Has Brazil’s federal police really evolved from airplane to starship? The Estado de S. Paulo invites us down the rabbit hole for a look at the men, the myths and the murky madness.
Atrás dos holofotes da Navalha, guerra na Polícia Federal (Estado de S. Paulo): “Behind the spotlight on Operation Straight Razor, war inside the federal police.”
The lede gets buried in a lot of mumbo-jumbo here, but it boils down to this: A federal judge says that Operation Straight Razor was born as an investigation into crimes by federal police, but that high-ranking PF officials stifled those investigations.
The judge does not name names.
The Estadão does not seek reaction from the police agencies mentioned or evaluate recent, public and notorious cases in which the PF has arrested its own agents for tipping off criminals.
Angêlica Santa Cruz of the conservative daily invokes the films of Martin Scorsese to describe massive maracutaias uncovered during a federal police investigation into the twilight zone between legal lobbying and illegal kickbacks in federal public works contracts.
Which I applaud.
I am constantly telling Neuza that only a Scorsese could do justice to São Paulo’s Italo-Tupi mafia zeitgeist.
On the other hand, life is not the movies.
See also Infotainment Crisis at the Jornal do Brasil! From the Fact v. Fiction File.
I have complained constantly that the Estado, like other news organizations, seems to be basing a lot of its coverage on anonymous leaks from insiders in the case, putting itself at the service of personal agendas.
See Brazil: Spreadsheet B “May Implicate Senators!” and For Our Enemies, The Law: The Estadão Practices Judy Millerism.
Meanwhile, Veja magazine’s use of anonymous leaks to tie an unrelated story in the case is one of the sleaziest cases of journalistic malpractice I have ever seen — even compared to its election-eve “high-risk coverup” cover story. See Veja: The Senator Had Sex! But Is He Screwed?
And that issue has been widely debated after a federal legislator made a speech on the floor of the Senate about favoring privately owned news organizations with selective release of information gathered on the public dime. See Brazil: Globo and the Leaky Police. Again.
In that light, this “behind the music” promises to do us a valuable service: it promises to help us “consider the source.”
But again: the MTV “behind the music” metaphor used to frame it does not inspire immediate confidence in its grasp on the reality principle.
The PF has made a lot of spectacular cases — including spectacular busts and suspensions of senior federal policemen — in recent months. Between 1994 and 2002, it conducted 40 full-scale operations of this kind. From 2003-2006, it conducted nearly 400.
At the same time, there are federal policemen like Edmilson “Bruno Surfistinha” Bruno — who leaked photos of the infamous “mountain of money” to a select group of media outlets, including the Estadão, on election eve.
The PF union has called several “folded arms” days and other mini-strikes recently as a law regulating strikes by public servants works its way through the congress. Muted clashes over alleged abuse of law enforcement powers for political purposes have occasionally broken out. Arrest, Detain, Then Discover the Crime.
And there has been quite a bit of other press recently questioning the “gangbusters” public relations the agency has enjoyed — starting with a James Bond-style IstoÉ cover story late last year.
The problems in passport control, where a glitch recently affected the rollout of a new high-tech green ID for itinerant Tupis, is made much of.
But is the federal police really “in crisis,” as we are told in the lede here? Maybe.
But the real substance of this story — once you get past the elaborate “narrative lede,” with its glittering generalities — is simply to publish the versions of two senior federal police officials who have just been suspended, and the judge who authorized the surveillance.
Put that in the lede. If I want to read about Scorsese, I will turn to the entertainment pages.
Also, in its recital of facts and setting of the stage, the story focuses on two cases of insider leaking, but makes no mention of the elephant in the room here: PF agents caught trying to foil the two big judicial and police corruption cases, Themis in São Paulo and Hurricane in Rio de Janeiro. That might suggest that the PF does not always fail to investigate its own, might it not?
Here’s how Caros Amigos, for example — the folks from the Yellow House practice some of the best investigative journalism in Brazil — would have framed this story:
Q: You have just been suspended from your post. Why was that, do you think?
A: Look, Operation Straight Razor was originally set up to investigate federal police agents suspected of leaking information to investigation targets …
That is actually quite a revelation, if true.
In the Estadão story, it’s buried about nine paragraphs in.
The infotainment-driven phony crisis is a high Brazilian art form.
So filter this “narrative journalism” carefully before consuming.
SALVADOR - Com 230 pessoas grampeadas, pelo menos 700 linhas telefônicas monitoradas e 16 meses de duração, a Operação Navalha exibiu publicamente os enroscos entre políticos e a turma de Zuleido Veras - mas deixou em seus bastidores um amontoado de trocas de acusações entre delegados de primeiro escalão e vazamentos de informações que mostram uma Polícia Federal em crise, incapaz de investigar seus próprios quadros e metida em uma disputa interna pelo poder.
With 230 persons wiretapped and at least 700 telephone lines monitored over 16 months, Operation Straight Razor has put the cozy relationships among politicans and the lobbyists of Gautama on public display. Backstage, however, it has produced a bitter exchange of accusations among high-ranking PF officials and leaks that show a federal police in crisis, incapable of policing its own ranks and enaged in an internal power struggle.
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Latin American Zeitgeist consultant emeritus
"Eu sou o rei dessa folia, pra delírio da Fiel"
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