Spying by Mexico’s Armed Forces Brings Fears of a ‘Military State’

MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s armed forces spied on a human rights defender and journalists who were investigating allegations that soldiers had gunned down innocent people, documents show, providing clear evidence of the military’s illegal use of surveillance tools against civilians.

The government has been embroiled in scandal for years over the use of sophisticated spyware against a wide range of people who stand up to Mexico’s leaders. But surveillance experts say this is the first time a paper trail has emerged to prove definitively that the Mexican military spied on citizens who were trying to expose its misdeeds.

Documents and interviews show how the spying that tarnished the previous government has continued under President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who vowed that his administration would not engage in such surveillance, which he called “illegal” and “immoral.”

Mexico’s armed forces are not authorized to spy on civilians, legal experts say, but the military has long wielded spying technology and has grown ever more powerful under Mr. López Obrador.

In a 2020 Defense Ministry report, unearthed last year in an extensive hack of the Mexican armed forces and reviewed by The New York Times, military officers described the details of private conversations between a human rights advocate and three journalists discussing allegations that soldiers just weeks earlier had executed three civilians in a confrontation with a cartel.

The report contended that the advocate, Raymundo Ramos, was trying to “discredit the armed forces” by discussing allegations of unlawful killings by the military with reporters.