THE PORTUGUESE security services are to supervise a major interior facelift at the nation’s parliament building in Lisbon to ensure that the deputies’ chamber doesn’t get bugged.
The improvements and modernisation works, which include doing up the so-called Hemiciclo (Sala das Sessões), is so politically and nationally sensitive that the work can only be carried out by companies vetted by the security services and accredited by the Ministry of Defence’s National Security Authority.
The measures were discussed and approved last week by parliamentary deputies who wanted to know how the work could be carried out without the risk of electronic bugs being planted in the building.
Classified
The ANS, an organisation linked to the Ministry of Defence, is one of Portugal’s secret services and guarantees the security of “classified national matters” including those of NATO on national territory.
The work, which has been budgeted in at three million euros, includes the installation of a new tactile computer system in each Member of Parliament’s place.
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