[2] The first budget of the Securitate in 1948 stipulated a number of 4,641 positions, of which 3,549 were filled by February 1949: 64% were workers, 4% peasants, 28% clerks, 2% persons of unspecified origin, and 2% intellectuals.

[3] The Securitate under Nicolae Ceaușescu was one of the most brutal secret police forces in the world, responsible for the arrests, torture, and deaths of thousands of people.

The General Directorate for the Security of the People (Romanian initials: DGSP, but more commonly just called the Securitate) was officially founded on 30 August 1948, by Decree 221/30 of the Presidium of the Great National Assembly.

[7] Initially, many of the agents of the Securitate were former Royal Security Police (named General Directorate of Safety Police—Direcția Generală a Poliției de Siguranță in Romanian) members.

However, before long, Pantiușa ordered anyone who had served the monarchy's police in any capacity arrested, and in the places of the Royal Security Policemen, he hired ardent members of the Romanian Communist Party (PCR), to ensure total loyalty within the organization.

[9] In the 1980s, the Securitate launched a massive campaign to stamp out dissent in Romania, manipulating the country's population with vicious rumors (such as supposed contacts with Western intelligence agencies), machinations, frameups, public denunciations, encouraging conflict between segments of the population, public humiliation of dissidents, toughened censorship and the repression of even the smallest gestures of independence by intellectuals.

Often the term "intellectual" was used by the Securitate to describe dissidents who had higher education qualifications, such as college and university students, writers, directors, and scientists, who opposed the philosophy of the Romanian Communist Party.

Assassinations were also used to silence dissent, such as the attempt to kill high-ranking defector Ion Mihai Pacepa, who received two death sentences from Romania in 1978, and on whose head Ceaușescu decreed a bounty of two million US dollars.

In August 1977, when the Jiu Valley coal miners' unions went on strike, several leaders died prematurely, and it was later discovered that Securitate doctors had subjected them to five-minute chest X-rays in an attempt to have them develop cancer.

In truth, the Securitate deployed one agent or informer for every 43 Romanians, which was still a high enough proportion to make it practically impossible for dissidents to organize.

"[16] The General Directorate for Technical Operations (Direcția Generală de Tehnică Operativă — DGTO) was an integral part of the Securitate' s activities.

[17] Directorate IV was responsible for similar counterespionage functions within the armed forces, and its primary mission was identifying and neutralizing Soviet penetrations.

Some of the harshest prisons were those at Aiud, Gherla, Pitești, Râmnicu Sarat, and Sighet, as well as the forced labor camps along the Danube–Black Sea Canal and at Periprava.

Specific locations included: Arad, Baia Mare, Baia Sprie, Bârcea Mare, Bicaz, Borzești, Brad, Brâncovenești, CRM Bucharest, Buzău, Capu Midia, Castelu, Cavnic, Câmpulung, Cernavodă, Chilia Constanța, Chirnogi, Crâscior, Culmea, Deduleşti, Doicești, Domnești, Dorobanțu, Dudu, Fântânele, Fundulea, Galeșu, Giurgeni, Ghencea, Iași, Ițcani, Km.

31, Lucăcești, Mărculești, Mogoșoaia, Nistru, Onești, Onești Baraj, Peninsula/Valea Neagră, Periprava, Periș, Poarta Albă, Roșia Montană, Roșia Pipera, Roznov, Salcia, Grădina, Băndoiu, Strâmba, Stoeneşti, Piatra-Frecăței, Saligny, Sibiu, Simeria, Slatina, Spanțov, Tătaru, Târnăveni, Toporu, Vlădeni, Zlatna.

The police performed routine law enforcement functions including traffic control and issuance of internal identification cards to citizens.

They were an elite, specially trained paramilitary force organized like motorized rifle (infantry) units equipped with small arms, artillery, and armored personnel carriers, but their mission was considerably different.

The Ceaușescu regime presumably could call the security troops into action as a private army to defend itself against a military coup d'état or other domestic challenges and to suppress antiregime riots, demonstrations, or strikes.

[22] They adhered to stricter discipline than in the regular military, but were rewarded with special treatment and enjoyed far superior living conditions compared to their countrymen.