When in 1998 the Intelligence Services Act came in effect, the State Security finally had a legal framework that determined its remit and its competences to fulfill its missions. The sensitivity of intelligence work, after the scandals of the 1980s, had led the lawmakers to postpone the authorisation to use intrusive technical means to collect intelligence. Instead, the Belgian intelligence services were only authorised to work with human sources (HUMINT). Technical collection of intelligence was not allowed, significantly putting the Belgian intelligence services behind their foreign counterparts in terms of collection and effectiveness. This was rectified only in 2010 through the introduction of the Special Intelligence Methods Act ("Bijzondere Inlichtingenmethoden", 'BIM' see below). Until then, the Belgian police had the upper hand, having been allowed to use wiretapping and technical surveillance methods in 2003 (it had been the intention to provide the intelligence services with similar competences, but this work was left unfinished until 2009). Naturally this caused a good deal of discontent with the State Security, which had to give up its place as the international preferred Belgian partner for counterterrorism.