|
Project Akali Eavesdropping
Parmeet Pal
Singh
| |
Punjab and Haryana governments are pursuing plans to acquire
off-the-air equipment to intercept phones and emails. Their
inane excuse is of course the natinal interest. That the ability
is likely to give the users absolute access to one’s private and
public life and that it is likely to be used for settling
political scores is not even forming a part of the public
debate. |
|
 Notwithstanding
the intense debate throughout the war on terror over the increasing
government interference in people's personal lives in the name of
securing the country, Punjab seems to have learnt little lesson.
At a time when
the US verdict showed how people reacted to the Bush
administration's continuous roll back of personal freedoms and
liberties and illegal wiretaps got the Republicans a sharp rap on
the knuckles, Punjab's ruling Akali Dal-BJP government is fast
moving ahead in its bid to eavesdrop and snoop on what we talk about
with our kith and kin and friends.
Both
Punjab
and Haryana governments are pursuing plans to acquire off-the-air
equipment to intercept telephones and emails in the garb of checking
violations of an obsolete and antiquated Indian Telegraph Act. The
inane excuse is that the government wants to selectively intercept
our conversations in national interest. That the ability is likely
to give the users absolute access to one’s private and public life
and that it is likely to be used for settling political scores is
not even forming a part of the public debate.
For those who
have not been cued into the developments --not their fault, most of
it happened behind the scenes -- the Punjab and Haryana governments
have decided to spend crores on procuring phone interception systems
in the face of fairly credible allegations that the previous
Congress regime as well as the Akali Dal-BJP regime have been
indulging in unauthorized tapping of phones to curb political
dissent.
There has been
virtually little debate about the impact on civil liberties. Haryana
has already acquired such equipment and
Punjab has
approved plans to buy it.
The equipment
can intercept SMSes, listen in to phone conversations on cell and
landline phones and even access offline messages.
Most politicians
are already very careful of saying anything substantial on the
phone, and senior journalists take due precautions about what they
say on the line. Allegations of bugging or phone interceptions are
de rigueur and legal interceptions of phones is far little than
illegal one.
Existing Supreme
Court guidelines say a phone can be intercepted only after
satisfying oneself that doing so is a must for preserving
sovereignty and integrity of
India, the
security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States,
public order or for preventing incitement to the commission of an
offence. It is only then that the said authority may pass the order
for interception of messages by recording reasons in writing for
doing so.
The Supreme
Court directed that an order on tapping of telephones would not be
issued except under authorization by the Home Secretary of the
Central government or of the state government. The order should
indicate the kind of communication that is to be tapped. The order
passed by the Home Secretary was to cease to have effect at the end
of two months from the date of authorization, although it could be
renewed for six months.
A further
direction was also given that original order would have to be
reviewed by a committee consisting of Cabinet Secretary, Law
Secretary and Secretary for Telephone Communication at the Central
level and also a corresponding committee at the state level and if
it considers that there has been a contravention of the Act, it will
set aside the order and also destroy copies of intercepted material.
But technology
is proving to be faster than the law, and certainly enabling
politicians to dig a hole for ethics. It is now possible to
intercept conversations and messages without leaving any tracks; so
anyone trying to peep into your personal mental diary can do so if
he has access to the equipment. Politicians, ever so eager to find
out what is happening in the rival camp, or the rival's mind, will
be prone to misusing the technology and the equipment.
And tax payer's
money is being spent to enable the politicians to buy this equipment
and care if being taken not to have a public debate on any system of
checks and balances before the move gets your money.
In 2005, the
United
States was jolted with revelations about domestic spying by the
National Security Agency, and Americans were made to understand that
when the politician at the helm will decide, he can make his own
laws and change the rules.
Bush tried to
battle critics, insisting that his decision to conduct warrant less
wiretaps on hundreds of people inside the United States, including
American citizens, was necessary and fully consistent with the
Constitution and federal law but neither claim stood up to scrutiny.
It is time
people in
Punjab and in
other parts of India learn their lessons from the American
experience and stop the legalization of a monstrous illegality. It
is very easy for the politicians to say during the times of "war on
terror" that legal niceties are too time-consuming. That position is
difficult to accept. The true reasons behind the Akali Dal-BJP
government's decision are not difficult to decode: they want to
simply open your mind and read it like a book. Then make you pay for
it.
It is surprising
that Indian courts are letting this happen. In 1952, the US Supreme
Court considered an argument during the Korean War. Youngstown Sheet
& Tube Co. v. Sawyer, widely considered the most important
separation-of-powers case ever decided by the court, flatly rejected
the president's assertion of unilateral domestic authority even
during wartime. President Truman had invoked the commander-in-chief
clause to justify seizing most of the nation's steel mills. A
nationwide strike threatened to undermine the war, Truman contended,
because the mills were critical to manufacturing munitions.
The Supreme
Court's rationale for rejecting Truman's claims applies with full
force here. Justice Robert Jackson then identified three possible
scenarios in which a president's actions may be challenged. Where
the president acts with explicit or implicit authorization from
Congress, his authority "is at its maximum," and will generally be
upheld. Where Congress has been silent, the president acts in a
"zone of twilight" in which legality "is likely to depend on the
imperatives of events and contemporary imponderables rather than on
abstract theories of law." But where the president acts in defiance
of "the expressed or implied will of Congress," Justice Jackson
maintained, his power is "at its lowest ebb," and his actions can be
sustained only if Congress has no authority to regulate the subject
at all.
Why was the wire
tapping issue not brought up in the Punjab Assembly, why was no
public debate initiated on it, why is the civil society silent about
it, and where are the provisions to prevent misuse?
Punjab has no
answers but it has the money to go and buy a monster machine. It
must be stopped before the monster threatens us all.
11 February 2009
|
Read Also