Documents classified as secret by the Bolsonaro government may have been deleted, analyst suggests.

Sputnik One of the most discussed topics in the final stretch of the Bolsonaro government is the imposition of secrecy "for up to 100 years" on a wide range of information, ranging from the Brazilian nuclear submarine project to the guest list of Michelle Bolsonaro at religious services at Granja do Torto.

Capitalizing on popular dissatisfaction with the blacked-out classifications on so many documents, then-candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva promised to remove all the secrecy imposed during his opponent's administration.

"I'm going to win the elections, and when January 1st comes, I'm going to take your confidential information and let the Brazilian people know why you're hiding so much. After all, if it's good, there's no need to hide it," Lula said during a debate on TV Bandeirantes in October 2022.

Experts are eagerly awaiting the release of information regarding the disciplinary proceedings against former Health Minister, General Pazuello, while curious onlookers would like to see details about Ronaldinho Gaúcho's arrest in Paraguay, or the international trips of the president's son, Eduardo Bolsonaro.

But does Lula have the authority to declassify all these documents on January 1st? And, ultimately, was the Bolsonaro government really the one that imposed the most secrecy on official information? Sputnik Brazil spoke with experts to understand what the future holds for transparency in public acts in Brazil.

Bolsonaro Clan

According to Maria Vitória Ramos, co-founder and director of the data agency Fiquem Sabendo, which specializes in the Access to Information Law (LAI), transparency in Brazil has been evolving since the law's approval in 2011.

The law guarantees the publicity of public acts, but stipulates that information "essential to the security of society or the State" must be kept secret. In these cases, classified documents are kept away from the public for five years, while secret documents remain closed for 15 years and top-secret documents for 25 years.

The Bolsonaro government, however, abuses provisions of the Access to Information Law (LAI) that seek to protect personal information, in order to shield the president and members of his family.

"During Dilma's government, a lot of information was classified, especially within the Armed Forces. The problem with Bolsonaro is that he personalizes secrecy, applying it to cases related to him personally," Ramos told Sputnik Brasil.

In fact, Brazilians are getting used to hearing expressions like "100-year secrecy" and to considering the president's vaccination record, or the list of visitors to the Presidential Palace, as private matters.

"What is happening is that access to information about President Bolsonaro [...] has been denied as if it were private information, and not information about the country's most important public figure," Ramos stated. "There is a misapplication of the law, perhaps illegal and in bad faith, to censor and restrict information related to the president."

Igor Sant'Anna Tamasauskas, a PhD in State Law from USP (University of São Paulo), agrees that there was a misapplication of the Access to Information Law during the Bolsonaro administration, and suggests that it may have been intentional.

"There has been a trivialization and abuse in the use of this prerogative to classify documents as confidential. This is an aberration that needs to be corrected," Tamasauskas told Sputnik Brasil.

The lawyer, a partner at the Bottini e Tamasauskas law firm, explains that Lula does indeed have the authority to remove the confidentiality of the documents. Furthermore, the very body that imposed the confidentiality has the prerogative to review its decision.

"The administrative act that imposed the classification can be reviewed, just like any other administrative act. Both a hierarchically superior authority and the agency itself can review the confidentiality if they identify erroneous information," Tamasauskas clarified.

The Judiciary also has the prerogative to remove the confidentiality of documents, just like the average citizen, who can request the opening of public information through the transparency portal.

"The problem is that, if we follow the rules set by the Army, for example, it would take 700 years for civil society to obtain access to all the documents that have been classified since 2013," Ramos said.

A survey by the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo indicates that the Army is the agency that has classified the most documents as secret since 2019. Access to information such as the personnel file of Fabrício de Queiroz, former advisor to the president's son Flávio Bolsonaro, was denied based on the protection of personal information.

Abuse in security agencies

Disrespect for the Access to Information Law is not limited to the president's office. Security agencies, such as the Federal Police, the Institutional Security Office (GSI), the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (ABIN), the Armed Forces, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of Science and Technology, use internal regulations to deny access to classified information, even after the secrecy period has expired.

According to Ramos, these agencies cite internal reasons, such as the security of their agents, for keeping the information unavailable indefinitely.

"Security agencies […] simply believe that internal resolutions supersede the LAI (Law on Access to Information). But the LAI is a national law that stipulates very clearly: once the confidentiality period ends, the document is automatically public. But that doesn't happen," Ramos revealed.

In this context, the independent data agency Fiquem Sabendo filed a lawsuit against ABIN (Brazilian Intelligence Agency) to guarantee the transparency of documents that should already be public. The lawsuit also aims to create a legal precedent so that other security agencies comply with the letter of the LAI (Brazilian Access to Information Law).

Do we need to change the LAI (Law on Access to Information)?

Even if the secrecy imposed during the Bolsonaro administration is eventually lifted, nothing prevents the fallacious interpretation of the Access to Information Law from being repeated in future governments. Experts interviewed by Sputnik Brasil, however, warn that changing current legislation is not necessarily the best solution to prevent abuses.

"Initially, changing the legislation is not the answer. We need to be stable and understand the position of this new Congress, because sometimes opening up legislation to be edited can destroy that norm," Ramos considered.

According to her, Brazil has one of the most advanced access to information laws in the world, which includes an internationally awarded transparency portal.

"The time now is for review. To find out which documents were deleted, what was changed in the systems, to conduct audits of email inboxes [...] and to communicate with civil society all the time," Ramos proposed.

In early November, the Planalto Palace reported that a virus had infected its computer network, but denied that internal documents had been compromised. At the time, IT technicians at the palace were instructed to delete files from the Presidency's computers, as reported by the newspaper Metrópoles.

A document from Fiquem Sabendo, sent to the transition team for the Lula 3 government and accessed by Sputnik Brasil, proposes an audit of government systems, devices, and hard drives to identify any documents that may have been deleted.

Tamasaukas points out that those who violated the Access to Information Law should be punished, just as all citizens who disobey the law are: "If people vandalized this law, they have to answer for it," Tamasaukas believes.

"We are talking about vandals, and vandals must be treated as such. It is necessary to identify illicit conduct, review the administrative act that improperly classified certain information as confidential, and punish those who erred. Investigate and punish. With vandals, there is no other way to act," the lawyer concluded.

The removal of secrecy imposed during the Bolsonaro administration was a recurring theme of the presidential campaign and is the subject of analysis in the transparency group within the transition team for the Lula administration. In Brazil, the Access to Information Law (LAI) is the main legal basis for reviewing such acts, as is the General Data Protection Law (LGPD).

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