Senators approve extension of Armed Forces in public security tasks

Sedena stated that the ‘Pegasus’ system was only used “to maintain the security and operational capacity of the Mexican Army and Air Forces”.

The Secretariat of National Defense (Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional, Sedena) denied carrying out intelligence and espionage activities against sectors of the population, such as human rights defenders, social activists and journalists, among others.

Through a statement, the organization made it clear that it has the authority to carry out intelligence activities in the development of operations against organized crime.

The main purpose of the intelligence activities is to carry out the arrest of leaders of criminal organizations and generators of violence, the location of facilities used as centers of production and storage of drugs, in addition to the seizure of weapons and other important results in terms of public security,” said Sedena.

The military institution assured that all the Armed Forces in the world have a military intelligence system made up of human resources and technological tools, among which are aerial surveillance systems, encryption, satellite images, among others.

Regarding the hiring of ‘Pegasus’, the Ministry of Defense (Secretaria de la Defensa) made it clear that “this was carried out from June 27th, 2011 to August 24th, 2013 and was used solely and exclusively to maintain the security and operational capacity of the Mexican Army and Air Force”.

It assured that all the information related to the use of said system has been made public and is available in response to 37 requests for information made through the National Institute for Transparency and Access to Information and Protection of Personal Data (Instituto Nacional de Transparencia y Acceso a la Información y Protección de Datos Personales, Inai), and the National Human Rights Commission (Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos).

References:

Rex, P. (2022, octubre 5). Senadores aprueban ampliación de Fuerzas Armadas en labores de seguridad pública. López-Dóriga Digital. https://lopezdoriga.com/nacional/senadores-aprueban-ampliacion-de-fuerzas-armadas-en-labores-de-seguridad-publica/