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Concept
Swiss intelligence agencies
Summary
The Swiss intelligence community is a group of agencies with responsibilities to protect the interests and infrastructure of Switzerland.
The Federal Intelligence Service (FIS), the country's main intelligence agency, is governed by the Intelligence Service Act.
The first federal military secret service was established in 1937-1939 as Büro Ha by Hans Hausamann a few years before the outbreak of the Second World War. Up to that point, the resonsibility for intelligence gathering was left to the police.
Not much is known about the Swiss intelligence agencies; however, case files from the Swiss Federal Police have been recently uncovered showing information regarding Swiss intelligence dealing with the People's Republic of China. During this time period of approximately 1960-1980 Switzerland's main goal regarding intelligence was the threat of communism within the country. What was found in the case files, and one way they would combat communism is through the system of fiches. Fiches was a system of index cards that tracked any sort of anti-patriotic actions performed by anyone in Switzerland. The system seemed to be successful with a recorded 900,000 cards made during the Cold War, and about 25,000 cards made for people of Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese descent. The ultimate goal of fiches was to ward off any potential communist threats that might cause harm to Switzerland.
As of 1 January 2010, there is a new security policy instrument in Switzerland, the Federal Intelligence Service (FIS) (Nachrichtendienst des Bundes, NDB; Service de renseignement de la Confédération, SRC; Servizio delle attività informative della Confederazione, SIC; Servetsch da las activitads infurmativs da la Confederaziun, SIC). The new service was created by merging the Service for Analysis and Prevention (DAP) with the Strategic Intelligence Service (SND). Through the use of synergies and consistent adjustment to the needs of the service recipients a powerful intelligence service was created which is adapted to meet modern requirements and which forms the future contact for all levels of the Confederation and the cantons.
Official source
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