One of the classic plot threads in spy stories, but also in political novels, involves the handling of so-called "state secrets." Almost all of the world's states have secret services, which handle information derived from less-than-legal investigations, which have had to be done this way to safeguard larger interests. It's as if states, which claim to be governed by law, violate the rule of law when it comes to defending their identity, their security, even their territorial integrity.
In spy movies, what we're always told is that states have hitmen: public assassins who execute supposed enemies of the state, be they terrorists or their financiers. In the American series Lyonesos –who came to film in Mallorca– we see how the intelligence services infiltrate a young woman into the family of an Arab sheikh who finances Islamist terrorism: and how they kill him, simply, in the kitchen of the luxury hotel in Sa Fortalesa (Pollença). Obviously, this is one of the things that suddenly become an official secret, because no authority comes forward to claim that a person was killed extrajudicially, with no evidence other than that available to the intelligence services, which are supposedly run by a political official. Politicians, therefore, are the most concerned with safeguarding official secrets, lest they be exposed to misdeeds that could constitute crimes.
But this is where journalists come in, who can investigate and are at the service of the truth, regardless of whether or not those shuffling the cherries are interested, and can decide—from certain ministries—over the life or death of others. We saw this in the recent case of the police infiltrating the independence movement: the minister refuses to give any explanation, even though the fundamental rights of certain ideologically targeted individuals have allegedly been violated.
Now, in Spain, they want to modify the Official Secrets Act, the latest version of which dates back to the Franco era. There is controversy because journalists could be sanctioned for publishing information classified as secret, with fines of up to two and a half million euros, in addition to the possibility of seizing publication. This is where legal controversy could arise, and these provisions could be declared unconstitutional; they could violate freedom of information.
Whatever the outcome, and whatever the Constitutional Court says if someone ultimately appeals to it—we can doubt that this will happen—we may finally learn much more about the February 23 coup d'état. More than forty years have passed, but the entire institutional structure has grown from what happened in those days, those hours, and everything that had been brewing since before. We know nothing about the ultimate reason for this democracy. The entire Spanish state is built on a secret, or, in other words, on various forms of lies. And the law they want to pass will only reinforce that idea.
