The CNI replaced theCentro de Investigación y Seguridad Nacional (CISEN) in December 2018 at the start of the administration of PresidentAndrés Manuel López Obrador. The CNI is the primary civilian intelligence service in Mexico.
Formally, the agency is charged with intelligence operations as they pertain to national security, which contribute to the preservation of the Mexican State's integrity, stability, and permanence.[3]
CISEN was created on February 13, 1989, replacing theDirección General de Investigación y Seguridad Nacional (DGISN), which assumed its role following the dissolution of theDirección Federal de Seguridad (DFS) and theDirección General de Investigaciones Políticas y Sociales (DGIPS). CISEN was the principalintelligence agency of theSecretariat of the Interior (Spanish: Secretaría de Gobernación, SEGOB). The agency was formally charged with generating strategic, tactical, and operative intelligence to ensure the integrity, stability, and permanence of the Mexican state. Article 19 of the National Security Act defined the scope and responsibilities of CISEN.[3] The 1994Zapatista uprising in Chiapas played a formative role in shaping the scope of the agency's objectives and lead to a significant increase in intelligence operations against all sectors of Mexican society.[4] From its inception, the agency received training and equipment from the Israeli intelligence agencyMossad.[4] CISEN acquired the Israeli spywarePegasus during the presidency ofEnrique Peña Nieto.[5] The spyware was used by the Peña Nieto administration to spy on journalists, human rights activists, and political opponents, including dozens of associates of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in the run-up to his presidential election victory in 2018.[6] Then-Secretary of the InteriorMiguel Ángel Osorio Chong publicly denied CISEN's purchase of Pegasus;[7] however, in May 2020 the Secretariat of Security and Civilian Protection (Spanish: Secretaría de Seguridad y Protección Ciudadana, SSPC) confirmed the acquisition of the spyware by CISEN.[8]
Before taking office in 2018, President López Obrador had been critical of CISEN's opacity in its operations and practices, which includedwiretapping and surveillance of political adversaries and ideological dissidents.[9] This prompted López Obrador to dissolve CISEN and replace the agency with theCentro Nacional de Inteligencia (CNI). Although mostly regarded as a rebrand (CNI maintains the same faculties, internal structure, and the majority of CISEN personnel),[10] one notable structural change was its placement under the control of the reinstated Secretariat of Security and Civilian Protection.[11] In July 2021, López Obrador announced that all CISEN files would bedeclassified and made available for public examination at theArchivo General de la Nación.[12]
TheCentro Nacional de Inteligencia (CNI) was created on November 30, 2018, following reforms to the Organic Law of the Federal Public Administration.[13] The agency maintains the functions established for CISEN in Article 19 of the National Security Law.[3] Audomaro Martínez Zapata was named director of the CNI on December 1, 2018.
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