Army and espionage: the choice of the president

Antonio Salgado Borge

A man working as a technical facilitator for the Home Office’s Dirty War Commission of Inquiry was monitored using Pegasus software for that six-year period. This information, published by The Washington Post, adds to the fact reported by The New York Times that Deputy Secretary of State Alejandro Encinas also fell victim to the same malware.

We are not dealing with isolated events. The espionage of these officials, in charge of investigating abuses of military and political power in Mexico, is linked to a significant chain, documented in detail and credibly by Aristegui Noticias during the #EjércitoSpía investigation. Under the current government, the army spied on human rights organizations, activists and journalists.

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Although surveillance of any person is a serious crime, when it is directed against officials, activists or journalists, alarms should be sounded with greater force. This is so because we are dealing with people who play key roles in the political arena. Consequently, their intimidation, blackmail or threats affect the public life of millions of Mexican men and women and go beyond the private sphere.

Given this scenario, one way for the president is to try to dilute his responsibility. And it seems to me that he can do this by choosing from a deck made up of five main options – the first three are publicly voiced by AMLO, the last two are unofficially shuffled. Then you should put them on the table and carefully evaluate.

Option 1

The first option is to claim that the Pegasus espionage reports were prepared by opponents of the president with the intent to harm him.

This is what is implied when it is assumed that military information leaks, known as the Guacamay leaks, are the result of a maneuver by the opposition and its leaders. The same thing happens when it is postulated that the media or organizations that disseminate this information are conservatives or enemies of the regime.

This option has two main problems. First, many of the organizations that worked on these investigations, such as Aristegui Noticias, Proceso, Article 19, or R3D, have reported espionage or the use of Pegasus since at least Felipe Calderón’s six-year term in office. Claiming that they are now doing this because they are AMLO’s enemies implies a desire to erase history with the stroke of a pen.

Secondly, even assuming that all these organizations and media seek to cause political damage to the President, what is true does not cease to be true when it is documented by the enemy or someone vile. For example, the fact that the Earth revolves around the Sun is no less true, because Adolf Hitler said so. Therefore, placing a reflector on the messenger does not invalidate the message.

Option 2

The second option is to assert that we are dealing not with espionage, but with intelligence.

The President initially adopted this strategy, implying that we are dealing with a mechanism used to fight crime without shooting. He even accompanied it, as usual, with a phrase that is difficult to refute in the abstract: “mind is better than strength.”

The problem is that the above does not explain why the targets of this “intelligence” were a few human rights activists or his own deputy interior minister. One would expect “intelligence” to include the ability to distinguish between those who engage in criminal activity and those who are clearly seeking to protect their victims or report their difficulties.

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To this it must be added that the President did not explain the meaning of the distinction between “intelligence” and “espionage”. This is important because, in the absence of an explanation, this distinction can be used as arbitrary as saying that “when neoliberal governments do it, it’s espionage; when my government does it, it’s intelligence.”

In any case, this line of defense is untenable. As RD3 explained, in Mexico, reconnaissance requires a judicial decision and can only be carried out under conditions that were clearly not met in this case.

Option 3

The third option discussed is to admit espionage in Mexico, but to state that the army does not do espionage.

This is what the president had in mind when he admitted that he was spying on Alejandro Encinas but wanted to split the army. However, there are two ways to show that this line of defense is not working.

First, by appealing to principles. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that it’s not the military who are spying. In this case, the Mexican government has an obligation to respond immediately, with all the harshness that these events justify, by launching a well-planned raid to dismantle the spy networks in Mexico, and not just discard this story. But this was clearly not the case.

Secondly, it should be noted that while it is unknown if anyone other than the military purchased this software, we do know for sure that the military did. We also know that various reports were in the hands of their high command. That is, while it may be true that not only the Mexican army is spying, it is a fact that the army is spying.

Option 4

Another possibility is to claim that the army is spying and AMLO knows about it, but he prefers to avoid this problem because what is happening is functional for his project.

Although this option was not explicitly mentioned, this kind of scenario would be consistent with how espionage has historically been used in Mexico and with the lack of interest or response that we are seeing from the President.

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The problem, of course, is that this scenario implies that the president is lying when he claims over and over again that espionage is a thing of the past and that it didn’t happen during his term. And although we seem to be used to it in Mexico, the open and direct lies of the chief executive should be the subject of the harshest criticism and have political consequences.

To this it must be added that both in the very act of espionage and in its false denial, the difference between this power and the previous ones, one of the flags that the president constantly displays, will eventually be completely blurred.

Option 5

The last option available is to admit that the army is spying and that AMLO knows, but state that he prefers to avoid the problem because there is nothing he can do about it.

This option would imply that although AMLO is “banned”, the army is spying anyway. And obviously, if that is the case, then we would be facing a president who has lost control of the military; a scenario that is not only frightening, but clearly unacceptable.

Conclusion

It’s time to make a cash cut. We looked at five possible options that have been or could be used to wash their hands of documented cases of military espionage: (1) claim that this information was collected and disseminated by their adversaries; (2) postulate that there is no espionage other than intelligence; (3) admit that there is espionage in Mexico, but claim that it is not the army that is spying; (4) claim that the army is spying and AMLO knows about it, but it doesn’t matter because it is functional for their project, and (5) agree that the army is spying and that AMLO knows, but claim that they prefer to shy away from the problem because there is really nothing they can do about it.

None of these options are suitable or presentable enough. Thus, admitting that the army is spying and acting accordingly is the only dignified path open to the president.