ShangXian 2025-04-16 09:08:24

Italy and its relationship with its fascist past is a long, and complex topic especially because neo-fascists movements transformed to be more acceptable to the general public. If I had to use an animal to represent them they would be a squid. Squids are able to change colours pretty fast and in a very appealing visual way. They are very good at adapting, this is why democratic forces shall always be strong and prepared against them even by being intolerant against all intolerances.

This security decree, despite removed six highly unconstitutional points, it toughens existing penalties and gives too many powers to the secret services which are already quite strong in the name of a danger of terrorism when the Italian secret services are very efficient. How many times have I heard on television the news of the secret services dismantling terrorist cells even before they carried out attacks

A bit of history of Italian secret services:

The Military Information Service, known in Italian as Servizio Informazioni Militare or SIM, was founded on October 15, 1925. It originated from a military information system structure within the Italian Armed Forces. From February 6, 1927, it was placed under the direct control of the Chief of General Staff. Benito Mussolini is said to have changed the leadership frequently as he did not have complete confidence in the service. The SIM was largely focused on France, Austria and Yugoslavia, and was not involved in quelling anti-fascist opposition during Mussolini's reign, which was handled by the Ministry of the Interior and the OVRA.

By January 1934, the SIM had approximately 40 people in service (in addition to informers) and a budget of around two million lire. When Mario Roatta was put in charge of the agency, the budget was doubled to around four million lira.

Then in 1974, General Vito Miceli, a former chief of Servizio Informazioni Difesa (SID), was arrested for "conspiracy against the state" after the attempted Golpe Borghese. In 1977, a legislative act reorganized intelligence agencies under civilian control. This re-organization mainly consisted of:

1) split of SID into two separate agencies with different roles: SISDE (the domestic agency for the defense of democratic institutions, run by the Interior affairs ministry) and SISMI (the military secret service, run by the Defense Ministry)
2) creation of CESIS to coordinate and direct the two intelligence agencies under the authority of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers
3) creation of a parliamentary committee to oversee the activities of the two agencies

In October 1990, Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti's public revelation of the existence of Gladio, a stay-behind anti-Communist network supported by NATO, caused another scandal.

The SISMI's chief, Nicolò Pollari, resigned in November 2006 after his indictment in the Abu Omar case, which concerned the kidnapping of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr in Milan in 2003. The judiciary investigation into the abduction of Abu Omar uncovered a SISMI-run black operation targeting center-left politician Romano Prodi and a domestic surveillance program involving Telecom. The SISMI was also implicated in the Niger uranium forgeries scandal, during which SISMI agents transmitted false documents to US President George W. Bush which were used as pretext in the invasion of Iraq. In August 2007, Italian magistrates searching the SISMI's headquarters found documents proving that the intelligence agency had spied on various European magistrates between 2001 and 2006 who it considered to be carrying a "destabilization" potential. These included the Medel, a European association of magistrates, and as three French judges including Anne Crenier, a former president of the Syndicat de la magistrature French union.

Then we had reforms in March 2007
The center-left government of Romano Prodi created a new "information system for security" called Sistema di informazione per la sicurezza della Repubblica. It introduced far more detailed procedures with regard to state secrets, cooperation with police forces and public administrations, judicial investigation of the conduct of secret service personnel, regulating the procedure for undertaking acts normally deemed illegal, and the acquisition of secret documentation by oversight bodies or judicial authorities. The system placed intelligence agencies more closely under the Prime Minister's supervision, who is responsible for nominating directors and deputy directors of each agency.

The SISDE, SISMI and CESIS were replaced with AISI, an internal information and security agency, the AISE, a foreign intelligence and security agency, and DIS. The parliamentary committee overseeing the intelligence agencies (COPASIR) was granted additional oversight and control powers, with the DIS general director acting as secretary.

Of course this is an extremely summed-up history of the secret services because there would be a lot to cover but that would make my comment probably tedious to the reader.

Thank you. Only solutions: opposition parties must wake up and unite. I'm tired of this splitting of the atom that seems to characterize the left-wing and center-left parties. Either they unite or they die at this point.

Resistance, peaceful protests (for now) and political awareness among the young people who unfortunately seem a bit disinterested here.

ShangXian 2025-04-16 09:22:39 (Updated 2025-04-16 09:45:31)

The worst part about keeping a record of students and teachers thankfully seems over, hence my update but this universities and public administrations can still cooperate if they want. Collaboration will remain optional and must take place in compliance with privacy regulations. So I am still not happy with this, but this decree contains other questionable stuff such as the abolition of the obligation to postpone the sentence for pregnant women or mothers of children younger than one year: therefore, from now on they too can end up in prison. This is one of the most contested points of the provision, on which the attention of the Quirinal had focused. The change made is minimal and does not concern the execution of the sentence but rather precautionary custody: the bill includes the obligation to carry it out in an institution with attenuated custody.

I miss 1946 Italy.....

Of course if there will be changes or updates I will add in the blog to give info as much correct as possible with my limited knowledge.

ShangXian 2025-04-16 11:27:21

Don't worry about deleting your previous comment, I understand the necessity to word better and sometimes emotions can get in our ways to express what we want.

"I just wanted to express how infuriating it is for me when the government use the law and cops to protect themselves from the consequences of their actions"

Welcome to Romania XD on a more serious note I feel your anger and frustration. I experience it all days when I see these useless piece of crap (they don't deserve the title of "politicians") getting away with their crimes. Now we are living in an era where security is becoming synonym of control and not real security. Look for example with Internet; despite I agree with monitoring dangerous people and making sure virtual environment are not poisoned with discriminatory or even worse crap, I see too many times attempts at hitting some fundamental rights such as privacy. And now neurotechnologies are not that prevalent like they will be in the future, because I don't want to image the creepy territory we are going to enter. Black Mirror docet...

And speaking of this dangerous Security Decree, United Nations human rights experts have expressed deep concern over it. Originally the decree was introduced by the Ministries of Interior, Justice, and Defense as a bill that tried to amend several legislative provisions included in the Criminal Code. As a consequence, in December 2024 UN experts had contacted the Italian government to warn that if the proposed bill was not amended, Italy would most likely be contradicting its international human rights obligations. These obligations encompass protecting the rights to freedom of movement, privacy, fair trial, and liberty, as well as safeguarding against arbitrary detention.

https://www.devdiscourse.com/article/law-order/3346203-un-experts-urge-italy-to-revoke-controversial-security-decree-amid-rights-concerns

And the fact the government decided to transform the bill into an emergency decree, bypassing parliamentary and public scrutiny, concerns me on many levels. This shows clearly the will of this government to bypass political tools that would keep at bay the government's powers.

Now I am very curious to see today what Meloni will offer to Trump when it comes to tariffs *grabs popcorn*