The Minister of Justice and Public Security, Flávio Dino, sent this Wednesday (15) to the Federal Police (PF) a letter asking for the investigation of allegations of irregularities involving the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (Abin). The newspaper The globe revealed that Abin used, during the first three years of Jair Bolsonaro’s government, a secret system to monitor up to 10,000 cell phone owners every twelve months. Dino used this information to ask the PF to act.
“Over the past few days, reports published in the national press have brought to the fore allegations of alleged cases of espionage by the Brazilian Intelligence Agency – Abin. The institution allegedly contracted, on a confidential basis, a secret system to illegally monitor the steps of mobile phone device owners. With this technological tool, Abin would be able to access the history of displacements and receive alerts in real time”, reports the minister in the document.
“The facts, in the way they are presented, can constitute crimes against the Public Administration and criminal association typified in the Penal Code, among others. In this case, if there are injuries to services and interests of the Union, as well as in view of the possible interstate repercussions of the itinerary in criminal theory, the investigative action of the Federal Police is required”, he adds.
Earlier, at the announcement ceremony of the National Program for Public Security with Citizenship (Pronasci), Dino had already advanced the decision to ask the PF to open an investigation. Last Tuesday (14), the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPF) opened a procedure to investigate the complaints.
Abin confirmed, in a note, the use of software to monitor the location of any person through the cell phone number and that this monitoring program was contracted between December 2018 and May 2021. It also stated that the agency is in the process of improvement, “in accordance with the public interest and the democratic rule of law”.
