Spying is incompatible with the rule of law

The state of sus­pi­cion is a de­gen­er­a­tion of the rule of law, as dic­ta­tor­ships and to­tal­i­tar­ian regimes have shown us. Sus­pi­cion of or­di­nary cit­i­zens is the way to jus­tify the need to spy on, to con­trol and to in­vade peo­ple’s lives. It hap­pened under Nazism and Fran­co­ism, as well as Stal­in­ism in the USSR and in other com­mu­nist dic­ta­tor­ships. The prob­lem is when democ­ra­cies in­dulge in these prac­tices and be­have in a very sim­i­lar way to the po­lit­i­cal po­lice of to­tal­i­tar­ian regimes. Spy­ing in­dis­crim­i­nately for po­lit­i­cal rea­sons is a crime that democ­ra­cies can­not com­mit, but the re­cent Cata­lan­gate scan­dal has ex­posed an un­com­fort­able truth: there are state agen­cies in Eu­ro­pean Union coun­tries spy­ing on jour­nal­ists, lawyers, po­lit­i­cal lead­ers… and or­di­nary cit­i­zens. Just be­cause they de­fend the in­de­pen­dence of Cat­alo­nia and be­cause they have dif­fer­ent po­lit­i­cal views than the Span­ish state. The Eu­ro­pean Par­lia­ment has set up a com­mis­sion of in­quiry to in­ves­ti­gate this, but the at­ti­tude of the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion sug­gests that there is no real in­ten­tion to get to the bot­tom of it and pun­ish such prac­tices. Human rights or­gan­i­sa­tions and ex­perts have warned that spy­ware pro­grams, such as Pe­ga­sus and Can­diru, which have been used to spy on Cata­lan pro-in­de­pen­dence lead­ers, their lawyers, jour­nal­ists and even mem­bers of their fam­i­lies, are in­com­pat­i­ble with the rule of law, and that they should not be used even with ju­di­cial per­mis­sion. But the gov­ern­ments that have al­ready tasted the po­lit­i­cal ben­e­fits of these tools will surely find it hard to break free from them: they can find out what their op­po­nents’ strate­gies are be­fore em­bark­ing on po­lit­i­cal ne­go­ti­a­tions and talks, and an­tic­i­pate all their moves to their own ad­van­tage. While the Span­ish gov­ern­ment is deny­ing every­thing, it is also ob­vi­ous that no other pub­lic agency or state would be in­ter­ested in spy­ing on the Cata­lan pro-in­de­pen­dence lead­ers; maybe that is why, the “con­sti­tu­tional” block that op­er­ates in Spain as a pro­tec­tion of the 1978 regime, has pre­vented the Span­ish par­lia­ment doing the same as the Eu­ro­pean Par­lia­ment, and in­ves­ti­gat­ing and clar­i­fy­ing the ex­tremely se­ri­ous and dan­ger­ous facts. (Don’t miss Pere Bosch’s re­port on spy­ing on pre­vi­ous Cata­lan pro-in­de­pen­dence lead­ers in this issue, on pages 18-30).