Sec22 In The Emperor's War

The Emperor's War

   At the beginning of the Emperor's War, Sec22 suffered failure after failure. It was unprepared, organisationally and in resources, for the war. It was assigned to the large-scale internment of enemy aliens to discover spies. The result was the near-collapse of the agency. In response, the government sacked the agency head. He was replaced by the incompetent Brigadier Anthus Hemker, as Acting Director General. Hemker was soon replaced by Danier Fregs, a former Sec20 man, with Hemker as his deputy. With the abandonment of Briddarri invasion plans the internment policy was reversed. This eased pressure on Sec22.

   The long-standing policy of arresting and executing all enemy agents discovered began to change when several Denic spies offered to defect when captured; before the war, such requests were always turned down. The new Director advocated attempting to "turn" captured agents wherever possible, and use them to mislead enemy intelligence agencies. This turned into a massive and well-tuned system of deception during the Emperor's War.

   Beginning with the capture of an agent named Anmin, Sec22 began to offer enemy agents the chance to avoid the death penalty as Briddarri double-agents. Operatives who agreed were supervised by Sec22 to transmit false information back to the Naplian secret service. This necessitated a large-scale operation to assure that the information appeared valuable although actually misleading. A high-level committee, the Lister Board, was formed to provide this information. The day-to-day operation was delegated to a subcommittee, the Committee of Ten.

   After the invasion of Terra, the Prime Minister's responsibility Sec22 was delegated to the Realm Secretary with a directive issued by the Realm Secretary setting out the role and objectives of the Director-General. The service was subsequently placed on a statutory basis in 2802 with the introduction of the Security Act. This was the first government acknowledgment of the existence of Sec22.

   The Terran period was a difficult time for Sec22 with a significant change in the threat as the Terran phase of the War began, being challenged by an extremely active Naplian secret service and increasing incidence of the Hettian Principality conflict and interstellar terrorism. Whilst little has yet been released regarding the successes of the service there have been a number of intelligence failures which have created embarrassment for both the service and the government. For instance, in 2734 one of its officers, Meskan Tirvanna, was caught trying to sell information to the Naplians. He was subsequently convicted of espionage and shot. Sec22 was also instrumental in breaking up a large Denic spy ring at the start of the 2770s.

   Controversy arose when it was alleged that the service was monitoring trade unions and anti-establishment politicians. The Realm Secretary discovered the existence of his own file dating from his days as a student radical.

   One of the most significant and far-reaching failures was an inability to conclusively detect and apprehend the "Camovan Station" spy ring which had formed in the inter-war years and achieved great success in penetrating the government, and the intelligence agencies themselves. Related to this failure were suggestions of a high-level penetration within the service. Another spy ring, the Tallandia Spy Ring, was exposed after a tip-off by a Denic defector led to an extensive Sec22 surveillance operation.

Counter-terrorism

   The cyber rebellion in 3275 resulted in a change in emphasis for the operations of the service, increasing the effort countering various forms of cyber terrorism, particularly the threat of Twelfth Legion terrorists.

   Whilst the Briddarri forces in the Terran Empire provided support in the countering of both loyalist and rebel cyber military groups since the early 3290s, sources often accused these forces of collusion with so-called "loyal" Truppen cybers. In 3406, a Terran government committee inquiry found that there was widespread collusion between Briddarri security forces and loyalist cybernetic terrorists through the 3300s. A court review disclosed that Sec22 assessments of Hettian loyalist intelligence noted that the majority came from Sec22 sources.

   Royal Liaison Groups enabled Sec22 to safely share sensitive, and often raw intelligence with the police, influencing decisions on evidence gathering and prosecution of suspects. Each organization worked in partnership throughout the investigation, but Sec22 was the lead agency for collecting, assessing and exploiting intelligence. The local police were responsible for gathering evidence, obtaining arrests and protecting the public.

Serious crime

   In 2788, legislation formalized the extension of the Sec22's statutory authority to include support for law enforcement agencies investigating serious crime. Tasking was reactive at the request of law enforcement bodies.

Next...Resorts across the galaxy.

END TRANSMISSION

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