Abin: School focuses on scammers, Amazon and cybersecurity – 06/10/2023 – Politics

Considered one of the main researchers in the area of ​​government intelligence, Professor Marco Cepik, 55, says that President Lula (PT) has stipulated as priorities for Abin (Brazilian Intelligence Agency) the protection of the democratic rule of law, the issue of the impacts of climate change and cyber threats.

Cepik is the current director of Abin’s School of Intelligence, appointed by the director general of the institution, Luiz Fernando Côrrea.

The university professor and author of more than a dozen books points to January 8 as an example of the importance of having an “intelligence activity that is capable of understanding and anticipating the vulnerabilities and risks” of events such as coup attacks by supporters by Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

In an interview with Sheetthe director of the Abin school outlined a scenario about the image of the intelligence services before society and defended more transparency —and less “100-year secrecy”— for the population to understand the work performed by the agency.

The January 8 episode raised the debate about Abin’s actions. Do the attacks show the need for intelligence work? Undoubtedly. What happened on January 8th is very serious because such a systematic attack on institutions had not yet taken place in Brazil. Those buildings are strong symbols of the democratic institutionality established from the 1988 Constitution. Any attack on that is an attack on the soul of Brazil.

Prevention of this type of thing is important, and the facts are being investigated in the parliamentary sphere, in the sphere of Federal Justice and through internal investigations by each body. This signals the need for an intelligence activity capable of understanding and anticipating the vulnerabilities and risks that these events may recur. We do not want another January 8 in the history of Brazil.

How is Abin today compared to other intelligence services, such as the CIA or the Russians? By legal definition, by historical commitment and by constitutional parameter, Brazil does not carry out intelligence operations abroad. So we are closer to the Canadian service model, which does counterintelligence, protects the country and produces knowledge for decision-making.

Recently we had cases of Russian spies with Brazilian identity, which showed a kind of use of Brazil to form spies. It is not compatible with the Brazilian diplomatic tradition, with Brazil’s international commitments, to carry out these activities. We are critical of this behavior of the great powers, of interference in the internal affairs of other countries.

We have a modest agency in terms of staff and budget, which needs more resources. So we need a stronger Abin, with more resources to carry out these missions, but these missions are [contrainteligência e assessoramento].

One of the challenges is the issue of cybersecurity? Intelligence agencies in general emerged in the 20th century, still in the analog world. They went through the first digital revolution, they adapted. Today we are experiencing a second digital revolution. The first digital revolution affected the intelligence service because it greatly increased the ability of image and signal sensors to obtain information. Now we need to take advantage of the second digital revolution to improve our ability to analyze this information.

What are the other priorities? Within the scope of Abin’s Intelligence School, which is aligned with the agency’s administration, due to the guidance given by the President of the Republic, we have some priority themes: the protection of the democratic rule of law, protection against cybernetic threats and a prioritization of the issue of the impacts of climate change on vulnerabilities and conflicts in Brazil —which gives a high priority to the Amazon issue today and to the vulnerability of traditional peoples.

Regarding the image of the intelligence services, the common citizen does not understand very much what exactly Abin does… It’s an image that was projected by what intelligence services around the world did throughout the 20th century. We think these things are very old. Intelligence services were developed because rulers needed information to make decisions on matters that threatened the country’s security. They produce knowledge like universities, like research institutes, like statistics institutes. They are an input for government decision-making.

So why have the intelligence service specifically? Because the intelligence services produce knowledge on specific topics, on topics that are related to national security. Or those vulnerabilities that could become a security issue. Threats arise from the conflict of interests, from antagonistic wills, but they also arise from the detection of vulnerabilities in the relationship between the actors. These actors can be countries, they can be companies, they can be groups in society.

So intelligence activity is primarily a knowledge-producing activity. The intelligence service provides knowledge for government decision-making in sensitive areas for the security of citizens and the State.

The general population sees intelligence services like Abin linked to snooping and espionage. Why does this image exist? When these services were organized, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, police work also involved political policing. In some countries, repression of internal dissent, thought, opposition. This has become a hallmark, a practice of internal intelligence services.

How does intelligence access the information needed to advise the president? The intelligence activities of civilian organizations like Abin are very limited in what they can do in terms of counterintelligence.

Preventing Brazil from suffering spying attacks from other countries, that is a task. And this has to be done by means that are also confidential, it has to be done through the education of bodies for the protection of knowledge; of our knowledge assets in science, technology, traditional knowledge.

But in addition to education, raising awareness of security risks, it also has to actively prevent other intelligence agencies from other countries from accessing things that are legally protected in Brazil. A very large percentage of knowledge production is done ostensibly by accessing open sources. Intelligence activity in Brazil is not political policing, and that has been going on for a long time.

Mr. mentions in one of his books the dilemma of the tension between transparency and efficiency of the intelligence service. Is it possible to have a balanced relationship? I think so, this is a historical evolution in the case of Brazil. The Access to Information Act was a very important milestone in this regard. You need to make a very strong study of what is classified as secret, whether that needs to be classified or not. This is one of the tasks that Dr. Luiz Fernando has here at the agency: we define more clearly what needs to be classified.

How in practice to increase public control? We are doing it here now. In the first place, intelligence agencies are more open to contact with civil society, the media, universities and exchange knowledge more freely. Another path is through active transparency policies. We are also promoting a series of intellectual activity products within Abin that can be accessed and should be accessed by the public.

Is it about increasing the transparency of the material already produced so that the population can see what the agency produces? Exactly. We need to improve the external control mechanisms. What the legislation determines is the protection of the identity of the servers and of that information that receives the classification of secrecy. But the classification of secrecy has time to fall, although there are people who classified things 100 years old. This is the list of what is classified information and what is not classified. What you have to do is improve and streamline the response to a request for access to information, it cannot simply be “no”.

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Marco Cepik, 55
Current director of Abin’s School of Intelligence. He is a professor of international relations and comparative politics at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul and a doctor in political science. He works in the areas of international security, digital governance and intelligence studies.