In Bogota, Columbia, political rivals seem to have no problem ordering a whole slew of illegal surveillance activities against their opponents. In a recently leaked document which appeared on Wikileaks and was reported in the Global post by John Otis, correspondent in Columbia, cables which were written by the US ambassador in Bogota, William Brownfield in October 2009 state that the National Police commander in Colombia believed that wiretapping was ordered by the chief of staff for former President Alvaro Uribe.

This has been seen as a scandal in Colombia and makes the intelligence agency there look bad and has severely tarnished the reputation of Uribe. Even worse, there may be indictments and trials on the horizon for Bernardo Moreno, Uribe’s chief of staff at the time, as well as another important advisor to Uribe, Obdulio Gaviria.  These two top aids to Uribe are already under way, and the Colombian Attorney General has ruled that Moreno is not eligible to hold public office for the next 18 years because there is such strong evidence already in the investigator’s office.