The President of the Supervisory Board of the Information System of the Portuguese Republic confirmed on Tuesday that SIS’s role in recovering the computer of former Deputy Minister João Galamba “has a legal basis.”
“We confirm what is in the statement, we refer to it in full. Here, of course, there was an explanation [no parlamento] about the facts and everything that led us to create this legal framework of facts,” Constanza Urbano de Sousa said in the Assembly of the Republic, referring to a document released last week.
Journalists reached out to Constanza Urbano de Sousa after a joint hearing of the SIRP Supervisory Board by the Committees on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees and National Defense, which lasted about three hours.
When asked if there is a legal basis for this structure, the person in charge replied: “On our basis, it has a legal basis.”
Constanza Urbano de Souza did not respond to a request to elaborate on this legal basis.
In a communiqué issued last week, SIRP’s supervisory board found that the elements it had collected “do not allow us to conclude” that the Information and Security Service (ISS) misconducted the seizure of the laptop computer of former Assistant Minister of Infrastructure Joao Galamba.
“The collected elements do not allow us to conclude on the illegal actions of the SIS, especially any violation of the rights, freedoms and guarantees,” say Joaquim Ponte, Constanza Urbano de Sousa and Mario Belo Morgado, who make up the Portuguese Information System Supervisory Board in a statement. Republic (CFSIRP).
CFSIRP stated that “there is no indication that any police action was taken by the SIS in recovering the computer in question” and that “everything points to the fact that the computer was handed over voluntarily to those who held it on the public road” and , he stressed, “therefore, outside the context of their place of residence and without the use of any coercive or legally prohibited means.”
SIS delivered the computer the same day it was picked up from “CEGER, the body responsible for the electronic security of the state and the prevention of loss or inappropriate dissemination of information,” adds the SIRP Supervisory Board.
The Supervisory Board of the Portuguese Secret Agencies stressed that the actions of the SIS, “which is a security service,” took place “within the bounds of urgency” and “in accordance with the logic of risk prevention, driven by the exclusive purpose, in the face of a situation that was presented as a threat of disclosure of classified information maintaining its integrity and confidentiality.
With respect to CFSIRP, SIS observed in its work “the requirement of necessity and proportionality, which always governs the work of security forces and services.”
The General Secretary of the Information System of the Portuguese Republic and the Director of the Security Information Service will be heard in Parliament behind closed doors on Thursday about the “legal framework” for SIS intervention in the recovery of the computer of the former Deputy Government.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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