Who Does State Secret Belong To And How Much Does It Cost?

Alina Radu, director of newspaper Ziarul de Garda

Anatolie Donciu, chairman of the National Integrity Authority (NIA), a man who has problems with integrity and is responsible for the integrity of all government officials, is to receive an MDL 2,000 monthly bonus to the salary for keeping state secrets. It is also true for the director of the National Anticorruption Center (NAC). Even the chairman of the Broadcasting Coordinating Council (BCC) will get a bonus from the state budget.
Annually, 35 categories of public servants receive a bonus of at least 10% of the salary for safeguarding state secrets, meaning an amount of several hundred to several thousand lei every month. Recently, the Government has proposed and the Ministry of Justice provided arguments for extending the list of persons admitted to state secrets and remunerated for it.
Under the Law on State Secret, adopted by the Parliament in 2008, there is little information that cannot be disclosed to the public: some information on national defense; some information on economy and strategic stock; some information concerning foreign relations; and, of course, information on the activities of the Information and Security Service (ISS).

2008, 2011, 2016, 2017 – more and more “paid secret-keepers”
The nearly ten years between 2008 and 2017 were practically the most prolific years in terms of transparency in society, association with the European Union and engagement to open information in order to ensure transparency of governance. But it was during that particular period that the Law on State Secret was repeatedly amended, and new categories of officials paid for safeguarding state secrets kept being added. Adjustments were introduced in 2011, then in 2016, and now more categories of "paid secret-keepers" are to be included into the Law.
Given that the President of Moldova, the Prime Minister and the Speaker of the Parliament, the head of the ISS and the Defense Minister are subjects of this law, aided by an interdepartmental commission to protect these secrets, we get to the situation when absolutely all MPs, all ministers, all secretaries general of the 3 branches of state power, all chief judges, all heads of districts, all heads of central administrative authorities become subjects paid under this law for safeguarding state secrets.
Having so many guardians of state secrets might not be a problem, if it didn’t affect every single citizen.

State secrets safeguarded by corrupt officials paid from public money
As I have already mentioned, the Law on State Secret has been repeatedly amended during the last decade, and the Parliament has adopted several sets of amendments granting to more and more officials the right and remuneration for protection of state secrets. At the same time, the Law on Access to Information has been waiting for amendment for years, but it has not yet managed to get through parliamentary commissions, although it is not at all less important than state secret, as it concerns every citizen’s right to information.
While more and more budget funds are being used to conceal information in the form of state secret, investigative journalists have to pay more and more for access to information. Investigative journalism is not and must not be a business; it is a job done in the public interest, and reporter investigations about corruption and violation of human rights are offered absolutely free on websites, often contributing to good information of the public and to the increase of transparency in the spending of public money.
Based on the new amendments proposed by the Government to the Law on State Secret, the president of the Court of Appeal should receive MDL 2,500 for keeping the state secret. A person involved in the hunt in Padurea Domneasca [natural reserve] where a man was killed will be paid monthly more than an average pension just for keeping some secrets. What secrets can public people who have problems with integrity keep? Shouldn’t a person authorized to keep a national secret first pass a test on integrity?
At the same time, an investigative reporter spends up to MDL 2,500 a month, sometimes more, paying the state for access to information, which, according to the law, is public. This is information about the companies, palaces and income of officials, of those who get MDL 2,500 to hide information.

Investigative journalism and the road roller of secrecy
Investigative journalism is currently threatened by two Government initiatives. On the one hand, reporters are slapped on the hand by the Law on State Secret, which covers more and more public institutions, on the other hand – by the unexplainable and legally unjustified extension of the Law on Personal Data Protection.
Investigative journalism is now like a dandelion that grows in a valley between two hills from which two road rollers are speeding downhill: the Law on State Secret and the Law on Personal Data Protection. The amount of public information for investigative journalism keeps decreasing. The choice is being increasingly limited. Journalists will have to reinvent journalistic investigations and return to older techniques, used in the times when no digital databases existed, when they used rumors, suspicions, suppositions and approximations.
Quality journalism is an asset for society. The Parliament and the Government are the institutions that regulate and guarantee freedom of journalism. You can't confer legal and financial powers to secret-keepers without fighting against corruption, ensuring transparency and free access to information of public interest to independent journalists and all citizens. Generally speaking, a state’s information is the property of its citizens, and governments must only manage it, and not hide it from those to whom it belongs.
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The article was published within the Advocacy Campaigns Aimed at Improving Transparency of Media Ownership, Access to Information and promotion of EU values  and integration project, implemented by the IJC, which is, in its turn, part of the Moldova Partnerships for Sustainable Civil Society project, implemented by FHI 360.This article is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The content are the responsibility of author and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.