Gail Alexan­der

New wire­tap­ping leg­is­la­tion pro­pos­es that the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter, rather than the Prime Min­is­ter, will be the per­son who can au­tho­rise in­ter­cep­tion of pri­vate com­mu­ni­ca­tion, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Biss­esar out­lined yes­ter­day. She did so in Par­lia­ment while speak­ing about the pro­posed In­ter­cep­tion of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Bill 2010. The bill re­quires a three-fifth spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty for pas­sage. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "Crim­i­nals have be­come more and more so­phis­ti­cat­ed in their meth­ods as they take ad­van­tage of tech­no­log­i­cal ad­vance­ments.

"This leg­is­la­tion will strike a bal­ance be­tween the need for reg­u­lat­ed wire­tap­ping in lim­it­ed cir­cum­stances as a weapon in the fight against crime and the need to pre­vent the abuse and mis­use of the pow­er to in­ter­cept pri­vate com­mu­ni­ca­tions by our cit­i­zens." The bill was draft­ed in 2007 un­der the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion. Gov­ern­ment has made sev­er­al changes, in­clud­ing hav­ing on­ly one se­cu­ri­ty unit to in­ter­cept pri­vate com­mu­ni­ca­tions for the pur­pose of gath­er­ing crim­i­nal in­tel­li­gence and pro­tect­ing and de­fend­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said in­ter­cep­tion was a nec­es­sary evil, "but the in­ter­ests of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty must pre­vail in the clash be­tween the right to pri­va­cy and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty."

On the mat­ter of the right of the in­di­vid­ual to pri­va­cy she said the Con­sti­tu­tion did not af­ford an ex­press pro­tec­tion of the right to pri­va­cy. She said: "The right of the in­di­vid­ual must be bal­anced, against the in­ter­ests of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, the pub­lic in­ter­est and the eco­nom­ic well-be­ing of the coun­try. When these in­ter­ests con­flict the pub­lic in­ter­est must pre­vail where rea­son­ably jus­ti­fi­able.�"It is of­ten nec­es­sary that in­di­vid­ual rights are ab­ro­gat­ed to some mea­sure where there is a threat to the pub­lic good."

The bill's pro­vi­sions in­clude:

�2 An in­ter­cep­tion of com­mu­ni­ca­tion would be law­ful­ly done on­ly when it is done pur­suant to a war­rant is­sued by a judge on an ap­pli­ca­tion by an au­tho­rised of­fi­cer:

�2 a war­rant would be is­sued on­ly to in­ves­ti­gate, pre­vent or de­tect a spec­i­fied of­fence and would be valid for an ini­tial pe­ri­od of 90 days but may be ex­tend­ed by the court fur­ther;

�2 pro­vi­sion for an oral ap­pli­ca­tion for a war­rant in ur­gent cir­cum­stances, sub­ject to cer­tain safe­guards;

�2 con­tent of a com­mu­ni­ca­tion/com­mu­ni­ca­tion da­ta, which is law­ful­ly ob­tained, is ad­mis­si­ble as ev­i­dence in any crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings;

�2 it would be un­law­ful to in­ten­tion­al­ly in­ter­cept a com­mu­ni­ca­tion dur­ing its trans­mis­sion, ex­cept in cer­tain cir­cum­stances;

�2 un­law­ful pos­ses­sion of a de­vice or any com­po­nent there­of, the de­sign of which ren­ders it pri­mar­i­ly use­ful for sur­rep­ti­tious in­ter­cep­tion of pri­vate com­mu­ni­ca­tions would be a strict li­a­bil­i­ty of­fence; and,

�2 in­ter­cept­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tion shall be treat­ed as con­fi­den­tial. (GA).