• Military
• WMD

• Intelligence Menu               

• Systems
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Imagery
• Links

• Homeland Security
• Space

SIDE Secretaría de Inteligencia del Estado
SIDE Secretariat of State Intelligence

A political crisis was opened by the death of Nisman, which stripped open the cesspool of intelligence and espionage. President Cristina Fernandez decided to dissolve the Secretariat of Intelligence [SI] after public investigator Alberto Nisman was found dead in his home in 2015, a mysterious case that the government said was a murder perpetrated by rogue agents from the SI.

The Intelligence Secretariat ( SI ), better known by its former name, Secretariat of State Intelligence ( SIDE ) was the largest intelligence service of the Argentina Republic between 1946 and 2015. Since 2005 , when the National Intelligence System was created, it was officially called Ministry of Intelligence, and until 2001 was called Secretariat of State Intelligence. In the 1970's a law was put into force and its regulation was prescribed, establishing the duties and functions of the SECRETARIAT OF STATE INTELLIGENCE. This law was in force until a new intelligence law was approved according to the National Defence Act, which was put into force in 1988.

The National Intelligence Center [Central Nacional de Inteligencia - CNI] was the highest government organization dealing with the National Strategic Intelligence matters. It was also the highest government body for orientation and coordination of these matters for the intelligence agencies composing this organization. Its members include the Ministries of Defense, Interior, Foreign Affairs and Economy; the Armed Forces; the Border Patrol and the Coast Guard; and the Federal Police.

The internal structure consisted of a Chairman who was the State Intelligence Secretary, a Vice Chairman who was an undersecretary of the State Intelligence Secretariat, the Board of Directors, composed of the Chiefs of the intelligence agency-members, and a working body. This Center produces and disseminates National Strategic Intelligence reports for the long and medium terms. It was directly responsible to the President via its Chairman.

The School of National Intelligence [Escuela Nacional de Inteligencia - ENI] had the main responsability to develop courses of formation, qualification and up-dating of the staff belonging to the Secretariat, national and provincial entities related to the intelligence and gives post-graduate courses on National Strategic Intelligence.

The SECRETARIAT OF STATE INTELLIGENCE -SIDE-, was the head of the National Intelligence System, was chaired by the Secretary of State Intelligence who was a member of the Cabinet of Ministers. It was considered as a technical body with the ability to collect information, make intelligence in internal and foreign areas, and it contributes to work out a National Strategic Intelligence in order to handle State affairs.

The Undersecretariat of Interior Intelligence was responsible for collecting and processing the information of internal affairs and developing counterintelligence activities. It had the following directorates:

• Directorate of Interior Intelligence, responsible for production and dissemination of intelligence in the internal area. For this purpose, it was subdivided into Departments which are in charge of specific political, economic and social factors.
• Directorate of Interior Collection, responsible for searching and collecting of information on national affairs, for which task it had technical-operational and management areas.
• Directorate of Counterintelligence, responsible for counterintelligence and counterespionage activities. It had intelligence and technical-operational areas which have specific duties.
• Directorate of Judicial Oversight, responsible for carrying out the telephone controls set up by a Judge.
• Directorate of Social Communication, responsible for the collection of public information (taken from the mass media).

The Undersecretariat of Foreign Intelligence was in charge of the collection of information and production of intelligence on foreign affairs. It had the following directorates:

• Directorate of Foreign Intelligence, responsible for the production of State Intelligence and Information on the external area. For this purpose, it had specific areas analysing different issues and the continental and global frame by country/country by country/in each country :
  • International political, economical and social processes
  • International Terrorism and Organised Crime
  • Processes of the proliferation of massive destruction weapons

• Directorate of Foreign Collection, responsible for the collection of information on facts and/or processes pertaining to foreign affairs. It comprises different areas with strictly technical and operational targets. It was responsible for the liaison with Foreign Services.

The Undersecretariat of Support was in charge of the staff, logistic support, communications and data-processing center of the Secretariat. In order to achieve this, it had several directorates in charge of these specific areas.

After the accession to power by the military of the Republic of Argentina in 1976, violations of human rights were committed by officers or agents of the Argentine military and security forces during counterinsurgency or counterterror operations, including by the State Intelligence Secretariat (Secretaria de Inteligencia del Estado), Military Intelligence Detachment 141 (Destacamento de Inteligencia Militar 141 in Cordoba), Military Intelligence Detachment 121 (Destacamento Militar 121 in Rosario), Army Intelligence Battalion 601, the Army Reunion Center (Reunion Central del Ejercito), and the Army First Corps in Buenos Aires.

On 06 June 2009, independent newspaper "Perfil" linked Wilfredo Roque, the chief of the Santa Cruz provincial office of Argentina's intelligence agency, SIDE, to a trafficking in persons (TIP) ring led by Alejandro Guerrero. A childhood friend of former President Nestor Kirchner, Roque was Kirchner's police chief when Kirchner was Santa Cruz Governor. Investigative journalism TV show "American Documentary" ("Documentos America") aired footage showing Roque's right hand man, Oscar Mazzochi, together with Guerrero, recruiting women and children in the shantytowns of Buenos Aires City to work in the red-light district in Rio Gallegos, the capital city of Santa Cruz, which also happens to be the home province of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and her husband, ex-president Nestor Kirchner. They are known as "Las Casitas" or "The Little Houses." The Catholic Church and other civil society groups claim they are brothels and drug havens operating under the guise of discos and pubs.

Roqueheld this position for 16 years until he was forced to resign in 2007, after then National Deputy Daniel Varizat, a Kirchner ally, ran over six persons in an attempt to escape a teacher's strike in the province. Local newspapers report that during Roque's tenure, he implemented a hiring and promotion freeze for over 12 years, which prompted provincial police officials to supplement their incomes by offering protection to illegal gambling establishments and brothels. Santa Cruz government offered the trafficking victims very little protection or assistance, making it difficult for them to come forward and testify against their traffickers.

Opponents claimed that the women "chose to work" in Las Casitas and that the red-light district made prostitution socially discreet and safe, a sentiment shared by Governor Peralta who has called the area "a part of the local culture." In fact, a small number of women who worked in "Las Casitas" protested the forced closure and demanded their jobs back.

Alberto Nisman, the prosecutor who accused Argentinian President Cristina Kirchner of covering-up Iran’s suspected role in the deadly Jewish center attack in 1994, was found dead in his apartment just hours before he was set to testify in front of the national Congress. President Cristina Fernandez charged that rogue agents from the Argentine intelligence services were behind the death of the state prosecutor. President Cristina Fernandez called on Congress to dissolve Argentina’s intelligence services after the mysterious death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman.

On 26 January 2015, President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner announced a project that included the dissolution of the SI and the opening of a new Federal Intelligence Agency (AFI), In February 2015 the bill was passed to dissolve the body and create, instead, the Federal Intelligence Agency.

A district attorney for the Buenos Aires Criminal Appeals Court alleged 26 February 2016 that the suspicious death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman was a homicide and not a suicide, backing assertions made by Nisman's ex-wife, who maintains that he was murdered. "The evidence up to this point supports the hypothesis that Alberto Nisman was the victim of the crime of homicide," wrote District Attorney Ricardo Saenz. The district attorney also made a non-binding recommendation that the case be handed over to federal authorities and pursued as a murder investigation.

The death of Nisman rocked Argentina, with some trying to pin the blame on the government of then President Cristina Fernandez. Critics alleged that Fernandez wanted Nisman dead after he suggested there was a government conspiracy to cover up the role of Iranian officials in the bombing. District Attorney Saenz, who made the allegation that Nisman's death was a homicide, helped organize a controversial demonstration against the Fernandez government regarding the Nisman case alongside many of those critics.

Argentine courts repeatedly dismissed the allegations of an official conspiracy. The courts also opted to close the file regarding Nisman's alleged murder, saying that there was no evidence of a crime by then President Fernandez. Fernandez has alleged that Jaime Stiusso, a former spy at the now disbanded Intelligence Secretariat, fed Nisman false information implicating her government in an official cover-up of Iranian involvement in the bombing, ostensibly to protect growing trade relations between Argentina and the Islamic Republic. Stiusso, who briefly fled the country but soon returned, was considered a suspect in connection to the mysterious death of Nisman.