The House of the Chamber of Deputies approved on Tuesday (10), in a symbolic voting, the request for the prorogation for 60 additional days of the works of the Inquiry Parliamentary Committee on Clandestine Phone Tapping. The final deadline of the CPI would be next Sunday (15).

Although the agenda of the House Floor was locked by two provisional measures, there was no impeachment on voting the prorogation of the committee’s works, since the requirement is not a legislative measure, and therefore, can be voted before the PMs.

The proposal on the postponing of the CPI gained strength in the last days, after the last magazine Veja released that the chief police officer Protogenes Queiroz had illegally tapped authorities from the three powers, during the Operation Satiagraha.

Operation Satiagraha
The Operation Satiagraha, performed by the Federal Police, arrested, in the beginning of July 2008, 20 people, accused of financial crimes, such as money laundering, false management, foreign currency drain, and criminal conspiracy.
Among them, were the undertaker and financial investor Naji Nahas, the banker Daniel Dantas, owner of the bank Opportunity, and the former mayor of São Paulo, Celso Pitta.

The investigations on that operation, which started four years ago, were based on documents related to the “mensalão”, a scheme commanded by the undertaker Marcos Valerio in which congresspeople of the allied basis would receive cash to vote in favor of projects of the government’s interest.

Temer wants to change legislation
By supporting the need to prorogate the CPI, the president of the Chamber, Michel Temer (PMDB-SP), affirmed that new reports reinforce the need to change legislation which deals with the authorization of phone taps, imposing more control to the practice. According to him, the instrument’s usage has been cheapened.

Temer reminded that the telephone secrecy is one of the individual rights consecrated by the Constitution. “Those illegal tapings, reported all the time, cannot prosper anymore. We need to end up with that illegal investigation method.”

Report - Vania Alves
Edition - Newton Araújo/Rejane Xavier
Translation – Positive Idiomas Ltda