Spy Games

Mexico's intelligence agency, Cisen, was recently caught monitoring opposition congressmen via a congressional research database. No one has been fired, and the hubbub quickly died down. The PRI's lame response has been to suggest a prohibition on Cisen contracting outside companies (it was a private investigating group that carried out the spying on behalf of Cisen). This is a silly procedural fix to a much broader problem. The issue isn't that Cisen hires private contractors, it's that it directs its spying efforts towards congressmen. Whether or not private investigators or Cisen agents carry out said spying is not quite irrelevant, but it's certainly not the heart of the matter.

Incidentally, I recently finished The Urgent Democratic Security, by Abelardo Rodríguez. He wrote the book before news about Cisen's in-house spying came to light, but the episode fits perfectly into one of his major criticisms of the Mexican security apparatus: for most of the 20th century, Mexican governments equated national security with the preservation of the authoritarian regime. As such, the greatest security threats were opposition politicians and subversive groups. In a democratic society, that cannot be the case, because of course a loyal opposition is an essential part of the process. In 21st-century Mexico, subversive groups still pose a threat, but certainly less of one than drug traffickers and international terrorists. Mexico's political elites may have adjusted to the post-PRI era, but they haven't brought the security agencies with them. Or maybe the pols haven't adjusted at all; we don't really know, because the Cisen case, strangely, has not been investigated thoroughly.