Spain: Interior Minister Threatens MP on Eavesdropping System

Libertad Digital ^ | 20 November 2009 | Mercedes R. Martin / P. Montesinos

[J Aguilar]

Rubalcaba "sees and listens" to the MP who asked for SITEL.

Incident between [Interior Minister] Rubalcaba and [MP] Carlos Floriano after a tense row in the Parliament. According to [PP spokeperson] Esteban Gonzalez-Pons, the minister lost control of himself and went after the Popular Party member of the parliament to threaten him “I see and I hear everything you do” […].

Mercedes R. Martin / P. Montesinos

When all the reporters were awaiting news about the liberation of the “Alakrana”, Esteban Gonzalez-Pons surprised everyone with a press conference to explain the incident that happened just a few meters away from the parliamentary session where the Popular Party and the government had gotten involved again in a debate on SITEL and the Faisan case.

The tension in the hall moved to the corridors: Alfredo Perez-Rubalcaba came up to Pons himself and Carlos Floriano, the member of the parliament who had asked in the session about the [mobile phone network] eavesdropping system [known as SITEL], to ask them to stop making opposition with it.

According to Pons, the interior minister urged both to follow him to the Pasos Perdidos hall and there “he lost control of himself”. The minister, [Pons explained], even threatened Floriano: “I see everything you do and I hear everything you say”. He also demanded them to stop questioning about the eavesdropping system: “Either you shut up or you´ll go to court”. Pons added that [Rubalcaba] also insulted Floriano and that the incident ended when the president of the Parliament, Jose Bono, came up and took away the interior minister.

Pons did not give more details to the astonished reporters that covered the press conference, but he denounced, also remembering what had happened in the Parliamentary chamber, that Rubalcaba, according to the facts, “is not in condition to be interior minister” and demanded his resignation. […]

Floriano added further details […]. The MP revealed that specifically Rubalcaba had called him “paranoic” and confirmed the tension among the three MP’s. The minister even confronted both politicians. About Bono, he pointed out that his conduct had been the one of a friend that helps someone who is committing a mistake. According to the Popular Party member, the president of the Parliament insisted the interior minister: “Alfredo let’s leave, Alfredo let’s leave.”

The incident could not be entirely followed by anyone else, but there were some people close to the area where Rubalcaba was telling off the Popular party members. A witness told LD, that in the beginning of the argument, Rubalcaba blamed Floriano and Pons saying that their accusations on SITEL were “false” and the he was not going to present a ley organica because they demanded it. “You cannot ask us to shut up” answered the Popular Party members. After that, they moved further away from where the shouts of Rubalcaba, who in effect, had lost control of himself, could be listened. Another person also saw them arguing “in loud voice” and gesticulating. While Rubalcaba was telling that he did not accept the accusations about eavesdropping, the Popular party members answered, according to this version, that neither could they accept such a “threatening tone”. […]

[J Aguilar]

SITEL is the acronym for and advanced eavesdropping system to collect data from the mobile phone networks. This system allows the National Police, Civil Guard and the Secret Services to get personal data of any user of a mobile phone (including its localization) without judicial authorization. Contrary to the traditional method of tapes, in which the fragments not considered useful for a case by the judge in charge were cut and destroyed, SITEL’s software keeps the entire original recordings.

SITEL was bought by the Popular Party government of Aznar, but never put on-line as more than 20 reports assessed it is unconstitutional. As SITEL steps into fundamental rights, its application must be regulated by an “organic law” or ley organica, which needs full majority to be approved, full majority that the Socialist party does not have.

On November 9th any Spanish unregistered mobile phone was disconnected from the networks.

Interior minister Rubalcaba was the spokesperson during the Gonzalez governments that gave birth to the GAL terror group in the 1980’s. In 2004 he had a leading role in the agitation campaign that began hours after the Madrid train bombings. He coined the slogan “we deserve a government that does not lie”. Of course, as interior minister he has done nothing to clarify the case.

His last deeds have been to remove president Zapatero’s men at the command of the National Police, through an operation in which alleged leaks to ETA, leaks that prevented the dismantling of ETA’s economic branch, were used to get rid of them. As you could imagine, once they were removed, Rubalcaba has done nothing to clarify the case, which is known as the Faisan case.

Further work has been done to corner judge Garzon’s men in the leading posts of the National Police. Currently an exchange of dossiers through the media, airing each other high rank police officer’s dirty laundry, is proceeding among all the sides involved.

Taking all this data into account, some questions immediately arise:

·Who is pulling the strings through Rubalcaba to tighten the control of the National Police against the will of president Zapatero and star judge Garzón, who knows so many dirty secrets?

·Why is SITEL, the unconstitutional surveillance system that enables a close control of the Spaniards, not a debatable issue?

·Was the survival of ETA extortion network accomplished through leaks from the National Police itself a collateral effect in an operation to discredit Zapatero’s men in the command of the corps or a part of an agreement? That is, in exchange of what ETA was allowed to keep its cash source?

·And why does a man like interior minister Rubalcaba, who is backed by such powerful people, a man whose political career would have been envied by Joseph Goebbels himself, commit such a stupid mistake?

[Travis McGee]

We won’t need tracking/bugging chips planted in our skin.

We will volunarily carry them in our pockets forever.

[J Aguilar]

Ping!

[tanuki]

This fellow Rubalcaba sounds especially dangerous to representative government because he has been entrenched in power for so long.”We deserve a government that does not lie.”, who says politicians don’t have a sense of humor.

Something like SITEL should be completely unacceptable in a representative society. The fact that it can be discussed openly shows how far Spain has fallen.

[tanuki]

Basically, with a security establishment so entrenched, scrutinizing everything, yet impervious to scrutiny, aligned to one party, you have an authoritarian state which in time turns into a corporatist (fascist) state.

[J Aguilar]

That's it. A nominal Democracy but really a political and economic system widely surveilled and manipulated, where a agitation operation follows a disinformation one and so on.

In fact, as historian Pio Moa put it, there existed more economic freedom during the Franco dictatorship, because the State was then much smaller (and thus had less weight in the economy) and the General rarely exercized his absolute powers.