The Ministry of the Treasury employees who leaked data about unreported property values and unpaid taxes that lead to the resignation of three prominent public officials have been charged with unauthorized use of privileged information systems. Moments after the official announcement of the accusations against the twelve employees, whose names and positions are being withheld, Ticos took to social media and created a campaign to defend the rights of the whistleblowers.

A Facebook group by the name of “Defendemos y acuerpamos a quienes filtraron la info tributaria. SON HEROES” (We defend and shield those who leaked tax information. They are heroes) now has more than 6,000 members. A document in which supporters are entering their names and cedula numbers is stored in the Facebook page. Group members are organizing a sit-in protest at the Ministry of the Treasury building in downtown San Jose.

An organizer from the group, Johnny Schmidt C, hopes to count with the support of 10,000 people by the end of the day. Some of the comments left on the Facebook wall of the group denote outrage at the charging of the twelve employees, who remain anonymous thus far. Group members feel that leaking the information contained in the System of Integrated Revenue Information (Spanish acronym: SIAT) was a patriotic act, and not a violation of the law.

Conflicting Criminal Charges

According to a report by La Nacion, the newspaper that first broke the news about the unrealized revenue from several properties of public officials who had not updated the value of their real estate holdings in years, the unnamed employees were charged under Article 281 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of Costa Rica (PDF). The specific provision directs prosecutors to file charges whenever government employees and public officials report commission of a crime during the course of their duties.

The Revenue Administration Code has a couple of articles that prohibit the unauthorized use and dissemination of information contained in the SIAT. This is where conflicts arise, since there is an inherent value in making the tax and revenue information of public officials public. At the same time, it could be argued that the twelve employees charged were acting under Article 281 as cited in the previous paragraph -insofar that tax evasion can also be considered a crime.

A previous article in The Costa Rica Star touched on the trend of whistleblower suppression in Costa Rica, Germany and the United States. The fact that Ticos are using social media to voice their support for whistleblowers brings hope to the democratic process.