She emphasizes that, contrary to the statements of politicians and special services, the amendments to the law are not a mechanical transfer of regulations to solve an old classification problem.
As Kažoka emphasizes, with the intended amendments, the understanding of the needs of the information service will be thoroughly expanded – from the field of security to any kind of information, the disclosure of which can “difficult the institution’s work”, which in practice will mean that “institutions will be able to keep everything under the label of state secrecy”.
“Access to such information is becoming impossible for both journalists and NGOs. What will happen, for example, to Latvia’s national positions on EU issues, which were previously available to both NGOs and journalists upon request? Institutions often sent and still send their drafts for comment. because they need advice from experts in the respective fields and sector NGOs, industries. Who will regulate these national positions in the future – the State Secrets Act, because it is information for official purposes, but then no one outside the administration will be able to get to know them, or the Information Openness Act, because it is information for the internal use of the institution? Or one law in one ministry, another in others?” the expert points out the uncertainties.
Kažoka notes that the deadline for reviewing the secrecy status of such information is planned to be extended from one year to three. “I understand that there is an administrative check once a year, but here we still need to think about what is the best balance, not only from the point of view of reducing the check, but also from the point of view of the openness of information,” urges the expert.
“An even bigger question is the process. The authors of the draft laws, as they themselves admit in the annotation, have not evaluated alternative options for solving the problem. Although there are such – the Ministry of Justice offered one a few years ago, leaving the status of “for the needs of the service” in the Openness of Information Act. A normal process would allow both to answer the uncertainties and also to evaluate whether the most suitable solution has been offered at all,” Kažoka continues, “application to the needs of the information service is an old problem. Why such an extreme rush right now, not six months or five years ago? There must be a really acute need to The Saeima would decide on an issue in all readings within one day, without discussions, without giving time for either the submission of proposals or the normal evaluation of this idea. What is the urgent need that would justify such a hasty and ill-considered process?”
As reported, today’s agenda of the Saeima calls for the inclusion of amendments to the law, which envisage making information for service purposes a state secret, and about which journalists have raised alarm about the haste of adoption.
The Association of Latvian Journalists (LŽA) calls on the Saeima not to determine the urgency of amendments to laws and to organize a discussion about them with non-governmental organizations and journalists, including the Ministry of Justice.
On Tuesday, the Saeima’s Defense, Internal Affairs and Corruption Prevention Commission supported the amendments to the Law “On State Secrets”, the Law on Disclosure of Information and the Criminal Law in the first reading. The Commission calls on the parliament to set an urgency for the amendments, which would provide for their faster consideration.
The National Security Commission (NDK) requested the draft laws to be submitted to the Defense, Internal Affairs and Corruption Prevention Commission, while the authors of the initiative are special services – the Constitution Protection Bureau (SAB), the State Security Service (VDD) and the Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIDD).
The Law “On State Secrets” provides that information that is a state secret is classified according to importance into top secret, secret and confidential information. Now it is suggested to supplement this distribution with information for service needs.
The amendments provide that the information determined by the head of the institution, which is related to the performance of the institution’s functions and is intended to ensure the institution’s core activities, and whose loss or illegal disclosure may threaten the interests of the state, hinder the institution’s work and the performance of its assigned functions, shall be recognized as information for service purposes.
With regard to the terms of keeping state secrets confidential, it is proposed that information for service purposes be kept confidential for three years.
On the other hand, the articles of the Law on Openness of Information, which define information for the purposes of the service, are proposed to be excluded from now on. This law currently stipulates that protected information created in Latvia, related to national security and not containing state secrets, information that has been transferred to Latvia by a foreign country, an international organization or its institution and which is classified as “RESTRICTED”, as well as this information related to information created in Latvia.
The special services have argued that the current definition for the needs of the information service is too vague, the understanding of this term is often different, and there are no specific criteria for determining the needs of the information service. The current definition for the needs of the information service is said to be too narrow and prevents institutions from fully using the opportunities offered by information classification, as there may be cases when information is protected, even if it is not closely related to national security.
Currently, the explanation given in the Law on Openness of Information about what information is considered to be information for the needs of the service, basically does not provide a sufficient understanding of the content of this concept, the special services claim.