Govt to table draft intelligence law this autumn

The government is drafting an intelligence law aimed at improving the state’s protection capabilities against serious national security threats.

The bill in this regard will be placed before parliament during the current autumn session, said an official press release.

The threats include terrorism, espionage by foreign states or disruption of critical infrastructure.

The purpose of the intelligence legislation is to enable effective information-gathering on these threats, and in this way to support the decision-making of the state leaders. Another aim is to ensure that decisions are based on accurate, reliable and up-to-date information.

An interior ministry working group is tasked with drafting the civilian intelligence legislation focused on the duties and powers of the Finnish Security Intelligence Service.

The work is being closely coordinated with the legislative projects of the defence ministry on military intelligence and of the justice ministry on the possible amendments to the constitution.

The justice ministry is also designing a project on the oversight of intelligence gathering.

The ministries aim to submit these legislative proposals to parliament during the current autumn session.

The proposal for legislation on civilian intelligence is considered necessary and worth supporting. Most of the 65 parties that commented on the report on civilian intelligence published last April were of this opinion.

The consultation round for the proposal closed in June, and a summary of the received comments was published on Thursday.

The civilian intelligence legislation has sparked much public debate following a knife attack in Turku that is being investigated as a terrorist act.

In this context, there have been discussions on amending the Constitution of Finland in an expedited procedure.

The events that took place in Turku, however, have not been the reason for expediting the amendment to the constitution; the need to amend the constitution in an expedited procedure was recognised by public officials during the preparation phase well before the Turku attack, said the press release.