State agency created by Macri requires information from AFI

As the storm shakes the prosecutor

Carlos Stornelli

, the false lawyer Marcelo D'Alessio and the official and informal espionage services, a state agency created at the initiative of the president

Mauricio Macri

advanced on another public body, perhaps the most obscure and the most disputed:

the Federal Intelligence Agency (AFI)

.

The new Public Information Access Agency (AAIP) opened the door to the Spy House, which

Gustavo Arribas

, to inform you of the data of your activity which is secret – and in this case, on what basis – and which, on the contrary, is or should be accessible to the public and without restriction.

This requirement, signed by the director of the Agency, Eduardo Bertoni, is based on an explicit mandate of the new law on access to public information which, since its entry into force in September 2016, constitutes a violation of l & # 39; ex-SIDE.

What does the law impose? That the Agency for Access to Public Information "publishes indexes of reserved information prepared by the obligated" – among them, the former SIDE – so that every citizen knows what can and should not be asked of every public body.

Not only that. Arribas and her number two, Silvia Majdalani, should provide "the list of information reserved by the agency and the administrative act that ordered the booking", as Bertoni recalled in resolution 2019-46-APN- AAIP. signed on Tuesday and went up on the AAIP page.

"It is relevant that the AFI responds as well as any other subject subject to an obligation determined by law," Bertoni said before the consultation.
THE NATION. "Whether it is an intelligence organ does not mean that all the information it has is secret or that it should not inform about the information that it has reserved."

In practice, the Bertoni order requires the ex-SIDE to detail all the limits of its activity which must remain in the shadow and provide the reasons that justify it. Protect, among other things, the real and fictitious identities of its agents, its specific intelligence activities, the documentation related to these operations or its databases.

What does this umbrella entail? That if Dr. Alessio works for AFI as an official or inorganic intelligence officer, the law states that Arribas and Majdalani must not disclose it, any more than that. 39, they must answer if there is a working relationship with Ricardo Bogoliuk and Aníbal de Gastaldi, the former police commissioners currently detained the Buenos Aires police acting as alleged leaders of the false attorney.

In fact, Bertoni's intelligence with regard to the AFI arose from a request for access to public information filed with the ex-SIDE by a woman who wanted to know if a man was or was a civilian intelligence officer and, if so, said, "what period was he active and in what dependency". But he had only the silence of the spies and that is why he went to the AAIP to claim.

After receiving Mara Elisa Burkat's request, Bertoni rejected it as inadmissible. He explained that he had requested confidential data in accordance with the national law on intelligence services and exceptions to the law on access to information, while reminding spies that they had to explain to the woman why it was not appropriate to meet their needs. your request

This cone of shadows exceeds the names of spies. It also reaches the management of all AFI budget resources, as determined by President Macri by Decree 656 of May 6, 2016, the year in which this item reached $ 1,450 million. . A black box of free availability, which has attracted criticism from specialized observers from civil society.

"We ask the President to review the decision and to Congress to require the maintenance of publicity standards relating to the acts of the government that have been obtained," said the Citizen Initiative for Control of the Intelligence System ( Iccsi), of civil organizations dedicated to this subject.

A box that grows

Since then, however, the spies black money has continued to rise. This year, the AFI budget amounts to $ 2697 million, of which $ 1754 million would be used for staff salaries and $ 943 million more for "other duties" .

However, they answer that the information they transmit is not all secret, but that by law, they must evolve according to three levels of security: secret, confidential and public, depending on the sensitivity of the data. Bertoni is now asking the spies to clarify what each of these three categories includes and to present it in a report that the AFI must prepare and send for public release.

Bertoni however knows that it can be difficult to encourage transparency between spies. "The fact that intelligence agencies are reluctant to provide information is a universal problem," he said. "In Chile, for example, the Transparency Council had to go to court to comply with a request made and the Santiago Court of Appeal has just given the reason."

What happens if the AFI ignores Bertoni's request? They will be added to the list of areas and agencies of the state that partially fail or achieve their objectives of transparency and dissemination of information, which already includes the General Secretariat of the Presidency and the Ministry of Security, between other. For spies, a minor stain can occur when Cambiemos' ally, Lilita Carrió, demands its complete dissolution.