Belgian Intelligence SIGINT Operations

Abstract

This study allows a look at the conduct of the more intrusive aspects of intelligence collection by the relatively small but strictly regulated services of a parliamentary democracy. The research looks in detail at the signals intelligence and surveillance operations of Belgian intelligence for the period 2010-2016, as regulated by the so-called BIM-law, and the sigint conducted by military intelligence. Preceded by a historical background that sketches the genesis of the law allowing Belgium’s two intelligence services to use intrusive intelligence methods, an overview is provided of the amount of intrusive intelligence techniques applied, and placed before the threats at which they are directed, based on numbers by the parliamentary watchdog Standing Commmittee I. The accountability mechanisms governing the use of these methods is considered, along with legal and practical challenges that come with them, and the question of the results this type of intelligence collection yield.