The article presents the issue of control over five intelligence and security agencies: the Internal Security Agency (ABW), Foreign Intelligence Agency, Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA), Military Counterintelligence Service, and Military Intelligence Service. After 1989 Poland experienced frequent and quite chaotic changes in the area, which is why there is currently no coherent model of controlling the special services. Some of the solutions applied in the past twenty years hinders effective control. Such control provides one the hand management in line with the priorities of foreign and security policies conducted by civilian politicians, while on the other is a prerequisite for effective external control over the activities of secret services. It is worth mentioning that changes recendy introduced in this area are also temporary. The article focuses on the period 1990 — 2013. The idea of civil supervision over the first secret service institution (Office for State Protection, UOP) emerged in 1990. The regulation became law on the power of the Act of 6th April 1990 on the Office for State Protection. The latest changes to it were introduced in 2013 in a Regulation of the Council of Ministers of 28th February 2013 on the detailed scope of authority of the Minister of Internal Affairs (currently Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz) in the coordination of special services. Besides the legal system, the article presents examples of political practice, and solutions adopted in other constitutional democracies.