PM Petr Fiala told TV Prima on Jan. 12 that even if the new Para. 318a to the penal code for making "unauthorized activity for a foreign power" a crime had been submitted at the request of the intelligence services, he couldn't confirm it. Designated Supreme State Prosecutor Lenka Bradáčová then criticized the legislative rider in MFD by saying that it doesn't even use standard language. Yet in the Senate yesterday, Interior Min. Vít Rakušan, who wants to be PM, and Sen. Václav Láska, who works with BIS counterintelligence as a member of the Senate foreign committee, glossed over Bradáčová's objections in defending the paragraph and stressed that only a court could find someone guilty of committing a crime under it. The bill now goes to Pres. Petr Pavel. As a trained spy, he'll no doubt see how the bill is intended mainly as a tool of the spymasters, not the police or prosecutors, and how it could be used to influence this year's elections so they turn out the way he and others like him want them to.