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Establishment Of A Commission Of Parliamentary Inquiry To Processing, Provision And Dissemination Of Telephone Call Record Protected By The Obligation Of Confidentiality

Original Language Title: Constituição de uma Comissão Eventual de Inquérito Parlamentar ao processamento, disponibilização e divulgação de registo de chamadas telefónicas protegidos pela obrigação de confidencialidade

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Parliamentary Group

PARLIAMENTARY INQUIRY No. 1/X

CONSTITUTION OF AN EVENTUAL COMMISSION OF INQUIRY

PARLIAMENTARIAN TO THE PROCESSING, PROVISION AND

DISCLOSURE OF TELEPHONE CALL RECORDS

PROTECTED BY THE OBLIGATION OF CONFIDENTIALITY

The January 13, 2006 was released by the newspaper "24 Hours" a list of

208 phones whose 80 thousand calls between December 2001 and May 2002

have reportedly been communicated by the PT in the context of a judicial process and included

in constant diskettes of your "Envelope 9". Among these phones were to include

the one of the President of the Republic, that of the President of the Assembly of the Republic, of the

Prime Minister and several other members of the Government, of the Presidents of the

Supreme Court of Justice, the Supreme Administrative Court and the

Supreme Military Tribunal, the Ombudsman, a former President of the

Republic, of the responsible for the secret services, of Speaker of the Chamber, of

Deputies and many other personalities. None of these personalities

was being surveyed or investigated in the context of the said process.

The President of the Republic did on the same day a communication to the country

considering the subject of the greatest gravity, having stated that " the rights,

freedoms and guarantees of the Portuguese are an essential pillar of democracy, which

has to be preserved, without breaks nor hesitations ", adding that

" violations to the reservation of private life, be it through illegal telephone wiretapping,

whether through records of telephone calls or other forms equally

intolerable meddling in the private reserve of the Portuguese, they cannot

pass in clear "and informing you have still required" enquiries [that] are

ultimatum to curtissimo deadline ".

These recordings of telephone calls are protected by the duty of

confidentiality imposed by the concession contract of the PT (article c of the article

6º, Decree Law 31/2003 of February 17) and still by the Law of Protection of

Personal Data (numbers 1 and 3 of Article 47º of Law 67/98 of October 26). The

violation of this law constitutes a crime and, to the extent that this may be prescribed,

is exclusively remitted to the political scope the requirement of the clearance

of the responsibility, which only Parliament can obtain through a Commission

of Inquiry.

In fact, Parliament has a duty to follow up and guarantee the exercise

of the freedoms and to scrutinise the fulfilment of the institutional duties that the

ensure. In this case, those freedoms were violated and the responsibility for

such a violation must be clarified.

This being the case, the Parliamentary Group of the Left Bloc proposes to the

Assembly of the Republic the following deliberation:

1-A Assembly of the Republic approves the constitution of a commission

possible of parliamentary inquiry to the processing, provision and

disclosure of records of telephone calls protected by the obligation to

confidentiality;

2-This Commission has, in particular, for the purpose of determining:

a) how it is established and updated by the PT the account of the client state,

who has access to that information and how their confidentiality is

protected;

b) under what conditions was the PT requested to provide information on the

registration of telephone calls;

c) what is and how does the supervisory mechanism in the PT work on the

processing of information concerning telephone call records

confidential or specific accounts;

d) who were responsible for the selection, processing and

provision of the constant information of these diskettes;

e) what was the established research procedure to deal with

later that information;

f) if any of the procedures throughout this process violated the laws and the

guarantees from or the subscribers of these phones.

Assembly of the Republic, October 4, 2006.

The Deputies and Deputies of the BE,