Written evidence submitted by Leopoldo Moreau, Chair, Freedom of Expression Commission, Chamber of Deputies, Argentina

Fake News and Data Exploitation In Argentina

Executive Summary

1.              Introduction: since 2015, especially since the sovereign debt negotiation of Argentina with the Vulture Funds (Paul Singer) and the signing of a treaty with Iran to take criminal statements of Iranian suspects of having carried out the terrorist attack on AMIA in 1994, a novel phenomenon of manipulation of journalistic information becomes clear in Argentina. In social networks and also in the traditional press, a wave of discrediting stories begin to strike against the authorities in charge of the Executive Power. The discrediting acquires notorious peaks and intensifies as some key moments occurs. It should be added that in the second semester of 2015 there was an election campaign that ended with the Mauricio Macri as President of the Nation. In that electoral campaign, well-known methods of disinformation were used through organized communication structures. As time went by, those methods were denounced by media investigations and opposition members, as the evidence started to show up.

2.              American Task Force Argentina: Paul Singer led a group of bondholders who did not enter into the renegotiation of the Argentine debt (the largest debt renegotiations registered in history) that initiated through a lobby group financed by them a campaign of internal and international discredit of great magnitude[1]. The group was called "American Task Force Argentina". Singer is, along with Robert Mercer - owner of Cambridge Analytica - one of the most important contributors of the Republican Party of the United States.

3.              Memorandum with Iran: On February 27, 2013, after fourteen hours of deliberations, the Chamber of Representatives of Argentina approved it by 131 votes in favor and 113 against a national law authorizing the Executive Power to sign an agreement with Iran to clarify the attack to the AMIA. The agreement established a procedure that made possible to take an investigatory statement to the Iranian suspects in Iran territory, after two decades of an unsuccessful judicial investigation because the aforementioned country did not allow the suspects to be heard in Argentina. The special prosecutor of the case publicly supported the memorandum. After two years, in 2015, the prosecutor went on a media raid against the memorandum and made a complaint for Treason against President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. The crime, according to the prosecutor, materialized in the memorandum that was a National Law sanctioned by Congress. A day before the prosecutor was to be questioned by the National Congress, he was found dead in his apartment. Without evidence of any kind that his death was produced by a third party, an unprecedented campaign was launched to blame the former President as the intellectual author of the homicide. Over the years, with Cristina Fernandez out of power, the complaint was ridiculed, and the links between the prosecutor and the national and various international intelligence agencies, as well as the spurious economic links that were evident in the analysis of his estate, made it clear that the whole episode was part of the an unprecedented media, political and intelligence operation in Argentina. For example, it is worth mentioning a transfer received by Nisman from Sheldon Adelson, partner of Paul Singer in the NLM-Elliot fund and known financier of Netanyahu and the Republican Party in the United States. The case is still open. The role of organized structures of disinformation throughout the incident was huge, and its impact on the electoral result of that year, immeasurable.[2]

4.               Mauricio Macri and the fake news: through various journalistic investigations and even public statements by members of the Supreme Court of Justice of Argentina[3], as well as reports from respected NGOs such as Amnesty lnternational[4], there are strong indications that the electoral machine of Mauricio Macri used -and uses today- fake news and organized disinformation structures (fake account farms, trolls, etc.) to pressure and intimidate dissidents and viralize false information on social networks in Argentina. It should also be noted that Macri's government has institutionalized in 2016 through executive orders[5] the legal (but illegitimate) mining of citizen's data registered in the social security system (the most important database in Argentina) for use in official communication campaigns. These regulations are in clear contradiction with Law 25236 on the Protection of Personal Data. The mining and concentration of this and other public and private databases in the orbit of the Executive Branch was made under the umbrella of a "Public Opinion Office", which reports directly to the Chief of Staff. The name of the office seems to indicate that its purpose is to study the state of public opinion of Argentines, when in reality its purpose is to profile and micro-segment citizens to manipulate them.

5.               Cambridge Analytica and Mauricio Macri: the "Disinformation and 'fake news" report issued by the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee of the House of Commons (UK) on July, 2018, shows the first signs of what has been suspected in Argentina for a long time: that Mauricio Macri used the SCL Group services in our country. In the report it is stated that:

219. The Committee saw confidential evidence - a summary of a management meeting at SCL Group from 27 May 2015 - in relation to an anti-Kirchner campaign in Argentina, describing "close proximity intelligence gathering efforts" and "information warfare", and the use of "retired lntelligence and Security agency officers from Israel, USA, UK, Spain, and Russia", and the creation of false Facebook and  Twitter accounts to support the anti-Kirchner campaign. 277 When questioned whether SCL Group had worked for an opposition party, or some other person interested in influencing politics in Argentina, against the Government, Alexander Nix replied, "That would be the appearance of that, yes".

It should be noted that, according to the transcript of the interrogation, Nix first denies participation of SCL Group in Argentina, but confronted by the committee in reference to a memo contained in the investigation, Nix changes his statement saying ""That would be the appearance of that, yes" " Later in the report Argentina is referenced once again when it says that:

"SCL may also have worked on the Mayoral election campaign in Buenos Aires in 2015 for Mauricio Macri, including delivering some target audience analysis work."

In the paragraph there may be an involuntary error, the electoral campaign in which Mauricio Macri participated in 2015 was for the President of the Nation, and the position he held at that time was effectively that of Mayor of Buenos Aires.

6.               SCL Group and Nix in Argentina: SCL Group operated in Argentina under a national company of the same name, with registered address at Arenales 941 5th floor A of the City of Buenos Aires. In the same address is Black Soil SRL, created in 2013. In that company (Black Soil) also appear as advisers Alexander Nix and Patrick Teroerde. Alexander Nix is a frequent visitor to Argentina. He has multiple business connection and social relationships, and actively participates in the Pro Alvear Foundation, an institution dedicated to the promotion of the Polo sport, of which he is "godfather" along with Mauricio Macri. Another important fact is that we have been able to establish that another member of the SCL Group, Mr. Alex Tayler, at the same time responsible for data mining at Cambridge Analytica, entered the Argentine Republic in 2014 and 2017. Those visits are registered in the records of the National Migration Office.

November 2018