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Agencia Federal de Inteligencia
Federal Intelligence Agency

The AFI [Agencia Federal de Inteligencia / Federal Intelligence Agency] is the successor of the SI (Intelligence Secretariat) that in-turn succeeded the State Intelligence Secretariat (SIDE).

In February 2016 President Mauricio Macri appointed his trusted friend Gustavo Arribas as chief of the Federal Intelligence Agency (AFI). Arribas is a notary public who had been very successful in the million-dollar market of football player transfers, but he seemed to have no experience whatsoever in the intelligence business. Unless, of course, he is an intelligence officer with the most solid cover of all time and a good deal of latitude. Which did not seem to be the case.

Some claim that the "new policy" of Macri for intelligence is based on the restoration of the old SIDE. Under Kirchner, the intelligence apparatus that had developed or strengthened (such as military intelligence command of Cesar Santos of the Heart of Jesus Milani or Project X) fell into disfavor. Under Macri, the "House" was back in order and in the hands of the usual suspects. It is not clear how much of this story crossed the fuzzy boundary in this swamp dividing reality from fiction.

President Macri issued a decree in May 2016 lifting the controls that Fernandez had placed on the agency's funding, allowing spies to return to their posts as wiretappers that had been run by the judiciary. Some agents from the defunct Secretariat of Intelligence recovering their posts and were taking over the Federal Intelligence Agency.

Argentine lawmakers passed a bill on 26 February 2015 to revamp the country's intelligence service. President Cristina Fernandez said the new state security body established under the legislation would be more accountable. But government opponents said the legislation does little more than change the name of the spy agency and had been rushed through Congress. The opposition boycotted some of the debate.

The new law aimed at creating a new legal realm to perform the activities of the intelligence bodies in accordance with the national Constitution, the Human Rights treaties that were already signed and those to be subscribed by the nation after the approval of this law and to any other norm that establishes rights and guarantees.

A year later, President Mauricio Macri backed the quest for broader powers that critics feared would revive unfettered domestic spying. By mid-2016 Argentina's spies pressed Macri to remove restrictions imposed by former president Cristina Fernandez after public investigator Alberto Nisman was found dead in his home in 2015. The murder of Nisman has still not been solved.

Agents purged by Fernandez moved back into old posts since Macri took power in December 2015. In May 2016, Macri issued a decree that lifted controls Fernandez had placed on the spy agency's funding, allowing it once again to spend most of its budget without public oversight. The agency was assigned a $100 million [800 million ARS] budget for 2016, with an estimated 2,000 employees.

The Victory Front and its allies in the Senate on February 13, 2015 rallied 38 votes in favor of a re-worked intelligence bill that was set to dissolve the Intelligence Secretariat (SI) and create the Federal Intelligence Agency. The measure included deeper amendments to the initial draft than expected, including a measure that would allow the attorney general to pick who will take over wiretapping operations.

One of the key unanswered questions was how exactly the Attorney General’s Office would absorb intelligence agents necessary to operate the wiretaps that had been run by the SI. A paragraph inserted into the bill which received Senate approval indicated that the Attorney General “will be able to request the transfer of staff from the Federal Intelligence Agency on a probationary basis in order to guarantee the transfer and functions of the Judicial Observations Directorate, up to the point that it has its own own specialized staff to carry out its functions.”

The bill now included a disposition that grants the Intelligence Secretary the authority to approve the retirement of “agents, without prejudice to their age, who have met the requirements for voluntary retirement and whose services are no longer required.” The authority is limited to the period immediately after the bill receives legislative approval, which now runs to 120 days instead of 90 days as first planned.

As expected, public funds destined for intelligence activities will be classified but all other funds will be subject to the previsions of the Financial Administration Law and will be included as public budget lines that are subject to review. A clear separation between intelligence and policing was also added to the bill along with measures that specify that criminal intelligence operations can only be ordered by a judge for a specific investigation and that agents will nonetheless be obliged to comply with criminal procedural rules.

The minimum period for which information must remain classified was reduced to 15 years from 25 years and provisions were included which specify that any person or organization that can demonstrate a legitimate interest will be able to request the Executive that material held by any of the organizations within the national intelligence system be declassified. The precise implementation and the administrative channels within which the requests will be handled were not specified and will be determined by the Executive at a later date.

The new Federal Intelligence Agency (AFI), which will keep in the sphere of the Executive Power, will have, however, a director and a sub-director that, although they will be designated by the PE (Executive Power), and are subject to Congress approval.

The bill establishes that the task of the national intelligence consists on the obtaining, collecting, systematizing and analysis of the specific information referred to facts, risks and conflicts that affect the security of the Nation and its inhabitants . And describes, specifically, what each fact entails for the prevention of international threats coming from the terrorism, the drug-trafficking, the weapons trafficking, the human trafficking, the cyber-crimes and the crimes against the economic and financial order, as any other form of crime organized in the international scope. Besides, it is ordered that the activities of domestic intelligence are set to serious federal crimes. It is also established, that the Agency will be the overarching body for these tasks.

The Federal Intelligence Agency shall be the overarching body, in charge with the tapings ordered by judges. It sets besides the transfer to the Fiscal Public Ministry of the System of Judicial Observations, which up to now was within the jurisdiction of the Executive Power.

The Public Fiscal Ministry is the only extra-power Ministry, that is to say, that it is not under the jurisdiction of the other State powers. From now on, any judge or prosecutor who requests a taping must resort to the Fiscal Prosecutor Ministry.

The Agency shall work in a specific defense area vis-a-vis attacks from abroad or before crimes that are complex due to their globalization, such as the human-trafficking, drug-trafficking, cyber-crimes, or economic crimes. The domestic intelligence activities will only be limited to the investigation on matters of complex Federal crimes, or attacks to the institutional or constitutional order in accordance to article 36 of the National Constitution.

The bill set a very important limit because any relationship of activity between the Federal Intelligence Agency and officials or employees of any of the public Federal, provincial of local powers, can only be carried out by the general secretary or the deputy director. This means that the only way available to officials to contact the Federal Intelligence Agency shall be the institutional way through its director or deputy director.

Banks of data and archives protection are also created, which aim will be to control the in-coming and out-going information to the bases of intelligence data, giving priority to their legal or constitutional reserve. And safeguarding that the data of intelligence once stored are not useful for the established purposes are destroyed, with guarantees that the information will not be used for reasons of race, religious faith, private actions or political opinions, or membership to political, social, human rights, labor, community, cooperative, assistance, cultural or work as any other illegal activity developed in other sphere.

The bill established sanctions for those who fail to comply with the dispositions in force, they range from 3 to 10 years, that is to say, non-bailable offences to every person who intercept, obtain or deviate illegally and against the dispositions of this law, telephone, mail, telegraph or fax communications or any other sending of images, voice, data or files. In addition, all those employees or officials - hereby, a new crime is created - who contact the intelligence services through non-institutional channels will be sanctioned.

On July 7, 2015 Decree 1311/2015 was published in the Official Gazette, providing for the "New Doctrine of National Intelligence." The decree has an annex of more than 400 sections and discusses the functions, personnel and structure of the Agency among others. The incorporation of conducting intelligence work was critical to prevent "runs on the market." The director of the AFI met with the business sector to clarify the scope of this doctrine, In May 2016 the power through an executive decree eliminated the expense report in the AFI and the professional regime was erased, by transferring more power to the head of the agency Gustavo Arribas. Mauricio Macri's government eliminated the requirement to register the Agency funds.