:: What the Service Do

In the past, the activities of the services were mainly characterized to support the military needs: it was necessary for every State to gather information on the activities of other States. There were various reasons for this: to reduce their defensive capability, to limit their independence and supremacy, or to disturb and break their alliances with other States.
Today this intelligence activity has expanded considerably. Its scope has undergone a substantial transformation and today it includes terrorist groups, both national and international, as well as the industrial, economic and financial sectors.
The task of the intelligence and security services is to carry out preventive intelligence activities in the defence of the internal and external security of the State.
To pursue this goal, the services have to combat various types of threats, which do not only include traditional espionage – namely the collection of secret military, political and economic information - but also other, more sophisticated and subtle types of threats such as disinformation, sabotage, foreign interference in the political, economic and cultural spheres.
To achieve these goals, the security services must have a dual operative method:
• gain as much information as possible on potential threats;
• prevent the acquisition of information regarding themselves.
The «offensive» attitude consists also in the creation of a network of informants within the sectors of interest which pose a potential threat to security.
In general, the goal is to obtain information which the holder does not expect to be intercepted. Efficiency is strictly dependent on secrecy: The value of the information depends on the fact that the opponent is not aware of it having been compromised. Otherwise, the opponent can try to reduce the value of the information, or take appropriate counter-measures.
Due to this, it is often necessary to create alternative sources, to prevent the opponent from finding out who may have provided the information and what it may have been or could be used for.
In general, it is to be stressed that informants, leaving aside the reasons why they provide information (often for particular moral motives), require complete secrecy regarding their identity and the tasks they carry out. Thanks to them we can discover secret plots, offensives that develop within the sector in which they are working and because of this they may often run great risks. In some sectors, like that of organized crime, the disclosure of the name of an informant may come only a few hours before the execution of his death sentence.
In order to make a service sterile, the only thing you have to do is make its confidential sources sterile, too.
Confidentiality is fundamental also in liaising with the intelligence services of friendly and allied States, with whom there is a constant exchange of information. No service will fully collaborate if they know that the information they are providing could possibly become public.