There will be no more internal spying on opposition politicians, incoming president Andrés Manuel López Obrador said on Saturday, recalling that he was tailed for years by federally-employed spies.

There will be no more Center for Investigation and National Security (Cisen) either, following its dissolution as part of the new government’s austerity measures.

The newly-appointed public security secretary, Alfonso Durazo Montaño, announced the move on Saturday.

“Cisen disappears because it has been discredited due to the political use that was made of it,” Durazo said.

The incoming secretary said a new organization, the National Intelligence Agency, will replace it.

López Obrador told reporters that the new agency will not perform espionage operations.

“There will be no more spying on the opposition . . . what we suffered for years, when I was opposition. When I was in Tabasco . . . there was a car parked in front of my house, day and night, watching. If I went to the market with my wife, there they were behind me; if we went to the movies, there they were, watching the movie too,” he said.

The new president explained that Cisen employees will be transferred to other areas where they will continue investigations against organized crime.

López Obrador added that he personally has known many Cisen agents for years: “Imagine, 30 years [as the opposition], many of them are ready to retire.”

Of the new intelligence agency, he affirmed that phone tapping would come to an end and that the private lives of everyone will be respected.

“[The National Intelligence Agency] will be tasked with looking after national security and providing information about criminal organizations; it will no longer use government resources to spy.”

Source: El Universal (sp)