Romanian security investigations differ from US practices; court rulings impact intelligence gathering legality and data use.
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The Supreme Court approved 28,784 national security investigations in Romania between 2004 and 2016, compared to 20,863 concluded in the United States over the same period, despite the US having a much larger population. Security expert Vlad Adamescu noted that Romanian courts issued surveillance permits without sufficient justification from the SRI regarding why they were listening to Romanian citizens, while US authorities rejected hundreds of national security investigation requests. Under law 51/1991, similar data collection in Romania should only occur when there is a solid suspicion of threats to national security interests. The SRI was led by George Maior from 2006 to 2015 and later by Eduard Hellvig, who resigned in 2023 citing reaching his goals regarding the institution’s leadership. President Nicisor Dan stated that the SRI must play a key role in coordinating the fight against corruption, especially corruption threatening national security. Investigative journalist Emilia Sercan suggested intelligence services could be involved given the significant support for far-right politician Calin Georgescu in the 2024 elections. The most notable Romanian case involving surveillance was Zsolt Nagy, an RMDSZ minister convicted of illegal privatization; transcripts from SRI surveillance were crucial to his case. In 2018, the Romanian Constitutional Court ruled that data collected by intelligence services cannot be used in criminal cases, and in 2019, it ordered the destruction of information gathered up to 2016. However, a subsequent ruling stated that data collection can be legal if the intelligence service respects human rights regulations.
