The SSS has been criticised for operating no less like its predecessor the NSO. Many of the NSO's practices have resurfaced in the SSS, which remains directly controlled by the President, and has been accused of human rights violations. In 1986, barely four months after the establishment of the SSS, the Director General of the agency Alhaji Ismaila Gwarzo and his deputy Lt. Col. Tunde Togun were indicted in the killing of the editor of the Newswatch magazine, Mr. Dele Giwa by a Letter Bomb delivered to his home.