The Supervisory Board of the Information System of the Portuguese Republic (SIRP) issued a statement on Wednesday that the Security Information Service (SIS) did not act unlawfully in retrieving the state laptop assigned to former assistant minister João Galamba, .
“It cannot therefore be concluded from the collected elements that there was an illegal action by the SIS, in particular violation of rights, freedoms and guarantees”can be read in the memorandum that the Supervisory Board sent to the editors, explaining that it took measures on April 28 “on its own initiative” to obtain the necessary elements for the fulfillment of its supervisory duties.
In this sense, the SIRP Supervisory Board, of which former PS Interior Minister Constança Urbano de Sousa is one of the three members, states that “there is no evidence that SIS took any police action in recovering the computer in question: everything indicates that the computer was handed over voluntarily by its owner, on public roads, i.e. outside his home, and without resorting to resort to coercive or legally prohibited means”.
“On the same day it received the computer and without any indication that it had been broken into, SIS proceeded to deliver it to CEGER, the body in charge of state electronic security and the prevention of loss or unauthorized dissemination of information.”, the SIRP justifies and reinforces that “it was an urgent case” given “a threat of disclosure of classified information”, which “forced the action of security forces and services”, with the aim of “preserve its integrity and confidentiality”.
Source: DN
