Romania’s communist-era secret police, the Securitate, was one of the world's most feared. But it appears its successor intelligence agency, the SRI, adopted the old surveillance practices for many years after the overthrow of the Ceausescu regime. The evidence comes from protocols drawn up by a former Securitate spy. In 1996 he went public. The Romanian authorities sentenced him to two years in jail - but the former spy has now been vindicated by the European Court of Human Rights.