Almost four years after Rio de Janeiro councilwoman Marielle Franco (38) was killed, the social media giant Facebook has not yet given investigators access to the full stored data of Internet users who visited her social media account.
This situation remains in limbo despite attempting to reach an agreement to hand over data to a special investigative task force established by Rio de Janeiro’s Public Prosecutor’s (MP-RJ) office back in March 2021.
In March 2022 Google, after protracted court battles to uphold its privacy policy, finally provided prosecutors with additional stored data that could possibly help solve the case. However, in both situations, prosecutors still await the full transfer of stored data within the scope of the investigation.
Ongoing reluctance by the two tech giants to provide online search engine details and information of social media users who visited Marielle’s posts of a public event she attended on March 14, 2018, the night of the assassination, has hampered investigators.
The public debate Marielle attended was hosted at the Casa das Pretas in the Lapa neighborhood of central Rio de Janeiro. Shortly after its completion, Marielle and her driver, Anderson Gomes (39), were ambushed and fatally gunned down in their moving vehicle just kilometres from the building.
New Equipment, Same Investigation
It is no secret that big tech oligarchs routinely sell users’ data to advertisers. Also, from time to time, they arbitrarily and without prior warning shut down social media and fundraising accounts. Despite these facts, they remain adamant in upholding their privacy policy in Marielle’s assassination case. The MP-RJ has purchased advanced technological equipment, allowing investigators to unlock cell phone passwords of suspects. Never seen before surveillance videos captured at residential homes and businesses obtained from the Traffic Engineering Company (CET-Rio) are also being analyzed.
The images correspond to the car route taken by the assassins from the opulent neighborhood of Barra da Tijuca in Rio de Janeiro’s west zone to Estácio, a central Rio de Janeiro community where Marielle and her driver were killed.
“We have all of the technical agencies, personnel from the Intelligence and Security Coordinator (CSI) who are analyzing the images,” said Bruno Gangoni, lead prosecutor in the investigation. He heads a team of eight prosecutors dedicated to uncovering not only who pulled the trigger but the individual or group who masterminded and ordered Marielle’s assassination. “I’m hopeful.…Plenty of material remains to be analyzed and I believe we can, possibly, find something.”
Julian Cola is a translator (Brazilian-Portuguese to English).
A former staff writer at the pan-Latin American news outlet, teleSUR, his articles and essays also appear in Africa is a Country, Black Agenda Report, Truthout, Counterpunch and elsewhere.
Julian can be reached at [email protected].