Incredibly, the presidential investigative service (DAS) has continued illegal wiretapping and surveillance of judges, members of Congress, and presidential candidates well after the worst scandal in DAS history broke.
The scandal of criminal monitoring of journalists, non-governmental organization workers, and Supreme Court magistrates broke in February; yet recent recordings demonstrate that the practice has actually grown. Ricardo Esquivia, Mennonite peace leader and Director of the organization Sembrandopaz (Sowing Peace) and former founding director of Justapaz, appears to be under surveillance. Even U.S. Embassy officials have not been spared, as reported last week in The New York Times.
The Supreme Court judge who has been the star investigator of the parapolitics scandal continues to be a "target." The Uribe administration has systematically used wiretapping to track and obstruct the activities of nongovernmental organizations, government opposition, and a Supreme Court that it perceives as obstructing the administration's policies.
But a DAS official mentions another specific point to Semana news magazine: "What has happened in the past weeks that interests us? Simple: the referendum. We have to know what
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