| قطاع الأمن الوطني | |
 | |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 2011 |
| Preceding agency | |
| Jurisdiction | Government of Egypt |
| Headquarters | Cairo, Egypt |
| Employees | 200,000 |
| Agency executive |
|
| Parent agency | Ministry of Interior |
TheNational Security Agency[1][2] (Arabic:قطاع الأمن الوطني,romanized: Ketaʿ El Amn El Watani, alsoHomeland Security) is an Egyptiansecurity service, the main domestic security agency ofEgypt and the successor of theState Security Investigations Service (Arabic:مباحث أمن الدولةMabaḥith Amn El Dawla). Two other security agencies are theMilitary Intelligence and theGeneral Intelligence Service which traditionally specializes in foreign intelligence gathering.[2] Its main responsibilities are counter-intelligence, internal and border security, counter-terrorism, and surveillance.[citation needed] The agency is under the jurisdiction of theInterior Ministry[2] and is headquartered inCairo. It "remains the most visible" of Egypt's security agencies and according to one estimate has about "100,000 employees and at least as many informants".[2]
The old Security Service has been described as "detested"[2] and "widely hated",[1] and following2011 Egyptian revolution its headquarters was stormed by protesters who made off with records.[1]The National Security Agency was "established" (according to at least one source it is simply the oldState Security Investigations Service with a new name)[2] after the2013 coup d'état that ousted Morsi and installed GeneralAbdel Fattah el-Sisi.[2] Nearly a hundred of the sacked senior officers ofState Security Investigations Service were rehired.[1][2]
Due to the wave of pro-military nationalism in Egypt and the agency's efforts to improve security during the Islamist unrest, the agency has gained much of the old Security Service's lost respect inEgypt according to Sarah El Deeb of theAssociated Press.[1] After announcing theMuslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group due to theDecember 2013 Mansoura bombing, the agency assigned hotlines for the public to report suspected Muslim Brotherhood members, and was reportedly "reclaiming a major role" and rebuilding its network of informants that had been weakened during the Arab Spring[1]
On the other hand,Declan Walsh of theNew York Times states that after the agency was established, torture chambers were reopened.[2]
Opposition leaders, fearing arrest, fled the country. Human rights monitors started to count the numbers of the ‘‘disappeared’’ — critics who vanished into state custody without arrest or trial — until the monitors, too, began to disappear.[2]
El Deeb quotes a campaigner for reform of the security agencies, former police officer Mohammed Mahfouz, who complains that "no specific law regulates the agency's workings, making it largely unaccountable"; and another activist,Wael Abbas, who calls the NSA "a corrupt agency" that "has only changed names" and "is now more vicious than before."[1]
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