In the name of raison d'état, as a sacred principle, rights are violated and freedoms are seized that, under normal circumstances, no one would dare deny. Law enforcement officers and secret agents of fiction, like Harry the Brute or James Bond, displayed unorthodox methods to confront criminal scum. Each in their own style, from brutal violence to glamorous service to Her Majesty. But the "licence to kill" of flesh-and-blood personnel, from the CIA to the GAL, was secretly exercised through the maneuvers of the deep state, without legal coverage.

The day after Junts announced its break with the PSOE, and while in the Congress press room the PP spokesperson, Ester Muñoz, faced journalists' questions about a hypothetical motion of no confidence with the support of Junts, in the same building, just a few meters away, a parliamentary committee took a leap back in time. The PP's parliamentary spokesperson during Mariano Rajoy's government was tasked with reviving the Russian connection to the Catalan independence process this Tuesday in the lower house, as the investigation into this alleged conspiracy between Carles Puigdemont's circle and Vladimir Putin's Russia continues. It's been months since it definitively derailed in the courts

The police tried to recruit Enric Pérez, 24, as an informer to infiltrate Jovent Republicà, Republican Left of Catalonia's (ERC) youth wing, but he decided to report it to ARA and La Directa to denounce espionage on the independence movement. This Tuesday, after his case was made public yesterday, ERC appeared in the Catalan Parliament alongside Pérez and the national spokesperson of Jovent Republicà, Kenya Domènech, to denounce the "violation of political freedom" and request the appearance of the Spanish government's delegate in Catalonia, Maria Eugènia Gay, to give explanations about what has happened. They have also assured that they are studying legal actions –but they have not yet given any details– and that this afternoon ERC MP in Madrid Marta Rosique will announce the actions they are preparing in the Spanish Parliament.

Enric Pérez waits at the foot of the 144-metre slab of concrete, aluminium and glass that is Glòries tower in Barcelona with his cell phone in his pocket and the recording application running. He is a little nervous. He has to meet a man who says he belongs to Spain's Department of Homeland Security, who in one call has shown that he knows too many things about him and wants to turn him into a confidant. Pérez is 24 years old, still studying, and from the start he contacts the ARA and the magazine Directa. It is Wednesday, March 30 and he is certain he wants to gather information and go public on these attempts to get him to spy on the independence movement.

The world is once again experiencing uncertain times, in which old-fashioned military conflicts cannot be ruled out – the situation in Ukraine and also in the China Sea is of particular concern – and in which there are also new threats, such as cyber-attacks, sabotage, the climate crisis or the hijacking of basic supplies. The pandemic has exposed Spanish and European vulnerability in many areas and this has forced the PSOE-Podemos government to bring forward the publication of its National Security Strategy by one year; it was made public last week.