The (Comptroller General of the Union) and are preparing a masterstroke in the theater of political communication: announcing the “end” of 100-year secrecy, a government practice harshly criticized by the current president during the . Needing to fulfill a campaign promise, government 3 opted for the “easier” path through a maneuver executed with a few quick and poorly thought out strokes of the pen. This is because the measure will not actually solve the problem. And what’s worse: it can even make it worse.
Last week, the CGU announced to the press the information to be sent by March. The objective is to change, for the first time since its promulgation in 2011, the LAI (Access to Information Law).
Taking high heels since the beginning of their term, government members seem to believe that they are the only smart ones when dealing with organized civil society, which, contrary to the narrative sold by government communications, was trampled over and mostly ignored throughout this process.
The problem with “100-year secrecy” was never the deadline itself, but rather that of public as well as private information. Nobody thinks it’s bad that the private life of an ordinary citizen is protected by secrecy for 100, 200 or even 3 thousand years. What outrages the population, and constitutes illegality, is public agents using this prerogative to escape the scrutiny directed at those who receive state resources and provide public services.
The government’s first attempt to plant the narrative of the extinction of secrecy came in September, with the announcement by minister Vinícius Marques de Carvalho, from the CGU, that he was changing the term from “up to 100 years” to 15 years. After this period, the confidentiality could be. In other words, the door was opened, in practice, to eternal secrecy, a clear violation of the LAI and a risk of regression by allowing precisely something abolished by its promulgation more than 13 years ago.
Now, changing what was announced by them less than four months ago, the government’s proposal —according to statements made by the organization to the press— is confidential until “five years after the death of the data holder”. Which, in practice, amounts to the same thing. Besides and , very few issues remain relevant after death — let alone after 5 years. What relevance, within this period, would it have, for example, to record the participation of a president’s children or wife, who do not perform any political role, in meetings at the Palácio do Planalto? None.
The necessary discussion is not related to the deadline but rather to what can be classified as personal information, sensitive or not, from whom, and how agencies should collect and store data in order to reduce denials on this basis to a minimum.
If the government really wanted to solve the problem, it would be studying ways to place limits on the secrecy of information from public agents in the exercise of their functions – as in the case of the general – or the publicity of those who receive public resources, something that was dismantled when it was removed the CPFs of the beneficiaries of million-dollar contracts. It would even be applying what the CGU itself described in .
Without clearly delimiting what, who, how and where, the expectation that agencies will carry out an “objective analysis” of each case is to exchange six for half a dozen. By delegating to bodies the power to decide what can or cannot remain secret without any type of guidelines, the CGU abdicates its authority and responsibility.
If there is something positive in the government’s current proposal, it is the obligation for agencies to report each denial based on this prerogative, allowing the CGU to monitor how the device is being used – something that will be implemented, case by case, in 2021.
For now, what the government does is a game of scene, which has already generated some headlines ready for use in the . However, if it continues this way, the 100-year secrecy will not be extinguished; it will just change the label while the real problems will remain untouched.
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