3.4 Data Protection and Electronic Surveillance for Security
and Defence Purposes
As already stated, from a symbolic point of view, the recognition of privacy related
rights and data protection guarantees was justified by the necessity to prevent the
possibility of uncontrolled gathering of personal information by the security agencies of the Government.
129 Of course, the secret police of the so-called First
Republic, under a one party system, was no Stasi and the level of informers and
arguably of dossiers in personal files was far from reaching the levels of the German
Democratic Republic,
130 despite the fact that many agents of the security apparatus
of the regime were trained there.
131 Certainly, the one party system was ‘just’ an
authoritarian
132 and at times repressive regime
133 not a totalitarian one, so one will
not find features similar to Nazi Germany, Stalinist Soviet Union or even from other
African Dictatorships when looking at the structure and practices of the First
Republic.
134 Finally, the level of technological development and organisation
would never permit the degree of digital communications surveillance similar to
the ones conducted for instance by the National Security Agency of the United States
of America.
135
Nonetheless, even the creation of a national intelligence agency, the Republic’s
Intelligence Services, in 2005, was received with distrust, especially because it was
promoted by the former leading party of the First Republic after returning to
Government 4 years earlier, with different actors expressing concerns on its possible
misuse to gather information about opposition and inconvenient civil society personalities,
136 especially because the draft act had no lustration clause forbidding
former members of the secret police of being recruited to become agents of the
created service.
137
129 Above, Sect. 1.1.
130 See articles in Spiekermann (2014).
131 According to Cardoso (1993), p. 59, members of the police were trained by the GDR Stasi,
Romania Securitate, and their pairs from the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics and the Popular
Republic of China.
132 See Cardoso (1993).
133 See Silveira (1992).
134 See this context in ‘Serviços de Informação da República. Ninguém fala, é segredo’, Expresso
das Ilhas, 23 de fevereiro de 2015, available at https://expressodasilhas.cv/politica/2015/02/23/
servico-de-informacoes-da-republica-ninguem-fala-e-segredo/44034, last accessed 5 january 2019.
135 For instance, Sloan and Warner (2016).
136 See Parliamentary Records, 26.04.2005, 162.
137 See Id., and Parliamentary Records, 30.03.2005, pp. 237 and ff.
102
J. Pina-Delgado
and Defence Purposes
As already stated, from a symbolic point of view, the recognition of privacy related
rights and data protection guarantees was justified by the necessity to prevent the
possibility of uncontrolled gathering of personal information by the security agencies of the Government.
129 Of course, the secret police of the so-called First
Republic, under a one party system, was no Stasi and the level of informers and
arguably of dossiers in personal files was far from reaching the levels of the German
Democratic Republic,
130 despite the fact that many agents of the security apparatus
of the regime were trained there.
131 Certainly, the one party system was ‘just’ an
authoritarian
132 and at times repressive regime
133 not a totalitarian one, so one will
not find features similar to Nazi Germany, Stalinist Soviet Union or even from other
African Dictatorships when looking at the structure and practices of the First
Republic.
134 Finally, the level of technological development and organisation
would never permit the degree of digital communications surveillance similar to
the ones conducted for instance by the National Security Agency of the United States
of America.
135
Nonetheless, even the creation of a national intelligence agency, the Republic’s
Intelligence Services, in 2005, was received with distrust, especially because it was
promoted by the former leading party of the First Republic after returning to
Government 4 years earlier, with different actors expressing concerns on its possible
misuse to gather information about opposition and inconvenient civil society personalities,
136 especially because the draft act had no lustration clause forbidding
former members of the secret police of being recruited to become agents of the
created service.
137
129 Above, Sect. 1.1.
130 See articles in Spiekermann (2014).
131 According to Cardoso (1993), p. 59, members of the police were trained by the GDR Stasi,
Romania Securitate, and their pairs from the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics and the Popular
Republic of China.
132 See Cardoso (1993).
133 See Silveira (1992).
134 See this context in ‘Serviços de Informação da República. Ninguém fala, é segredo’, Expresso
das Ilhas, 23 de fevereiro de 2015, available at https://expressodasilhas.cv/politica/2015/02/23/
servico-de-informacoes-da-republica-ninguem-fala-e-segredo/44034, last accessed 5 january 2019.
135 For instance, Sloan and Warner (2016).
136 See Parliamentary Records, 26.04.2005, 162.
137 See Id., and Parliamentary Records, 30.03.2005, pp. 237 and ff.
102
J. Pina-Delgado