A Scandal Over Spying Intensifies in Colombia

[Judi Lynn]

A Scandal Over Spying Intensifies in Colombia
Published: Thursday, September 17, 2009 at 5:17 a.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, September 17, 2009 at 5:17 a.m.

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — President Álvaro Uribe, the top ally of the United States in Latin America, is enmeshed in a scandal over growing evidence that his main intelligence agency carried out an extensive illegal spying operation focused on his leading critics, including members of the Supreme Court, opposition politicians, human rights workers and journalists.

The scandal, which has unfolded over months, intensified in recent weeks with the disclosure of an audio intercept of a top official at the United States Embassy. Semana, a respected news magazine, obtained an intercept of a routine phone call between James Faulkner, the embassy’s legal attaché, and a Supreme Court justice investigating ties of Mr. Uribe’s political supporters to paramilitary death squads.

Other recordings obtained in investigations by journalists and prosecutors point to resilient multiyear efforts to spy on Mr. Uribe’s major critics by the Department of Administrative Security, a 6,500-employee intelligence agency — possibly South America’s largest — that operates directly under the authority of the president’s office.

The agency, known widely by the acronym DAS, has been the focus of accusations of illegal spying before. But this case is sowing fear among Mr. Uribe’s critics in the political elite, coming as the president, a conservative populist, presses ahead with a project to secure a third term.

More:
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20090917/ZNYT03/909173004?Title=A-Scandal-Over-Spying-Intensifies-in-Colombia

[rabs]

1. uribito must have been stung by the NYT story by Simon Sez

alvarito today said he was in favor of "eliminating" the DAS.

When alvaritio uses the word "eliminate," then it gets scary.

http://www.eltiempo.com/colombia/politica/soy-partidario-de-eliminar-el-das-presidente-lvaro-uribe_6131728-1

[rabs]

2. Colombia's spy agency DAS come to ignominious end

Adios, DAS.


Uribito will ask his rubberstamp Congress next week for "extraordinary powers" to dismantle immediately the scandal-riddled agency financed by the U.S. Plan Colombia.

A new, smaller intelligence and counterintelligence agency to be formed. Other duties to be transfered to National Police and the Interior Ministry.

Looks like spying on the U.S. legal attache was the last straw and the U.S. pulled the strings on its puppet alvarito. Wonder if Simon Sez was tipped off, hence the story in the NYT this week?

http://www.semana.com/noticias-seguridad/das-llega-su-fin/128890.aspx