The Inauguration Ceremony of the Academic Year 1998-99 of SISDe's Training School took place in November with the notable presence of the Minister of the Interior e of the "Garante" for the protection of personal data. The address by Prof. RODOTA', which our Review was eager to host, was sharp, careful and sensitive towards institutional issues that call for a delicate balance. It represented for our community a particularly meaningful occasion. On the one hand, in fact, the Service has opened up in a direct and loyal way, it could not be otherwise, to new social instances by confronting one of its more attentive supervisors. On the other hand the choice of the Inauguration of the Academic Year for a reflection on a sensitive subject such as the protection of privacy, indicates the role culture and formation have vis a vis the challenge posed by social development. The organization firmly believes that culture and training represent the only strategic resources able to foster an improvement in the quality and effectiveness of its work, with the aim of developing the culture of intelligence, in consideration of the specific tasks Intelligence Services have to carry out.
It is true that only by keeping up with changing social values, moving from the national to the international perspective, one can guarantee a valuable and effective intelligence product. This is further demonstrated by the emergence of another important and yet highly controversial theme, topic economic intelligence. Our Review dedicates a particularly qualified FORUM to this subject. Different perspectives can improve the understanding of a topic already present within the intelligence scope, but that will require further resources and more specialization. The way in which this can be achieved is illustrated by a politician, an economist, and a banker. Their contribution is so significant that, we believe, will remain as a reference point for future analyses.
Privacy, terrorism, computer crimes and crimes through computers, with immigration are the main themes of the present issue of Per Aspera ad Veritatem. Among them we would like to attract the readers' attention to the conclusions of the meeting, held in Bruges last September, among legal experts from 15 European countries.
The usefulness of coordinating the European intelligence community's approach vis a vis legal guarantees cannot be denied, in particular when considering how much the circulation of information and ideas can contribute to a useful overall vision for studying the adoption of legal measures at national level. On the one hand the current European trend aims at redefining the role of intelligence. On the other it searches for a secure grip on the "rule of law", which current legislation which is growing more and more sensitive to legitimacy and accountability requirements cannot do without. In other words, there a need to reconsider the legal foundations of the intelligence work adapting them to new realities, and to devise a role for the Intelligence and Security Services in the various fields of their activity in compliance with legal principles that, in view of the very fast legislative evolution, are becoming less and less neglectable.
The result of a second clash of competences presented by the Government to the Constitutional Court is published in PART III. This judgement, as the careful reader of our Review will probably remember, is of fundamental importance for the intelligence world. Problems connected with the protection of "State secrets" and with the functional guarantees for intelligence operators acting in the exclusive interest of national security are of relevance not only from the legal point of view. While awaiting new legislation able to offer a steadier and more reliable reference framework, with an effective system of controls and authorizations, there is a need to fully implement existing legislation so as to allow the intelligence community to carry out its institutional duties. The judgement by the Court goes beyond the single case and acquires a wider meaning, proven by the doctrinal interest, immediate arisen, as demonstrated by G. Riccio and G. De Stefano's article published in Part V.
The section dedicated to other countries' Intelligence and Security Services in this issue is devoted to the Republic of South Africa, which is the first African country to be featured in our Magazine. It is interesting to see how an Anglo-saxon model is exported and applied to a reality very different from the ones we are used to.
In PART V is once again possible to find reviews of books published abroad (i.e. C.A. Bayly‘s "Empire & information. Intelligence gathering and social communication in India, 1780-1870"; and M. Herman's "Intelligence power in peace and war") and this aims at widening the perspective of our publication.
Finally, in the section devoted to the Historical Curios, an abstract from the interesting text by A.D. Rogers "Rapporto sullo spionaggio dal 2500 a.C. ad oggi" is published. Yet another example of literary less known items on the subject of espionage which confirms the role the intelligence world has played with reference to historical evolution, the development of events, and with the establishment of States.