affected by various statements made by high-ranking government officials stigmatizing their work. They said that between 2003 in 2005, more than 40 CCAJAR members were victims of spying and offensive intelligence activities on the part of the Administrative Department of Security (Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad – DAS). 14. They said that in spite of requesting the information obtained by DAS, the State had denied it. They explained that those requests were made through (i) communications addressed to all the administrations between 1994 and 2015; (ii) participation by CCAJAR as a civil party in Cases UDH 912 and 590, which sought to determine who was responsible for the inclusion of the lawyer Alirio Uribe Muñoz in the military report titled “Miscelánea”; and (iii) an action for constitutional protection brought in 2014 against then-President Álvaro Uribe Vélez, which requested "the immediate declassification of all intelligence reports in the possession of the State security agencies.” 15. In addition, the petitioners alleged that the Colombian State violated the right to protection from interference with the home and telephone communications of CCAJAR members. The petitioners said that on several occasions the Collective's lawyers detected the sound of radio frequencies on their telephones. They said that they sometimes heard the voices of police or military personnel while they were talking on the telephone. 16. The petitioners explained that the DAS ran a military intelligence campaign against various people, including CCAJAR members. They said that the abolition of the DAS did not prevent new intelligence actions to the detriment of the alleged victims. They said that the information unlawfully obtained by the DAS and its teams was passed to the Army and other agencies without any kind of regulation. The petitioners alleged that Law 1621 of 2013 permitted "communications eavesdropping with little oversight.” They said that that law itself envisaged situations in which a court order was not required for operations. 17. With regard to the rights to a fair trial and judicial protection, the petitioners mentioned that the acts of harassment, attacks, and threats against members of the Lawyers' Collective had not been meaningfully investigated by the Colombian authorities. They said that, as a result, those acts remained in a state of impunity, encouraging their repetition and escalation over the years 18. The petitioners said that they filed complaints because of those acts and had tried to advance the proceedings that were underway. They said that, so far, there had been no progress with the multiple investigations opened into the acts. They also said that in this case, state agents who had overseen the proceedings in relation to the acts had not conducted a serious and objective investigation. They identified the following failings and omissions: (i) negligence in collecting key evidence; (ii) failure to pursue lines of inquiry; and (iii) lack of control over paramilitary forces. 19. In relation to the acts that occurred between 1990 and 2002, the petitioners said that none of the investigations had progressed beyond the preliminary stage. The petitioners also highlighted failings in relation to subsequent acts connected with illegal activities of the DAS. They also said that there had been no investigations of the crime of torture. They said that what convictions had resulted from several investigations were of middle-ranking DAS personnel. They said that the case of the two deputy directors who were convicted had to do with investigations in which CCAJAR was not recognized as a victim owing to the procedural fragmentation that characterized the process as a whole. They added that there had been no significant progress in cases brought against high-ranking DAS officials. 20. Finally, the petitioners alleged that the State violated the rights of the child, given that a group of children who were relatives of CCAJAR members were the subject of intelligence activities and victims of threats. They added that some children were forced into exile along with their families. B. The State 21. The State argued that it bore no responsibility whatsoever in this case. It said that, in keeping with the principle of subsidiarity of the inter-American human rights system, it had taken the necessary steps to 3