Editorial: who holds the bag for a spy gone bad?

Photo: Urmas Nemvalts

Let’s face it: agencies of the classified kind will never have absolute immunity towards traitors, connivers and crooks. Which will not spell automatic indulgence for politicians regarding intelligence bodies – we wash our hands! Quite the contrary! Intelligence and other defence activities serve the most vital of state interests. Goes without saying that political powers take an interest in data collection, legal protection, and national defence which must both formally and legally lie under the control and guidance of the bearer of supreme state power.

Defence is the primal, primeval function of a state (and of any village community, in fact). The basic issue is: how to strike a balance between civil checks and defence activities? In this parliamentary Estonia of ours, as errors surface, inquisitive eyes should turn towards the Riigikogu and security authorities supervisory committee. We expect answers with substance. And we can’t help but ask, who will answer for possible faults in the system.

Four Estonian intelligence cadres are under suspicion of crime. See how the comments by Prime Minister, defence minister, and other politicians revolve around the issue if the message may be interpreted as good or bad – the case is bad, its discovery good.

Even with traitors found out, we have heard it harped that it (i.e. the discovery) shows the strength of Estonia. On a platter, we are offered the question and then the option of two answers (good/bad). In their moral assessment towards treason, thievery or corruption, politicians might just as well stand as one; let’s notice, however, that the questions are not limited to the above.

For starters: allegedly, it is the custom (in many large nations) to solve crimes in intelligence and counter-intelligence so that the public will never even know. Now, asking why Estonia has recently had numerous cases of treason (or at least things criminal) in classified agencies come public, at least theoretically we ought to consider several interpretations. Not totally excluded that like offences have been discovered before – they just never became public (for whatever reason). 

Clearly, Estonian state has opted for the (untraditional) path of publishing crimes in security agencies. The strength, here, would be that as democratic and public control over classified agencies is limited by definition and trust thus worth gold, the values and conscience of employees at such agencies are extremely important.

The fact that monkey business under guise of state secrets will not remain a dirty insider issue of Estonian intelligence is worthy of praise. It’s not just the abstract value of disclosure as such, only; obviously, the path chosen bears an impact on the very future of intelligence and counter-intelligence agencies. As control for various reasons is time-consuming, complex and expensive, it seems good to invest in the inevitability of public condemnation – any time anyone breaks the agreed rules.