Secrecy and civil liberties in Latin America

ANDRÉS FONTANA Y JORGE BATTAGLINO

Conflict, Security and Development

Centre for Defence Studies

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2001 p. 123 - 131

1467-8802

This article argues that new democracies of Latin America confront different sort of challenged regarding the relation between secrecy and civil liberties, than those faced by advanced democracies. While advanced democracies faces the problem of what sort of information could be declassified, new democracies confront a more basic challenge, namely, to  assert civilian supremacy over intelligence agencies. The primary problem associated with increasing transparency of secrecy in advanced democracies has been the absence of any clear relationship between the rules for keeping secrets through classification and those for imposing effective discipline when the established safeguards are breached. The issue here is what kind of information should be classified and what should be declassified. The main challenge for  new democracies in Latin America is to empower civilian authority  vis-à-vis the autonomy of intelligence agencies. This is a basic step for implementing effective policies of access to information and freedom of expression.