Now that we find out that Argentina’s official espionage services, the Secretaría de Inteligencia de Estado (SIDE), have put into writing their secret aims under the pompous name of the “National Intelligence Plan,” it would be more suitable to separate the wheat from the chaff ahead of launching into facile indignation.
Always agreeing that the professional levels and transparency of the human and material resources of the local intelligence services are one of the many pending debts of our democracy, nor are we all that original – these shady aspects are replicated in many other countries across the globe.
Despite his anti-caste and anti-political narrative, it would seem that Javier Milei has no interest in modifying that historic logic and nor does his sister Karina. They therefore delegated that task – initially to Nicolás Posse, briefly the President’s first Cabinet chief, and then to super-advisor Santiago Caputo.
As in so many other state spheres, which they said they wished to destroy and now try to control, La Libertad Avanza has reverted to certain blasts from the past. They reinstalled the classic name of the agency (SIDE), reopening its doors to the influence of such well-known old faces of “La Casa” as Antonio ‘Jaime’ Stiuso, Enrique ‘Coti’ Nosiglia or Miguel Ángel Toma, among others.
Like all previous administrations, Caputo placed a close confidant of his at the helm, despite potential doubts as to their professional capacity. His name is Sergio Neiffert, a mechanical engineering graduate whom the super-advisor has known ever since he worked alongside his late notary father with previous work experience at Acumar (Autoridad de la Cuenca Matanza-Riachuelo). Is Neiffert an expert in stinking atmospheres?
The new/old SIDE fell under the focus of public opinion last year when the government tried to decree an extra budget allocation of US$100 million amid Milei’s chainsaw. The initiative was rejected in Congress, even by the alway benevolent PRO.
La Nación journalist Hugo Alconada Mon recently leaked a presumed secret plan of SIDE that would allow spying on politicians, journalists, economists, social movements, etc., for which they could count on fresh remittances for reserve spending with no need to be declared and zero accountability.
The Presidential Office issued a communiqué of denial last Sunday. Shortly afterwards, government sources aired their suspicions of the Bicameral Committee for Monitoring Intelligence Activities as the source of the information. From denial to witch-hunting.
Over and above whether this secret document exists (and the threats received and hacking suffered by Alconada Mon, which warrant repudiation), in any event this report puts into writing what our intelligence services have done historically, including the governments of those rubbished by the libertarians as republican nerds.”
There are still ongoing cases due to the actions of Gustavo Arribas and Silvia Majdalani during the Mauricio Macri (2011-2015) Presidency, as Alconada Mon well knows. And that’s without even mentioning the use made by Kirchnerism of that agency in the past.
Ever since the Milei administration took office, this column has issued the corresponding warnings as to the intrigue both within and beyond SIDE. Thoughts about how they have been tracked by Macri and Vice-President Victoria Villarruel (would that be why the latter has just enthroned an expert in the issue within her circle?). About a dirty campaign against Buenos Aires City Jorge Macri. About presumed links between the SIDE reporting to Caputo, with the communications team reporting to Caputo. And more.
Until now the path taken by the forces of heaven against the sewers of democracy is no different from their predecessors. It would be barely anecdotal were it not for the fact that such mishandling permitted the two biggest terrorist attacks in Argentine history and made their impunity possible.
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