The New Hungarian Secret Police

„The law specifies that TEK operates both as a police and as a national security agency. When it is acting as a police unit, it has the jurisdiction to spy on any person or group who poses a threat of terrorism, along with anyone else associated with such persons. Hungary, like many countries after 9/11, has a broad definition of terrorism that includes, among other things, planning to commit a »crime against the public order« with the purpose of »coercing a state body . . . into action, non-action or toleration.« Crimes against the public order include a long list of violent crimes, but also the vaguer »causing public danger.« In addition, TEK also may arrest »dangerous individuals«, a term not defined in the criminal law. It is difficult from the text of the law itself to see any clear limits on TEK’s powers.

And TEK is very active. On April 7, TEK agents were called in to capture a young man in the small village of Kulcs who killed four members of his family with a machete. And then, in the early morning hours of Friday, April 13, TEK agents conducted a major drug bust in Budapest, arresting 23 people. According to news reports, fully 120 TEK agents were involved in the drug operation, raising questions about whether the drug bust was thought to be part of the anti-terrorism mission of the agency or a rather broad extension of the concept of the »dangerous individual.« Either way, the drug ring looked like garden-variety crime. If that is within TEK’s jurisdiction, it is hard to imagine what is not.”