TV Globo in Nextel Hell: Feds Contradict The Folha

LULA’S GESTAPO: “Without a judge’s order, federal [police intrude on ]privacy of TV Globo journalists in a bid to violate journalist-source confidentiality.]” Apparent source: A leaker from inside the leak investigation. How ironic is that?

PF nega em comunicado quebra de sigilo telefônico de jornalistas sem autorização: The federal police — “Lula’s KGB,” as their detractors are wont to refer to them — deny in a press release that they violated the telephone privacy of journalists, with or without proper judicial authorization, as reported today in (an unsourced) cover story in the Folha de S. Paulo. See

• Dantas’ Inferno: Investigating the Investigation; TV Globo in Nextel Hell

IMPRENSA runs the text of the release from the Tupi feds, which claims that this report, by Lilian “Puta Sacanagem” Christofoletti — the report, in the best tradition of skeevy leak journalism, appears to have been based on a leaked case file from a confidential investigation into the alleged leaking of confidential case information — is inaccurate on many points.

I translate, for my notes.

Em relação à matéria “Sem ordem judicial, PF quebra sigilo telefônico”, publicada no jornal Folha de S.Paulo (07/11/2008), a Polícia Federal esclarece que não houve, em nenhuma hipótese, quebra de sigilo telefônico sem autorização judicial. Na realidade, a PF solicitou à Nextel que informasse a mera localização das torres de retransmissão dessa empresa – ERBs (Estação Rádio-Base) – situadas próximas à Superintendência da Polícia Federal em SP e de alguns dos principais endereços objeto de busca.

With respect to the article headlined “Without judicial authorization, feds violate phone privacy [of journalists],” published in today’s Folha, the federal police wish to clarify that in no way, shape or form was telephone privacy breached without judicial authorization. In fact, the PF asked Nextel to inform it merely of the location of its retransmission towers, its radio base-stations, situated near PF headquarters in São Paulo and some of the locations where warrants were served.

“#&@+#%! Telefônica!”

A follow-up to

• “Telefônica Eats Its Own Head”: The Rumor Mill

Edu Guimarães writes a blog called Cidadania.com and is one of the leaders of a self-styled group of Sem-Mídia Net activists here in Brazil — a play on the sem-terra or sintierra movements that militate for agrarian reform.

Can jaw-droppingly shitty service on the part of rent-seeking media and telecommunications cartels, who do not even bother to conceal the fact that they don’t give a shit and will shaft you as hard they possibly can just as long as they know they can get away with it, turn a Yankee libertarian like myself into a devotee of Che Guevara?

I often ask myself this question. Our relationship with Telefônica, for example — the private fixed-line telephone monopoly here in São Paulo — is the key test case. This column from Mr. Guimarães really resonates, for example, with our own experience.

It’s called — loosely translated — “The Pain of Privataria.” The term is a play on the Portuguese for “privatization” and “piracy,” as in “privateering,” and is the watchword of those who continue to think that the 1997 telecommunications privatization here in Brazil was crookeder than a mobbed-up Russian leveraged buyout.

I translate, draft-quality.

Alguns de vocês devem ter notado que, na noite de ontem (quinta-feira), não liberei comentários. Hoje pela manhã havia dezenas deles represados. Isso aconteceu porque estou sem telefone em casa e, portanto, sem internet.

Some of you must have noticed that last night I was not okaying any comments. This morning there were dozens of them waiting for approval. This happened because I have no telephone service at home and, therefore, no Internet.

The poor bastard must be a Speedy customer.

My wife had that so-called “broadband” service for a while. It was absolutely putrid, and the field maintenance guys they sent out were constantly asking for bribes to make it “really” work.

Not only that, their telemarketers called my ailing mother-in-law up and invited her to subscribe. When she refused, they said, “Too late, we have already subscribed you. You must now go and ask the call center to unsubscribe you.” Thirty calls to the call center later, the poor woman was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Fuck Telefônica. This is my considered opinion on the subject, as a consumer. If I have to cover them as a company for work — read an earnings report, listen to a conference call — I think I can do it objectively. But I am telling you, on my time, from my own experience: The company’s reputational woes are well-deserved.

Fui ter esse problema justamente agora, quando estou concluindo a nova manifestação do Movimento dos Sem Mídia ao Ministério Público Federal por conta da representação que nossa ONG fez àquela instituição denunciando a Globo, a Folha, o Estadão, a Veja, a IstoÉ, o Jornal do Brasil e o Correio Brasiliense por crime de alarma social durante a epidemia fajuta de febre amarela que esses meios de comunicação inventaram que havia no Brasil no início deste ano.

Funny that I am having this problem just now, when I am in the middle of finishing a new letter from the “medialess” movement to the federal attorney’s office regarding the complaint our NGO filed accusing Globo, the Folha de S. Paulo, the Estado de S. Paulo, Veja, IstoÉ, the Jornal do Brasil and the Correio Braziliense of the crime of “social alarm” during the phony yellow fever epidemic that these media organizations rigged up at the beginning of this year.

In Praise of Itaúnibanco

Aziz Ahmed, columnist for the Jornal do Commercio — of Rio de Janeiro, that is; there are several — praises the handling of the recently announced merger of Itaú and Unibanco, two of Brazil’s largest financial institutions.

And rightly so, it seems.

The deal announcement really did come as a proverbial thunderclap out of the blue.

A complete surprise (though pundits had noted that the sector was ripe for consolidation, generally speaking.) A truly remarkable example of information security and discipline in a media environment where leaking and phreaking and pumping and dumping seem like the rule rather than the exception.

It was, Mr. Ahmed says, a deal worthy of the First World. If only First World M&A deals were all as squeaky clean as Mr. Ahmed paints them.

File under “Brazilian self-love and self-hatred” — on which see also

• “Dantas x Lemman: Brazilian Capitalism Then and Now”

Empresários, políticos e o pessoal do mercado comentam, com respeito e admiração, a postura das tradicionais famílias Setubal e Moreira Salles na condução do processo de fusão dos bancos Itaú e Unibanco, toda negociada na mais absoluta discrição.

Business owners, politicians and market operators are commenting, with respect and admiration, on the conduct of the traditional Setubal and Moreira Salles dynasties in their handling of the Itaú-Unibanco merger, which was negotiated with the most perfect and absolute discretion.

Dantas’ Inferno: Investigating the Investigation; TV Globo in Nextel Hell

Daniel Valente Dantas. Graphic: Veja magazine, May 2006, when it reported: “Daniel Dantas has a list that may show illegal offshore bank accounts controlled by the president and party bigwigs.” Veja had plenty of evidence that “almost certainly does not” was the word to use instead of “may.” Ecce Veja

In all four locations, teams of TV Globo journalists were present even before the federal police arrived to serve the warrants.

Há mais investigações sobre policiais da Satiagraha do que sobre o próprio Dantas: There are more investigations into police who conducted investigations in the Satiagraha case than into Daniel Valente Dantas, its principal suspect, reports Rubens Valente of the Folha de S. Paulo today.

If you have read Misha Glenny’s McMafia, you will already be somewhat familiar with the figure of Brazilian police investigator Protógenes Queiroz, who is featured prominently in the book as the courageous and dedicated Brazilian cop who (more or less) took down the Sino-Paraguayan smuggling king Law Kin Chong.

I say more or less because, although the King of the 25 de Março was convicted and sentenced — for attempted bribery of a congressional investigator into smuggling and product piracy — his sentence was later reduced, and he apparently continues to operate.

See

• São Paulo Diary: The Law King Gets Out of Jail

Brazilian federal police, I think it is fair to say — I follow the Web site of the professional association of delegados — tend to get very angry when they arrest someone and then the superior instances of the federal courts let them go, whereupon they flee the jurisdiction.

(Like Salvatore Cacciola, for example, or judges accused of selling verdicts to the mafia in the so-called Hurricane case in Rio.)

Passados quatro meses da prisão e soltura do banqueiro Daniel Dantas na Operação Satiagraha, já existem mais apurações federais a respeito da própria operação do que investigações contrárias aos executivos do Opportunity.

Four months since the arrest and release of banker Daniel Dantas in Operation Satiagraha, there now exist more federal investigations of the investigation of Dantas than investigations into Opportunity executives.

A Satiagraha, deflagrada em 8 de julho passado, resultou até agora em dois inquéritos relatados pelo delegado Protógenes Queiroz: um trata de corrupção ativa (Dantas teria tentado subornar um delegado por US$ 1 milhão) e outro de suposta gestão fraudulenta do banco.

Satiagraha, conducted on July 8 of this year, has to date led to two charges on the recommendation of federal police investigator Protógenes Queiroz: One for active corruption (Dantas allegedly tried to bribe a federal police agent with US$1 million) and another for alleged banking fraud.

O primeiro inquérito deu origem a uma denúncia formulada pela Procuradoria da República e acolhida pelo juiz da 6ª Vara Federal Criminal, Fausto Martin De Sanctis. O segundo inquérito está sob avaliação na procuradoria e na 6ª Vara.

The first charge led to an indictment by the federal prosecutor, accepted by Judge de Sancits of the 6th Federal Criminal Bar. The second is still under evaluation by the court and the federal prosecutors.

Em contrapartida, há pelo menos três apurações em andamento contra os investigadores da Satiagraha. Ao deixar o comando da operação, Queiroz denunciou que integrantes da cúpula da PF, em Brasília, boicotaram seu trabalho, ao negarem o envio do reforço pedido de 50 policiais. Depois disso, Queiroz passou a ter de dar explicações à PF e hoje é alvo de pelo menos dois inquéritos.

On the other hand, there are at least three investigations underway into the Satiagraha investigators. Upon leaving command of the investigation, Queiroz charged that top leadership of the federal police in Brasilia boycotted his work by denying his request for 50 police agents as reinforcements. After making this charge, Queiroz was forced to explain himself to federal police leadership and is now the target of at least two investigations.

O primeiro foi aberto pela PF de Brasília, por ordem da direção-geral do órgão a partir de uma reportagem da revista “Veja” que afirmou ter havido suposto grampo ilegal contra o presidente do STF, Gilmar Mendes, o senador Demóstenes Torres (DEM-GO) e integrantes do governo Lula.

The first is being conducted by the federal police in Brasilia by order of the head of the agency, based on a report in Veja magazine that stated there was alleged [sic] illegal wiretapping of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Senator Torres of Goias, and members of the Lula government.

“Alleged,” nothing. Veja stated it as an established fact, based on (an anonymous source) who is (allegedly) an insider at the Brazilian National Intelligence Agency (ABIN). It has never identified the source and claims the audio that would prove bugging actually took place got “lost.” Quack.

Sicário Slaying Has The Sousaphone Mulling Sambodian Hideaway

Mrs. Sousaphone has been negotiating a potential lease deal on a beach house in Barra do Sahy, tucked away in a modest sertão of mata atlantica along the north coast of Sambodia.

I have been grumbling about the terms and conditions, and complaining that I can never get any writing done during our beach weekends, as I would like.

On the other hand, news that a neighbor just down the street here in the Vila Beatriz has been whacked out, sicário style — apparently on the orders of the husband of a psychological counseling client who blamed her for the break-up of his marriage — has me reconsidering.

What do you think, gentle reader? Can you see me re-reading Bioy-Casares and Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Color for inspiration and setting daily pen to paper in the little corner of heaven shown above?

If it had broadband access of some kind — I could even get my client to allow me to expense it — I could work from the coast rather than from the big city during the week, even.