Brazil scandal: Did spies tap officials' phones?

[Bacchus39]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080901/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/brazil_wiretap_scandal;_ylt=Av2nkLSJVeBUZSHxH8e49Gu3IxIF

BRASILIA, Brazil - Brazil's president tried to avert a political crisis Monday after the national intelligence service was accused of tapping the phones of the Supreme Court chief and other top officials.


President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva met with Chief Justice Gilmar Mendes for more than two hours Monday after the Veja newsweekly published transcripts of what it said was a conversation between Mendes and opposition Sen. Demostenes Torres.

According to the magazine, Torres was asking Mendes for help in overturning a lower-court decision to keep a witness from appearing before his senate committee investigating pedophilia.

Neither Mendez nor Silva commented after emerging from their meeting, but presidential spokesman Marcelo Baumbach later said Silva expressed his "concern and indignation" that Mendes' phone was tapped. He said Silva was still deciding what measures to take.

Opposition leaders called for a congressional investigation, and some even said Silva could be impeached. They said even if the president knew nothing about the wiretapping, the incident indicates that the intelligence agency, known by its Portuguese acronym ABIN, doesn't obey his command.

"The government has to show that it has control of ABIN," Torres said.

The head of a congressional committee that was already investigating illegal wiretapping said he would call Silva's security chief to testify about who ordered the wiretaps.

"The charges are extremely serious," said Rep. Marcelo Itagiba, the committee head. "Something much bigger is going on, a power struggle between groups within the government."

But political analysts predicted that Silva would be able to contain the scandal before it affects his Workers Party in October municipal elections, a key test of his party's strength ahead of the 2010 presidential vote.

Low-ranking Brazilian police and security officials are known to tap the phones of politicians and others in attempts to mount extortion schemes, said David Fleischer, a political scientist at the University of Brasilia. But he said such schemes rarely reach someone as powerful as the head of the Supreme Court.

He predicted the scandal would die down if top administration officials can show they weren't involved.

"If they determine it was done by freelancers, and not as part of a deliberate policy decision, there will be no real repercussions for Lula," Fleischer said.