A implementação da Lei de Acesso à Informação no âmbito da Inteligência Estratégica: os posicionamentos da Controladoria-Geral da União (CGU) e do Gabinete de Segurança Institucional (GSI)

Abstract

This study seeks to analyze the opportunities and challenges created by the Brazilian Access to Information Act (LAI) within the framework of the activity of strategic intelligence. In the first chapter it is performed a brief review of Brazilian studies about the impacts of the new mechanisms of transparency on intelligence activity. The process of approval of the new rules is also considered, with an emphasis on the dynamics of institutional debates and dissents among the actors involved. The innovations introduced by the new rules are examined from the perspective of intelligence activities, in order to identify the needs of adaptation of their peculiar information streams and review procedures. In the implementation process, the focus is placed on controversies arising between the Office of the Comptroller General (CGU), agency that coordinates the measures of transparency in the Executive Branch, and the Cabinet of Institutional Security (GSI), an agency responsible for coordinating federal intelligence. The study concluded that the differences between the two bodies of the Presidency, with regard to conditions for access to documents drawn up by the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (ABIN), not only originate from gaps and ambiguities of the LAI itself, but express the shortcomings of the process of institutionalization of strategic intelligence activity in Brazil as well. Documents drawn up by the Administration itself are the main sources of this research, in particular legal analysis prepared by the CGU, in its condition of appellate instance in situations of denial of access to public information. In theoretical terms, the study uses concepts developed in the sociological study of the relationships between organizations, such as "autonomy" and “turf battle”, as used by James Q. Wilson.