• Espionage The Pegasus crisis already affects at least four CNI investigations into jihadism

  • Government Veterans of Moncloa see "inconceivable" that Pedro Sánchez's cell phone was not thoroughly examined in a year

The espionage on the cell phones of Pedro Sánchez and Margarita Robles has taken a turn in the

Government

's strategy and situation and has become a boomerang.

The intrusion into the terminal of the chief executive leads to a clash over the assumption of responsibilities.

Who does the security of Sánchez's mobile depend on?

Moncloa points to the CNI, the National Cryptologic Center (CCN) and the Defense Minister asks to read the law, pointing to the Presidency of the Government.

And, meanwhile, United We Can request an investigation and the assumption of responsibilities.

The Government intended to deactivate a problem with its governance partners by announcing that Sánchez had also been spied on, but it has activated another within the Executive.

Although nobody officially recognizes discrepancies or problems, the truth is that the question of who is responsible for the security of the chief's cell phone has shown tensions.

Robles, who appeared this Wednesday in Congress, asked that "a minute" be lost in reading the law to verify the answer to the question in question.

"Everything is in the rules, everything is in the law, that is what happens in a democracy," he told the media in what was interpreted as a clear allusion to La Moncloa.

From the presidential complex, on the other hand, it is alluded to that the responsibility lies with the CNI.

In fact, from La Moncloa the continuity of the director of the secret services, Paz Esteban, is left up in the air in an attempt that her possible departure serves to show that responsibilities are assumed, for which this is indeed shared in the Government. , has been shown as a security flaw.

This disclaimer of responsibilities in Esteban, and the focus on the CNI annoys and bothers the Minister of Defense, who in Congress made an ardent defense of her work and work this Wednesday.

Thus, espionage causes a clash between La Moncloa and Defense to see who is responsible.

The law, specifically, the royal decree of July 26, 2021 by which the Presidency of the Government is restructured, indicates that the Department of Technical and Legal Coordination depends on the General Secretariat of the Presidency, whose functions include establishes that it is responsible for "the management and coordination of the communication systems in the field of the Presidency of the Government and the Ministry of the Presidency, Relations with the Courts and Democratic Memory. In addition, it provides the service of the Communications Office of the High Charges of the General Administration of the State".

In the Presidency of the Government they refer, for their part, to another regulation, the royal decree by which the National Cryptologic Center is regulated, which in its second article establishes that it corresponds to the National Cryptologic Center "the security of information technology systems information of the Administration that process, store or transmit information in electronic format, that normatively require protection, and that include means of encryption".

Moncloa argues that they are only in charge of delivering the encrypted terminals to the ministers, but that cybersecurity corresponds to the CNI.

Former senior officials who have worked at La Moncloa explain that the responsibility lies with the Presidency of the Government and that it is when an anomaly or failure is detected or suspected, that is when the CNI must be transferred, but that it does not act out of responsibility own, limiting itself to giving recommendations, indications...

But no one, no member of the government, has given a concrete answer as to who is responsible.

When they are asked, the strategy is to avoid the answer by arguing that the facts must first be clarified.

No minister responds clearly, while the Presidency and Defense hide behind the fact that the law obliges the other.

Félix Bolaños, Minister of the Presidency, and Margarita Robles, Minister of Defense, spoke on Wednesday afternoon to resolve "any misunderstanding," according to El País.

A few days ago, the core of the Prime Minister did not like the tone and forms used by Robles in Congress to respond to the independentistas, because the Presidency was then immersed in a détente operation with its partners, which was evidenced with Bolaños' trip to Barcelona to meet with the Minister of the Presidency.

But espionage also opens a third flank in the Government.

United We Can join the request and pressure of the nationalists to open a commission of investigation into what happened and to assume responsibilities.

Vice President Yolanda Díaz, this morning in an interview on Telecinco, has asked for "clarification of the facts" because "today all of Spain is concerned about these violations of State security."

Díaz, by the way, has acknowledged that since she has been in the Government she has never had her cell phone checked, until now, that she handed it over a couple of days ago, after verifying the espionage on Sánchez and Robles.

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  • Felix Bolanos

  • Margaret Oaks

  • Pegasus case

  • Pedro Sanchez

  • CNI

  • Ministry of Defence

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