Vitalino Canas, constitutionalist and former leader of the PS, and two former presidents of the Supervisory Board of the Information System of the Portuguese Republic (CFSIRP), the lawyer Abílio Morgado and the constitutionalist Jorge Bacelar Gouveia, claim that the actions of the SIS in the collection of the computer of the former assistant to the Minister of Infrastructure, João Galamba, was done outside the law that regulates the “secret”.
This was the response to the second position of CFSIRP members, who claim the opposite, after being heard again in parliament.
On Wednesday, the three CFSIRP members – Constança Urbano de Sousa (former PS minister), Joaquim Ponte (former PSD deputy) and Mário Belo Morgado (advisor-judge and former secretary of justice in the second government of António Costa) – at the parliamentary commission for constitutional affairs, in a meeting behind closed doors to talk (again) about the achievements of the SIS in the rescue of the laptop of Frederico Pinheiro (who had been acquitted hours before by Galamba).
After the meeting, and “to avoid misinformation”, the CFSIRP issued a statement, unsigned, unlike the first one signed by the three members, confirming what it had said earlier, i.e. , “it believed that there were no indications of any illegal action by the SIS”.
According to the CFSIRP report, “On April 26, the Chief of Staff of the Minister of Infrastructure reported to SIS that a laptop containing classified documents, particularly those related to TAP’s restructuring plan, had been taken away by a deputy from the Ministry of Infrastructure just fired” .
And then, “taking into account a pre-existing context and the data available at the time”, the director of the SIS concluded “that it was imperative to take steps to avoid the risk of compromise of classified state documents and to preserve their confidentiality.” guarantees”.
The communiqué continues: “SIS has not used any means that were forbidden to it. Dr. Frederico Pinheiro had a telephone conversation with a SIS employee and offered to voluntarily hand over the computer to him, on the public road, if the self stated in public statements on April 28 and 29”. Protecting itself from criticism for not listening to Frederico Pinheiro, the CFSIRP considered that her actions “fell outside the typical models of judicial or disciplinary proceedings”, and were therefore not “aimed at confronting and other similar acts or the confronting third parties with their statements”.
“Unbearable Siren Song”
This communiqué did not change the mind of constitutionalists Vitalino Canas and Jorge Bacelar Gouveia, the first of the PS and the last of the PSD, as well as the former president of CFSIRP Abílio Morgado, who already believed that there was no legal framework for SIS action.
For socialist Vitalino Canas, the CFSIRP did not clarify three questions and should explain: “Specify what is to be understood by ‘carrying out acts or carrying out activities within the scope or specific authority of entities with police functions’; specifying which law permits say collecting a computer allegedly illegally taken from a public service by a person, even if done with the full cooperation and consent of the ultimate suspect (which is highly debatable considering the circumstances …) , which qualifies as a seizure, cannot be considered an “act or activity within the specific jurisdiction of entities with police duties”; and generally informing the community whether it is now about carrying out activities that are necessary to assess and prevent risks and threats to the interests of the state and “protect internal security and prevent threats to national interests, including in the economic dimension”, it is expected and legitimate that the organs of the SIRP, in particular the SIS, material acts similar to those of April 26″.
He also regrets that “the responsibility for the decision is attributed solely to the Director of the SIS”, and that the Secretary General of the SIRP, Ambassador Graça Mira Gomes, is omitted.
As already announced, his office was first contacted by João Galamba’s chief of staff, after which the SIS was activated.
Abílio Morgado, who preceded Constança Urbano de Sousa in the presidency of the CFSIRP, says the communiqué “adds nothing substantial regarding the lack of legal basis for the action of the SIS” and that “by continuing to try to justify the unjustified , the CFSIRP is now ensnaring an incongruous and notoriously unsustainable siren song”. For this lawyer, national security adviser to the President of the Republic of Cavaco Silva, “it has long been clear that the concrete action of the SIS can in no way be part of the only attribution that the law attributes to it, namely that of the producing information. What the SIS has done, under no circumstances can perform any action that can be traced to the cycle of producing information. The SIS has made a mistake, just a mistake and an excusable mistake, given the ridiculous situation communicated to him and because it intended to do the best he could think of to allay concerns regarding the information in question, but ultimately he acted outside what the law allows by committing an error of judgment, which is undisguised and it must be recognised, this acknowledgment will allow you to restore the confidence and credibility of the SIS, because only this acknowledgment gives us the guarantee that what happened is neither practical nor repeatable.
He endorses Vitalino Canas’s regret that “everything in the communiqué is directed at the director of the SIS, as if there were no other responsibilities”, and in challenging delegates to “take on the necessary considerations and options on whether to accept or not that what happened can be understood as a normal procedure of the intelligence services in Portugal”.
The former president of the CFSIRP, Jorge Bacelar Gouveia, maintains his analysis in an op-ed published in the DN, writing that he “reinforced the opinion he had about the illegality of the intervention of the SIRP/SIS”.
For this professor, “the intervention of the SIRP/SIS is preventive, yes, like the police, but it is a” prevention upstream of police intervention “and is only reflected in the” production of information “, according to concrete interventions that are permitted by law, which never involve the restriction of freedoms, can supervise in public spaces or assume alternative identities, which is provided, but these actions never translate into approaches of personal coercion or appropriation of objects, or equivalent measures” .
Source: DN
