruction gives them such powers, it is a pathology' said general Adam Rapacki, former chief of Polish police.

The question on the contents of this secret CBA instruction has been posed yesterday on a hearing by Parliamentary Commission on Secret Services. The CBA chief Mariusz Kamiński reassured that the instruction does comply with law.

'CBA does not break the principles of a democratic state of law; the secret operational instruction does exist, however there is nothing in it that would breach these principles', he said.

According to Dziennik's interlocutors the possibility to use "incriminating materials" in order to recruit new informers is given to CBA's agent by a secret document - Operational Work Instructions. 'This a collection of techniques that can be used. It does not forbid the use of blackmail, it even encourages it. Also during the trainings we are told that we can use "hooks" to recruit informers' - explains one of Dziennik's interlocutors. His revelations have been confirmed by Dziennik at two other sources, including a high ranking official dealing with security of the state. What does the use of incriminating materials for recruiting process mean in practice?

'It can mean various things. The most banal example is when a drunk driver gets his driving license back [in return for information -- transl.]. But much more serious combinations can arise.' He provides an example: knowing that a physician performs illegal abortions, CBA agents can propose a deal to him. They commission him a task of luring another doctor into a trap by asking him to assist in an illegal surgery.

'And the next physician is taken to the CBA's office where he is provided with a deal: you will inform on your colleagues and you won't go to prison for participating in an abortion.'
another interlocutor adds.

The CBA chief communicated to MPs yesterday that he cannot reveal the contents of the instruction, because it's classified by law. However this issue will remain ongoing. 'I can say that we will ask the minister coordinator to provide [us -- transl.] with this operational instruction. The use of such methods is unacceptable' - says ex-Minister of Internal Affairs, Civic Platform MP [and member of Parliamentary Commission on Secret Services -- transl.].

An ex-UOP chief and former Minister of Internal Affairs, Krzysztof Kozłowski simply says: 'Polish Secret Service did not have such possibilities since Służba Bezpieczeństwa [communist internal intelligence agency and secret police -- transl.]'. Biernacki reminds that there is a proposed bill on operational work techniques, common to all intelligence agencies, but he says that government is blocking all progress. As we found out, the Ministry for Internal Affairs already sees it necessary to create a single legislation. 'It would end all the pathologies in the secret services. I don't think that the openness of the techniques would harm the work of the officers. Just watch a good spy film to see everything' Rapacki thinks.

Author - Robert Zieliński