On July 16, the Argentine national government established the Federal Cybersecurity Agency (AFC) by emergency decree and authorized it to intercept private communications—telephone conversations, emails, and chats—and to collect, acquire, and process “all information relevant to the National Intelligence System” stored in private databases and digital archives. At no point does the decree specify what counts as “relevant” information.
For this reason, as members of the Citizen Initiative for Oversight of the Intelligence Services (ICCSI), we have filed a class-action lawsuit in federal administrative court seeking a declaration of absolute nullity and unconstitutionality of Emergency Decree 614/2024. Through this decree, Javier Milei carried out a structural reform of the intelligence system that alters its organization, powers, and objectives, and infringes upon the rights to privacy and intimacy, informational self-determination, and freedom of expression.
The decree contains numerous defects and grants sweeping powers to the new SIDE. It does not specify the circumstances under which the new agency may intercept communications, what type of information is covered, the procedures to be followed, or the justification for doing so. It is even less clear about what an expansion of the state’s powers to intrude on private life actually entails. These ambiguities empower the state to conduct mass surveillance: under the decree there is no requirement to articulate a specific investigative hypothesis directed at a particular person or group, nor are there limits on the volume of data that can be intercepted or collected. By modifying the definitions of “intelligence” and “counterintelligence,” the decree broadens the justifications that permit the interception of private communications. Now the intelligence apparatus can cite not only national defense and security as a basis for collection, but also any “opportunity” linked to the “pursuit of the country’s strategic interests.”
The decree also does not establish a maximum retention period or specify the locations where these surveillance activities will take place (whether inside or outside of the country, for example). It does not even establish a specific mechanism for internal or external oversight. On the contrary, the decree reinforces the paradigm of secrecy surrounding these activities. Any of us could be placed under surveillance, with our private data collected, analyzed, and archived in complete secrecy.
The decree also once again authorizes intelligence agencies to act as auxiliaries to the judiciary in criminal proceedings “in matters within their area of expertise,” on an exceptional basis and at the request of the competent judge. At the same time, it empowers them to “report” on any information obtained through their activities that may be relevant to a judicial investigation. This reinstates a practice that had previously been banned because of the grave abuses it caused. Recently, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled against the Argentine State in the AMIA case due to the failure of the judicial investigation, a failure driven,among other reasons, by the involvement of the former SIDE in the investigation.
This lack of clarity and precision, together with the authorization for state agencies to intrude into private spheres without adequate oversight, jeopardizes human rights specifically protected by the National Constitution and by international treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the American Convention on Human Rights, among others.
Illegal intelligence and surveillance practices are deeply entrenched in our system. There is ample evidence of information-gathering, surveillance, and monitoring of union activists, social movements, human rights organizations, journalists, and politicians, based on their activities, opinions, and political positions. The same has been done to collectives of victims and their families, and to indigenous communities, as the ARA San Juan, AMIA, and D’Alessio cases, among others, make clear. This reform creates the conditions for that pattern to continue under absolute secrecy.