The Paraguayan government worked closely with the DEA earlier this year to expand its capacity to spy on cell phone calls to confront the threat posed by a band of leftist rebels, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks.
The cable, dated Feb. 18, 2010, and published
Wednesday night on the internet site, said the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency had
been intercepting the phone calls of suspected traffickers since Sept. 2009,
but was leery of helping Paraguay's interior ministry use the technology to go
after the so-called Paraguayan People's Army.
The DEA had closely guarded the technology while running
the spying program in conjunction with Paraguay's anti-narcotics office, which
acts only through court orders and focused exclusively on drug traffickers, the
cable said.
Interior Minister Rafael Filizzola wanted the same
technology to track down the group known by its Spanish initials as the EPP,
but the embassy repeatedly denied his requests for unrestricted access to its
software. So he turned to Brazil, buying $1.2 million in intercept equipment
that, if implemented without DEA cooperation, would shut down the U.S. spying
program, the cable said.
"Counternarcotics are important ... but won't topple
our government. The EPP could," the cable quoted Filizzola as saying.
It took the DEA more than a year to install the spying
equipment using the Personal phone network and it was still working to be able
to intercept calls using Paraguay's other major cell phone provider, TIGO. So
rather than lose the DEA's hard-won spying capacity, the embassy recommended
giving the ministry enough access to its technology so that both programs could
function, and show President Fernando Lugo that the U.S. is a trustworthy
partner.
Still, the effort apparently raised serious concerns in
the embassy, which noted in the cable that the president of Paraguay's supreme
court and the head of its anti-drug office expressed doubts about the legality
of intercepting the calls of people who aren't drug suspects.
"The Ambassador made clear that the U.S. had no
interest in involving itself in the intercept program if the potential existed
for it to be abused for political gain, but confirmed U.S. interest in
cooperating on an intercept program with safeguards, as long as it included
counternarcotics," the cable said.
Ambassador Liliana Ayalde also warned that other less
trustworthy government officials might abuse the technology in the future - a
risk that Filizzola said both he and the president were keenly aware of. But
the minister said he believed three or four clandestine pieces of equipment -
purchased by the previous government and removed as Lugo took office - were
already being used to spy on cell phone calls in Paraguay, the cable said.
It's not clear what came of the efforts in February. The
government has arrested a number of EPP members since then, but failed to
capture its three main leaders.
The cable said a DEA technology specialist would help the
ministry install the spying program in a way that also would protect the DEA's
software and secrets. But it also said the embassy asked Filizzola to provide
"copies of the laws that serve as a legal basis for the expanded
program."
According to the cable, Filizzola assured the ambassador
that his plans were supported by Paraguay's legal authorities and constitution.
But his hoped-for anti-kidnapping law, which would expand police powers against
so-called terrorists, didn't pass, and the cable noted that Paraguay's Supreme
Court president had doubts about the legality of expanding the spying program.
The embassy declined to comment Thursday, and Filizzola,
clearly upset over the leak, refused in a news conference to address questions
raised by the cable.
"There are about 250,000 documents supposedly leaked
by WikiLeaks, so the government can't be here making clarifications with each
publication," he said. "When it comes to security, prudence and
discretion are needed."
Lugo's Cabinet chief Miguel Lopez was similarly cautious
in a separate news conference. "There's a judicial protocol which must be
followed to intercept phone calls, but nobody can guarantee, not even me, that
someone isn't spying on our phone."