If there is not going to be a revolution in the National Intelligence Center to protest yesterday's dismissal of its director, Paz Esteban, it is because that does not fall within its powers. It is not for lack of desire or lack of indignation. It is for discipline and for the sense of State of its members. Around 3,000 people work there. Many of its commanders come from the Army or the Civil Guard. They will have their things, their mistakes (the 1-O polls were a humiliation for the center and consequently for the government of the moment, the PP) but they have discipline.

The discomfort is enormous with the dismissal of Paz Esteban, a woman of extreme ability, veteran of the house, explain people close to the institution. She has spent 826 days as director, around 1,020 if we count her interim stage, since July 2019, and many thousands of days, in different functions, if we look back. She has been with the CNI (then Cesid) since 1983.

It's not just fidelity, it's the argument. Are they kicking her out for not having detected the espionage of the cell phones of President Sánchez and some of his ministers? Of course not: that is a responsibility, at best, shared with Moncloa, which has its own security services. But it is that even if it were so, days ago the Government's baton, Esquerra Republicana, has been asking for a head, and it has been that of Paz Esteban. So she is dismissed for espionage – which she explained in parliamentary headquarters – to 18 pro-independence positions. So… was Paz Esteban's CNI exceeded? According to what he has learned from his explanations, no, because he did it as required. With judicial authorization. The dates of the judicial endorsement have not transpired, but everything suggests that it occurred around the sentence of the procés and the subsequent disturbances, called by Tsunami Democràtic. In the logic of the powers of the State, they are perfectly plausible authorizations. If it was not exceeded, why is it stopped? Because of the political noise.

Insult, outrage, short-term and long-term error or transfer to the independentists (those the CNI was fighting, precisely) are the adjectives used by those sources to define yesterday's dismissal. And now? Now they celebrate the appointment of Esperanza Casteleiro, another woman who enjoys great consideration in the house.

If the CNI needs something, it is transparency: invisibility. Peace, silence. He had it until the Pegasus case broke out, and he wants it back from this Wednesday. At least she starts with Esperanza.