Office of Public Safety and National Security

The Office of Public Safety and National Security (OPSNS), known informally as the Office and abroad as Bureau, is a civilian and paramilitary foreign and domestic intelligence service of the federal government of Arcerion, officially tasked with gathering, processing, and analyzing national security information from around the world. The primary means for this intelligence gathering comes through a mixture of human intelligence (HUMINT) and signals intelligence (SIGINT) and performing covert or clandestine actions. As the foremost member of the Arcerion Intelligence Community (AIC), the OPSNS reports to the Minister of Public Safety, currently the 1st Deputy Minister - Rt Hon Elliot Gill, AS. Its primary focus is on providing intelligence for the Prime Minister and Confederate Parliament. The OPSNS was created by the Surveillance Act (1950).

Unlike many other nations that have a segregated domestic and foreign intelligence agencies, the OPSNS focuses on a full spectrum of national security issues, although domestically it works closely with the Ministry of Public Safety and the Emergency Response Group (ERG) and the Royal Arcerion Constabulary. A specific note is that while the OPSNS may conduct intelligence collection activities within Arcerion, any actions against Arcer citizens or that may reasonably be expected to involve Arcer citizens must involve Special Constables from the Ministry of Public Safety's ERG. This is to avoid overreach and provide a check and balance to the OPSNS' domestic activities.

The OPSNS is the only civilian agency that is mandated and directed to carry out intelligence collection and covert action at the behest of the Prime Minister's Office. It exerts political or tactical influence through its Operations Teams and Intelligence Officers. It is a critical piece of Arcerion's security infrastructure in its sphere of influence, helping to detect, deter, and prevent acts of terror or violence against Arcer citizens. Its operations teams have also regularly participated in the political movements and revolutions of Cronan nations, including the planning, coordination, training, supply, and execution of several technical political operations outside of Arcerion. While there has been no formal admittance by the Confederate Parliament or Prime Minister's Office (PMO), the OPSNS has been accused historically of regime change, coup d'etat, and assassinations of foreign leaders or political officials.

The OPSNS has significantly expanded its role and organizational size since the initial complement of 115 personnel in a rented commercial building near the Parliamentary Offices. It regularly explores new options and operational spaces, and as of late has made inroads into Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) and Information Operations (IO) to help extend Arcerion's political messaging.

Purpose
The Office of Public Safety and National Security is responsible for the collection and analysis of domestic and foreign intelligence in support of the government of Arcerion. This involves covert and clandestine operations, as well as activities that can only be authorized by the Prime Minister's Office. Concurrent to this, there is elements and divisions within the Office that are responsible for subversive political activities, targeting of High Value Individuals, or conducting economic, information, and political warfare. The OPSNS serves as Arcerion's unseen hand in South Cronan politics, complementing the rest of the Arcerion National Security Enterprise.

Organization, Directorates, and Offices
The OPSNS is subdivided into three major sections, Operations, Intelligence, and Support. The first two work together closely, and as defined by their mandates are separated by the difference in intelligence "generation" versus "collection." The Operations Directorate focuses on using covert and clandestine methods to generate intelligence, be it photography, listening devices, or other means as directed by the Director, Operations based off of requirements from the Headquarters. The Intelligence Directorate is focused on the "collection" and "analysis" of intelligence, and this often manifests in the recruitment and use of human sources or human intelligence. Finally, the Support and Logistics Division provides the support logistically, training, and administration to run the OPSNS' day-to-day activities.

The final element is a small team at the Coordination and Liaison Office (CLO). The purpose of the CLO is to work with Special Constables, the ERG, and other Federal or Governorate agencies to ensure the OPSNS satisfies their requirements or identifies areas where problems may occur due to jurisdiction or legal issues. This also is the nexus for how the OPSNS links into the government's Ministerial Coordination Element (MCE).

Intelligence Dirctorate
The Intelligence directorate serves as an analysis and bureaucratic element within the Office. The OPSNS relies on the analyst teams, desk officers, and intelligence officers to collate and assess the large streams of information to brief and advise political decision makers in the government. The Intelligence Directorate is separated into Intelligence Bureaus which are further divided into Field Offices. Intelligence Bureaus cover a specific type of intelligence (ie. the Bureau of Geospatial Intelligence), or a region (ie. Southeast Cronan Bureau). Intelligence Bureaus can be purely international in focus, solely domestic, or a combination of both. Field Offices are the on0the-ground forward elements for the Intelligence Bureaus, and are usually comprised of analysts and intelligence officers. The field offices work closely with the Operations Directorate to fulfill the tasks or questions asked and assigned by Headquarters.

Operations Directorate
The Operations Directorate's focus is to generate Operations Teams, of which they are deployed to a foreign country or domestically for the purposes of generating intelligence or providing the Confederate Parliament and Prime Minister's Office with a means for deniable, covert and clandestine influence. Although very little is known about the Operations Directorate, aside from the fact that they work in small teams and use a variety of methods to generate intelligence. A news leak by the Capetian newspaper, Cape Town Free Press, in 2014 revealed that the Operations Directorate had a pair of teams deployed in Washakara, teams 'Emile' and 'Francis', both of which were deployed to surveil President Breua Lunaesa's Economic Summit with TRIAD. The Arcer government denied these allegations and demanded an official retraction from the Cape Town Free Press, which after much pressure by the Arco government, was granted.

The Operations Directorate is known to be organized by nations, geographic areas, and continents, and often political/national security issues, but its precise organization has never been disclosed despite requests from international watchdogs and journalists.

The Operations Directorate maintains a close relationship with the Arcerion Special Operations Command, as both are deployed on non-disclosed missions not within public purview. A 2020 leak by journalists in The Cape noted that the Operations Directorate was largely comprised of former members of the Royal Arcerion Constabulary's ERG and ASOC's special forces units.

Training
The OPSNS established its first training site not long after the initial establishment in 1951. The facility, run by the Training and Administration division, was initially comprised of four agents and a police liaison, and operated out of a quartet of rented rooms at the Carnish Anglican University's Arts and Science Building in Kurst, Arcerion.

Since then, recruiting and training of new employees, agents, and operatives occurs annually within Kurst, at a variety of locations, but the Carnish Anglican University still maintains a close relationship with the OPSNS, who went on to fund in part the Hopkins Centre for International Relations Studies, of which the top 3 floors ae used by the OPSNS for training.

Budget
After 2014 the annual budget of the OPSNS became classified, however the Ministry of Finance still reports on rough expenditures, and financial analysts in Kinnaird have remarked that the OPSNS likely has an increased operations budget to over ₤20 billion Arcer Pounds. Oversight for OPSNS spending and purchasing is under the Treasury Office and the 1st Deputy Minister, which ensures that funds are not misappropriated and are used for proper intelligence activities.

Employees
The amount of employees formally working for the Office is classified and not officially acknowledged or disclosed by the Prime Minister's Office. A 2019 estimate by the Kurst Daily Times assessed it as approximately 9,900 based off of interviews with former employees and the limited open-source information available. Several large defense companies also provide contracting services for the Office, however these are not considered direct government employees, similar to how human sources recruited by the Intelligence Bureau are not considered employees despite being given compensation for information.

Relationship with Other Intelligence Agencies
The Bureau maintains extensive relationships and intelligence sharing agreements with a number of foreign agencies to foster collaboration and prevent damage to mutual interest between nations.
 * International Reconnaissance Agency, Kiravia. A working relationship and liaison program was established in the late 2020s to acknowledge the need for limited intelligence sharing in East Crona due to Kiravia's control of Atrassica and the Mid-Atrassic States. The high number of Arcer citizens also vacationing in Æonara and Kiravians in Ashden necessitated a closer collaboration to prevent attacks on citizens abroad.
 * Ministry of National Security, Urcea. the MNS and OPSNS have worked together since the Fourth Bush War, when Urcean delegates and officials expressed concern over the potential for extremist communists to filter into Levantia and foster revolution or similar subversive political activities there. Urcean liaisons and intelligence officers have been declared and working with the OPSNS since the early 1980s.

History
The OPSNS was created by the Surveillance Act (1950).

2014 TRIAD Summit in Washakara
See Also: The Arco-Lunaesa Affair

A news leak by the Capetian newspaper, Cape Town Free Press, in 2014 revealed that the Operations Directorate had a pair of teams deployed in Washakara, teams 'Emile' and 'Francis', both of which were deployed to surveil President Breua Lunaesa's Economic Summit with TRIAD. The Arcer government denied these allegations and demanded an official retraction from the Cape Town Free Press, which after much pressure by the Arco government, was granted. Since then, no official inquiry or investigation has taken place into the affair, and no disclosure from press sources confirmed or denied the activities occurring during the summit were in fact accurate or not. Some journalists and political columnists surmised that this was in fact an effort by Washkaran State Security to preemptively disturb and disrupt any Arcer intelligence gathering activities in the nation.

2016 Death of Sakhiwo Maqoma
See Also: Death of Sakhiwo Maqoma

The sudden death of Sakhiwo Maqoma, Undersecretary for Political Affairs in Titechaxha in 2016 was reported widely as an act by the Office. Maqoma was found drowned after taking a vacation to his coastal resort home on the Odoneru Ocean. Officially denied by the Arcerion government and with no substantiation, the death remains an unsolved crime in Titechaxha, with the coroner's office unable to discern a ruling on if foul play was involved or not. Maqoma, long a critic of Arcer expansion and usage of energy as a bargaining tool for Cronan diplomacy was considered one of the most outspoken critics of the Confederate Parliament.