Journal of Law and Criminal Justice

Epistemic Problems of Telephone Interception in Brazil
Antonio Eduardo Ramires Santoro

Abstract
Little research has been done on the methods used by the magistrate to assess the value of the informative elements when authorizing telephone interception or its extension. The purpose of this article is to analyze the existence of problems in the evaluation of the information brought to the attention of the magistrate in order to make a decision on whether or not to authorize telephone interception, as well as any injustices that may arise from this. The problems faced are: are there specific epistemic problems in telephone interception? If so, is it possible to identify them? Methodologically, the research was carried out using two approaches: a theoretical-bibliographical one, which dealt with dogmatic issues on the requirements for telephone interception in Brazil and epistemological issues related to the inferential reasoning to be developed by the judge in order to issue the decision authorizing the measure; and an empirical one, through interviews with magistrates. It was verified that there are crossings that interfere with the rational assessment of evidence, which should be understood as epistemic problems consisting of the use of spurious generalizations and distributive epistemic witness injustice.

Full Text: PDF     DOI: 10.15640/jlcj.v11n1a2