The Internal Security Department (ISD) plays a crucial role in keeping Singapore safe, secure and sovereign. It was established as the Singapore Special Branch in 1948, shortly after the declaration of a state of emergency in response to the then ongoing armed struggle by the Communist Party of Malaya. Over the past 75 years, the ISD has dealt with a wide range of threats to Singapore, safeguarding the peace and stability that enabled Singapore’s leaders to focus on nation-building. The presence of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Senior Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security Teo Chee Hean, and Minister for Home Affairs and Law K. Shanmugam at the ISD’s 75th anniversary celebrations last week attests to the value that the Government attaches to the department’s role in the preservation of national security.

PM Lee captured the essence of the ISD’s work by placing it in the context of Singapore’s unrelenting efforts to preserve its way of life. After all, not everyone wishes Singapore well. Foreign influence operations and covert activities can target the Republic from outside its borders, within which lie vulnerabilities and fault lines. Managing these two fronts simultaneously is not easy, particularly should foreign forces hostile to Singapore’s security and stability sponsor domestic discontents to further a common agenda of destabilisation. The ISD is a national bulwark against such attempts. It protects the public space so that the democratic process can function. It counters terrorism, subversion, extremism and espionage, traditional threats that are amplified by the insidious reach of global social media into the lives of impressionable Singaporeans – those who are likely to be swayed by extraterritorial links of race and religion to the detriment of Singapore and its internal security.