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In Brazil, Police Overstep Court Order To Sieze Former President's Email
New submitter MythicalMan writes: During the search and seizure in the Lula Institute last Friday, [Brazil's] Federal Police threatened a computer technician with being taken under arrest, forcing him to give the administrator password of all email accounts @institutolula.org (hosted at Google). Such generic access was not granted by the court's mandate, which referred only to a few specific email accounts. See the information here (in Portuguese). The fact is worrying not only because of its illegality but also for its possible international repercussions, since Lula Institute corresponds with institutions, public figures and heads of state all around the world. Investigations of corruption in Brazil have been characterized by frequent leaks to the press and to opposition politicians who use them to attack the government of President Dilma Rousseff. The methods used by Brazilian prosecutors have been questioned not only by government supporters, but also by jurists, scholars and journalists.
The article, written and hosted by instituto lula itself, should be taken with a grain of salt The institute is already under investigation because of massive cases corruption.
Also, someone leaked that the police would be seizing the institute, and they emptied it from most of its documents. Its like watergate in here, and the judge presiding the investigation has a lot of popular support because he is finally going for people which seemed to be untouchable in the past.
"life is a joke, and someone is laughing at me"
Such generic access was not granted by the court's mandate, which referred only to a few specific email accounts. See the information here (in Portuguese).
It's important to note that the source is from Instituto Lula itself, which is the one being investigated.
There are legal procedures which the institute itself make take if it believes it was illegal,
but it seems that they limited themselves merely to blog that. Why?
Stories about "overreach" are coming from wealthy criminals who have hired reputation management/PR flacks feeding stories to gullible/corrupt journalists.
You don't consider "overreach" by the police as a form of corruption? For example, police in some jurisdictions of the U.S. seize assets under the drug laws because it's easier to raise money that way than ask taxpayers for a property tax increase.
No. It was not sensitive government e-mails. Instituto Lula is an NGO.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
and I'm Brazilian - the traditional media here seems to hide facts from the public, treating manipulation of the "common opinion" as a business model...
:/
* Brazilian media is better described as an oligopoly : the National Constitution explicit forbids crossed property of TV, radio and newspaper (as common in other markets, ie, FCC make something like it in US...), but the media owners ignore that to the point it is a joke nowadays
What Brazil shows is that, despite having a size, population, and massive natural resources comparable to the US, politics and corruption vastly dominate the progress of a country, or lack thereof.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
This is Brazil, not the US.
You are correct. Instead of "Due Process of Law", it is called "Devido Processo Legal", specifically stated in the 1988 Constitution, article 5, LIV, among others.
If you want, I can cite specific articles from the process law (Código de Processo Penal) that are also applicable.
morcego
This summary is full of misinformation, and it's very biased. MythicalMan's previous submissions show how slanted he is about Brazilian politics.
The allegations of illegality mentioned in the summary are backed up by a link to the Instituto Lula's website itself, hardly a neutral, trustworthy party.
As to the Yahoo article, it has been grossly summarized, and also contains errors itself. There has been no detention without charges, only detentions before trial, as some of the accused have tried to leave the country and nearly all of them have the means to do so. Lula, for instance, wasn't put under arrest, he had refused the previous two requests to provide testimony, so they got a court order authorizing his forced deposition. He still had the constitutional right to remain silent, and was free to go after providing his testimony.
Why on earth is this kind of partisan crap being published on Slashdot?