Fernando Collor de Mello, an impeached ex president and current senator, has once again ruined the government’s plan to quickly pass a law regulating access to classified documents, iG reports.
While the administration had already extended its deadline from May 3 to May 18 due to pressure from Collor, there are now concerns that the changes made by the Senate will require the bill to be passed by the lower chamber a second time. Collor, from his seat in the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, now wants 15 more days to negotiate additional amendments.
Among the controversial features in the bill is a change to the length of time a document may be classified. Currently top secret materials can be kept classified for 30 years with indefinite renewals, while the bill changes that a 25 year period that can be renewed only once.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
