Once again one of those few not so funny posts about the extremely uncanny, creepy and unnerving situation in the country I live, or better shitty country due to its fascist nature (and no fascist is not used as insult but as a fact considering the political history of that monster called Giorgia Meloni, probably one of the persons I hate the most in Italy), but I need to get this off my chest because of the emotional burden is giving me.
This country is going down a dangerous, self-destructive path especially with an opposition that is still non-existent, but among the many things I could list to rightfully talk shit about this government there is one that caught my interest and not for the better.
Photo I've just took of the political talk show I watched about the thing that sadly caught my interest. I will first translate what it says:
Secret services powers
- can access University and public administration's information
- RAI circular requires video makers to film and make the sources traceable
- secret services can now access to journalists' sources
- with this decree secret services can direct and organize subversive organizations
Everything about this is horrifying at best and shows clearly how Italy is becoming gradually a slow, subtle yet silent authoritarian nation, why? Because the Senate’s Constitutional Affairs and Justice Committees have approved Article 31 of the “Security Bill,” on April 4, 2025. It is a bill promoted by Giorgia Meloni’s government that would like to address the fight against terrorism and organized crime, and police controls. And now you understand the title of my vent-blog.
The measure, originally a contentious security bill under discussion in the Italian Senate, was abruptly transformed into an emergency decree — a move that UN experts described as bypassing democratic norms and public transparency. “We are alarmed by how the government transformed the bill into an emergency decree that was swiftly approved by the Council of Ministers, bypassing Parliament and public scrutiny,” said the experts, who are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council (1).
The experts contacted the Italian Government in December 2024 (OL ITA 7.2024) indicating that if the proposed bill were not amended, Italy would be at odds with its obligations under international human rights law, including to protect the rights to freedom of movement, to privacy, to a fair trial, and to liberty, and to protect against arbitrary detention.
“The bill that is now a ‘decree’ includes vague definitions and broad provisions related to terrorism that could lead to arbitrary enforcement,” the experts warned. “The decree will also put freedom of expression at risk and may disproportionately affect specific groups, including racial or ethnic minorities, migrants and refugees, potentially leading to discrimination and human rights violations.” (2)
Everything is plain wrong on many levels but being a University student what scared even more was the first point (the one about the possibility to keep a file on everyone (students and teachers alike) deemed "dangerous to national security". To better make you understand this I will translate in English what is well explained here (the most important parts): https://www.laleggepertutti.it/718492_le-universita-potranno-schedare-gli-studenti
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Universities will be able to keep a file on students
With the new Security Decree, Universities will have to "collaborate" with the Secret Services by providing information on the political opinions of students and professors, in derogation of privacy.
The new Security Decree 31, already approved by the Chamber and currently under consideration by the Senate, provides that Universities will be able to keep a file on students, and also researchers and professors. There is no privacy that matters: the rules on the confidentiality of personal data can, indeed must, be bypassed in the name of national security. Article 31 of the bill – entitled “Strengthening of information activities for security” – provides, in fact, that all Public Administrations – including Universities and other research bodies – will have to collaborate with “Secret Services”, that is, the national security protection bodies (which are currently the DIS, the AISI and the AISE) in providing them with all the information deemed necessary for the protection of national security.
Example:
If a student – or even a teacher – participates in a certain political movement, or an activist association, the University must communicate this upon simple request from the Services. The same must be done if a professor teaches theses in the classroom that are considered “dangerous” or subversive.
What changes
The difference compared to the past is that previously these national security protection bodies could ask the Universities for confidential information on enrolled students, as well as on teachers, but the Universities could oppose the reasons of privacy (and also the Authority for the Protection of Personal Data had intervened several times to limit these requests for access).
As Luciana Cimino writes in Il Manifesto, “the article in question aims to modify the 2007 law on the security information system. But if that text regulated that «the DIS, the AISE and the AISI can correspond with all public administrations and with the entities that provide (…) public utility services and ask them for the collaboration necessary for the fulfillment of their institutional functions», the new formulation of the Meloni government changes the order of the subjects and the verb, modifying for the worse the collaboration between state bodies and universities”. [Translator's note]
Mandatory collaboration
Now it will no longer be like this: the new rules make "collaboration" "mandatory" (as specified in the explanatory report accompanying the Decree), which can be requested - or, better said, imposed - by unspecified "needs to protect national security", which the requesting bodies are not required to specify or justify. It will therefore be necessary to respond to a simple request from the Secret Services, without the possibility of objecting.
In short: the good of the State comes before the needs of citizens to keep their sensitive data, such as political opinions or sexual orientation, private. And privacy is no longer valid: it melts like snow in the sun the moment the organs of the services invoke national security.
Why privacy is no longer valid
There is more: the same mechanism will apply to all Public Administrations in general, including controlled and participating companies, therefore the Secret Services will be able to ask for and obtain, in the same way, confidential information on their employees and collaborators, and all this even in derogation of the privacy regulations that otherwise should protect public employees to the maximum (from the garbage collector, from the magistrate to the municipal employee).
The agreements to be stipulated
To define the concrete modalities of this new collaboration – which, where necessary, will also extend to “technical and logistical assistance”, therefore a sort of 100% availability of their own facilities – specific agreements will have to be stipulated between the secret services and the Universities, as well as other central and local Public Administrations. These agreements may also regulate the methods of “opening” to the investigative bodies of their respective databases and computerized or paper files, containing all the information on the employees or students enrolled in the Universities.
How the filing of students and teachers will work
Essentially, from that moment on, the possibility will open up for the Secret Services to file students and teachers based on their orientations, inclinations and political opinions, or any other data deemed "interesting" by the aforementioned bodies for the purposes of national security: Universities and other public bodies will no longer be able to refuse to provide information based on the legislation on the confidentiality of personal data, not even when it concerns sensitive data, the disclosure or dissemination of which would otherwise constitute a crime.
Who can collect information
The national security protection bodies authorized to request and obtain information on university students and, in general, on all public employees – those that we have just generically called Secret Services – are, precisely:
- Dipartimento delle Informazioni per la Sicurezza (DIS, 'Department of Information for Security' in English)
- Agenzia Informazioni e Sicurezza Interna (AISI, 'Internal Intelligence and Security Agency')
- Agenzia Informazioni e Sicurezza Esterna (AISE, ?Italian: External Intelligence and Security Agency?)
When will the new rules come into force
Now we await the final approval by the Senate of the "security package" which includes the innovations we have talked about (and which contains many other important rules, such as the possibility for members of the Secret Services not only to infiltrate terrorist and subversive associations, but even to direct them) and its next entry into force, which will occur with the publication of the legislative text in the Official Journal, unless the President of Italy (currently Sergio Mattarella) raises objections of unconstitutionality by refusing to sign the measure and sending it back to a new examination by the Chambers. (3)
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I don't know what creeps me the most: the possibility to be filed because I participated for something deemed dangerous to national security (i.e. pro-Palestine demonstrations, rave parties, strikes, etc.) and so the fact they may know everything about me or the fact secret services can direct a terrorist organizations or subversive organizations such as Forza Nuova, Casa Pound, Azione Studentesca to keep at bay left-leaning or progressive movements. Not to mention the deep hit to privacy. If Partito Democratico doesn't wake up for real I won't wait for my rights to be taken away. Getting out of this shitty country is an alternative I can't wait to put in action. I am sick of living here and I don't blame the 156,000 young researchers who left Italy to never come back in 2024.
Sorry for this more anxiety-inducing post but it's important to be politically aware of what happens around the world, and I needed to get this off my chest. On a more positive note, in the next blog I will promote an artists, but I won't tell now who is ;)
Take care everyone!
References and footnotes:
(2) Ibidem
[Translator's note] this is not part of the article I translated, but I thought to add it to complete the info about the previous law.
(3) https://www.laleggepertutti.it/718492_le-universita-potranno-schedare-gli-studenti