The UOP was founded on 6 April 1990 as a department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.Krzysztof Kozłowski served as the UOP's first chief from 1990 to 1992.[2] In 1996 UOP was transformed into a separate government agency under the supervision of theprime minister. It was responsible forintelligence,counter-intelligence and government electronic security, includingtelephone wiretaps.
In June 2002, the agency was split into two separate entities –Agencja Bezpieczeństwa Wewnętrznego (Internal Security Agency), which deals with internal security of the country, andAgencja Wywiadu (Foreign Intelligence Agency), which deals with foreign intelligence. The abolishing of the office enabled dismissing several hundred people from service, without the possibility to use the appeal procedure. While budgetary restrictions were cited as the reason for the dismissal, but a political criterion was used as well.[3]
^Kopczewski, Marian; Ciekanowski, Zbigniew; Piotrkowska, Anna (2020). "Transformation of the special services in Poland in the context of political changes".Scientific Journal of the Military University of Land Forces.52 (3): 568.
