{"id":75067,"date":"2016-06-13T12:38:39","date_gmt":"2016-06-13T11:38:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=75067"},"modified":"2016-06-13T13:40:50","modified_gmt":"2016-06-13T12:40:50","slug":"as-brasilias-corruption-is-exposed-lawmakers-try-to-criminalize-dissent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/06\/as-brasilias-corruption-is-exposed-lawmakers-try-to-criminalize-dissent\/","title":{"rendered":"As Bras\u00edlia\u2019s Corruption Is Exposed, Lawmakers Try to Criminalize Dissent"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"andrew-fishman\"<\/a>Para ler a vers\u00e3o desse artigo em Portugu\u00eas clique aqui<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

10 Jun 2016 – <\/em>Leaked secret audio recordings of Brazil\u2019s most powerful figures have sparked a series of explosive scandals in the nation\u2019s ongoing political crisis. Now, Brazilian lawmakers are trying to outlaw publication of such recordings.<\/p>\n

A bill<\/a>, which has been idling since last year in the C\u00e2mara dos Deputados, Brazil\u2019s lower house of Congress, has picked up new steam this month. The proposed legislation seeks to criminalize the \u201cfilming, photographing or capturing of a person\u2019s voice, without authorization or lawful ends,\u201d punishable by up to two years imprisonment and a fine. If the recording is published on social media, the penalty rises to four to six years.<\/p>\n

When it was originally introduced, the bill was criticized<\/a> as one of many proposed draconian measures designed to protect politicians<\/a> and a direct threat to freedom of expression and the press.<\/p>\n

\"brazil<\/a><\/p>\n

The anti-recording bill was introduced in 2015 by Deputado Veneziano Vital do R\u00eago, of interim President Michel Temer\u2019s increasingly right-leaning PMDB party<\/a>. R\u00eago, who voted for the impeachment of now suspended Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, has reason to fear being secretly taped: He is a suspect in 35 pending investigations<\/a> for various financial and administrative crimes, as of April, according to Transpar\u00eancia Brasil, a leading anti-corruption watchdog, and the fact-checking website Ag\u00eancia Lupa<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The Institute for Technology and Society of Rio de Janeiro<\/a>, which called the bill \u201ctroubling\u201d and \u201cunbelievable,\u201d said the law would criminalize such everyday activities as filming a birthday party and posting it on social media. On Medium<\/em>, the institute wrote that the bill \u201cprevents journalistic and investigative activities of great significance and endangers anyone who performs audiovisual activities. It is an unconstitutional bill, which violates the freedom of expression and other constitutional principles such as the right to information and prerogatives of the media.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bill would not block the federal police\u2019s use of secret recordings, but would prohibit any recording \u2014 secret or open \u2014 conducted without full consent and not produced in \u201cthe public interest,\u201d a subjective term that would likely be left to the discretion of judges.<\/p>\n

This week, leaked recordings revealed the president of Association Magistrates of Paran\u00e1 state secretly coordinating retaliatory legal actions against journalists<\/a> who reported on judges\u2019 inflated wages<\/a>.\u00a0Brazilian courts have also ordered Marcelo Auler, an independent journalist, to take down 10\u00a0articles reporting on leaks and illegal wire taps related to Operation Car Wash, the ongoing corruption probe, and banned him from publishing any future reporting<\/a> on the subjects.<\/p>\n

With six years of prison at stake, the law would have a massive chilling effect on all media organizations and independent publishers.<\/p>\n

The bill would not threaten journalism \u201cbecause to quote, film or record a citizen, a professional journalist first has to ask their permission and authorization to publish the material,\u201d Dep. R\u00eago\u2019s office wrote in an email to The Intercept.<\/em><\/p>\n

In a statement to The Intercept, <\/em>the board of directors of the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism said that \u201cthe bill amounts to a setback by creating new criminal offenses which journalists may incur in the performance of their duties,\u201d adding, \u201cthe criminalization of libel, slander and defamation is a risk to democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bill also includes a controversial \u201cright to be forgotten\u201d proposal that would allow individuals to demand, \u201cindependent of a judicial order,\u201d that search engines and websites take down and remove from search results content that \u201ccompromises one\u2019s honor.\u201d<\/p>\n

New momentum for R\u00eago\u2019s bill comes as secret recordings have threatened the core of the new government of interim President Michel Temer. On Tuesday, Brazil\u2019s largest newspaper, Folha de Sao Paulo,<\/em> reported that the prosecutor general has requested the arrest<\/a> of Senate President Renan Calheiros, ex-President Jos\u00e9 Sarney, and close Temer confidant Sen. Romero Juc\u00e1 \u2014 all key leaders of Temer\u2019s party, the PMDB. Juc\u00e1 and another Temer ally<\/a> were forced to resign<\/a> their ministries late last month. An important senator<\/a> from President Dilma Rousseff\u2019s Workers\u2019 Party, the PT, briefly went to jail last year<\/a> in a similar incident. Rousseff herself was caught in a wiretapped conversation<\/a> with ex-President Lula da Silva discussing his appointment as a government minister, which opponents viewed as evidence that they were trying to put him out of the reach of the\u00a0Operation Car Wash<\/a> corruption investigation, sparking protests.<\/p>\n

Other proposed legislation includes a plan to restrict the use of plea bargain agreements<\/a> with suspects in custody and another to curtail selective leaking from investigations<\/a> \u2014 both introduced recently by PT lawmakers. More than 200 bills addressing corruption were introduced in 2015 \u2014 five times the average \u2014 and, according to O Globo<\/em> newspaper<\/a>, \u201cthe bills that pass more quickly are precisely those which may create difficulties for investigations or build in mechanisms that mitigate punishment.\u201d<\/p>\n

A representative from R\u00eago\u2019s office told The Intercept <\/em>that the bill is meant to protect rape victims, \u201cnot just politicians.\u201d After videos and images of the horrific gang rape<\/a> of an unconscious, 16-year-old girl in Rio de Janeiro spread online and made international headlines, the subject of unauthorized recordings has gained substantial public attention. R\u00eago is optimistic that the bill, currently scheduled to be discussed in committee on June 15, will pass through the technology and justice committees of the C\u00e2mara dos Deputados, after which it would go to a vote in the C\u00e2mara and Senate.<\/p>\n

In April, a hidden listening device was discovered<\/a> in the office of a supreme court justice; its origins are still unknown.\u00a0And, with so many individuals implicated in corruption investigations, according to Folha de S\u00e3o Paulo<\/em>, the climate of paranoia<\/a> among Bras\u00edlia\u2019s power brokers is now so intense that meetings are being conducted without cellphones or suit jackets, sometimes with the blinds shut and music playing in the background to defeat various types of listening devices \u2014 measures reminiscent of a gangster film.<\/p>\n

This week, top executives from the Odebrecht construction firm reportedly promised<\/a> to open the books on 500 million reais ($149 million) in illegal campaign contributions and kickbacks since 2006 as part of a plea bargaining agreement. Senate President Calheiros said in a secret recording<\/a> that if that were to happen, \u201cnobody from any party would escape.\u201d<\/p>\n

_________________________________________<\/strong><\/p>\n

Andrew Fishman<\/a> – \u2709fishman@theintercept.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 theintercept.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leaked secret audio recordings of Brazil\u2019s most powerful figures have sparked a series of explosive scandals. Now, lawmakers are trying to outlaw their publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[180],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75067\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}