Gail Alexan­der

It's the Op­po­si­tion PNM's view that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, as head of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, made a bad move in an­nounc­ing to the crim­i­nal el­e­ment the method by which law en­force­ment agen­cies would in­ter­cept cell­phone sig­nals from pris­ons.

PNM PRO Faris Al-Rawi said so yes­ter­day af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar's state­ment on Mon­day night on the "jam­mers and grab­bers" tech­nique, where­by law en­force­ment would use mo­bile phone sig­nal "jam­mers" on phone calls com­ing from in­side jails. This in­volved tech­nol­o­gy which would find phones and block calls and text mes­sages from un­ap­proved num­bers in jails, she said.

Al-Rawi said: "The PNM notes with amaze­ment the Prime Min­is­ter's an­nounce­ment to the pop­u­la­tion of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty forces' abil­i­ty to block cell­phones from the pris­ons and to grab text mes­sages em­a­nat­ing from in there.

"We stand amazed the head of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil could be fool­ish enough to an­nounce to the crim­i­nal el­e­ment the ex­act method by which law en­force­ment agen­cies would in­ter­cept valu­able and crit­i­cal ev­i­dence ca­pa­ble of be­ing gar­nered and used in pros­e­cu­tion and con­vic­tions un­der var­i­ous pieces of leg­is­la­tion, in­clud­ing the An­ti-Gang Act.

"We are con­vinced the Prime Min­is­ter ei­ther en­joys the worst form of ad­vice or is ca­pa­ble of mak­ing spec­tac­u­lar mis­take af­ter mis­take in such quick suc­ces­sion."He said the Prime Min­is­ter "con­tin­ued dis­man­tling na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mech­a­nisms and em­bold­en­ing the crim­i­nal el­e­ments through demon­strat­ing the worst form of in­ep­ti­tude in na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty T&T has ever seen."

Al-Rawi said one might have thought it far more im­por­tant to use in­for­ma­tion gath­ered from cell­phone trans­mis­sion qui­et­ly and dis­creet­ly to im­prove the de­tec­tion and con­vic­tion rate in T&T "which stands at an all-time low now.

Asked how the PNM had dealt with the sit­u­a­tion af­ter for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Mar­tin Joseph had con­firmed cell­phones were be­ing used in pris­ons, Al-Rawi said the PNM had en­gaged in min­i­mal dis­clo­sure and pre­ferred a plat­form to in­still fear in­to crim­i­nals by keep­ing them in the dark and wor­ried over the true ca­pa­bil­i­ties of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty net­work.