Commentary: Czech domestic intelligence services anything but smart

Members of the Security Information Service (Bezpečnostní informační služba – or BIS for short) in the Czech Republic are sometimes colloquially referred to as “bison”. Once again the bison are performing about as well as a damp firecracker, issuing a report (and not for the first time) that is written so amateurishly as to be an embarrassment.

In the very first sentence of the report, entitled “Information on developments on the extremist scene during the third quarter of 2010,” BIS writes that it “has not noted any extremist activity during the period under review which from the perspective of the intelligence services might represent a genuine or immediate threat to the democratic basis of the Czech Republic.”

How commendable of them to inform us! After all, without them we certainly would never notice whether the democratic basis of our country is in immediate danger. This renowned institution is of course the only one that might draw our attention to whether extremists have blown up a government building or won the elections. God only knows what the bison think a “genuine threat” is.

Reading further, we learn who it is that has supposedly scared off the neo-Nazis during the third quarter of this year: “Due to the partial loss of their political platform and fear of more interference from the state, the neo-Nazis have stagnated, become passive, and have all but ceased organizing public gatherings and concerts.”

It is quite understandable that the dissolution of the Workers’ Party by the Supreme Administrative Court played a role in reducing right-wing extremist activity. However, there has been no interference by the state in recent months (with the exception of the sentencing of the Vítkov arsonists) that might have discouraged the extreme right. Everything is clear: The amateurs working at BIS cobble together a report every three months at their desks which tells us nothing, and the Nazis magically go into hiding.

The author of the report also stresses that “profiles have been set up on social networks for several new local groups, but for the time being these seem to be operating only virtually.” Does “seem to be operating only virtually” mean they might also be at work in the real world? If yes, what does that mean? Are they beating people up through Facebook?

The kicker is what BIS makes of the new, purely democratic, free-thinking, uplifting enterprise of Mr Vandas, the former chair of the banned Workers’ Party: “The creation of the Workers’ Social Justice Party (Dělnická strany sociální spravedlnosti – DSSS) has had a great impact on developments on the scene. The party is doing its best to present itself as extreme right (but not extremist) and has therefore intentionally cut itself off from neo-Nazi influence. During the period under review, the party behaved very moderately.”

Here the bison have succeeded in putting so much nonsense into two sentences that I don’t even know where to start. According to BIS, something can be “extreme right” without also being “extremist”. I really want to know how that works. Bison, have pity on us, please, inform us, otherwise we won’t sleep a wink!

I guess the DSSS must have first begun ridding itself of neo-Nazi influence by having ironclad neo-Nazis run on the party ticket in the parliamentary elections, many of whom are also members of the National Resistance and other neo-Nazi initiatives. True, that happened in May, but the assumption that something might have changed within a month (by the start of the “period under review”) is probably the best joke of the third quarter of this year! I kindly suggest that the authors of this “information” from BIS read the article I wrote about this back in May. Or are the bison no longer monitoring the media and analyzing publicly available information?

In this context, it is no surprise that the bison characterize as “very moderate” the fact that Vandas has become just a tad more moderate in his speeches because he is afraid the government will file a motion to dissolve the DSSS. However, he is still babbling his xenophobic stupidity at the expense of asylum-seekers, other immigrants and the Roma.

If BIS continues to research problems and inform the public in this way, it might really be worth considering shutting them down all together and starting over. We need to cultivate some bison that can fulfill their purpose instead of an agency of empty-headed officers.