Asha Javeed

The Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil (NSC), head­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, has met with Irish-owned mo­bile op­er­a­tor Dig­i­cel to ex­press con­cern about the dif­fi­cul­ties in im­ple­ment­ing le­gal in­ter­cept ca­pa­bil­i­ties on the Dig­i­cel net­work. To legal­ly in­ter­cept a mo­bile net­work al­lows an in­tel­li­gence agency-in this case the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA)-to legal­ly lis­ten to calls for pre-as­signed num­bers. Dig­i­cel's re­sis­tance stems from its in­tent on pro­tect­ing the pri­va­cy of its cus­tomers, a se­nior of­fi­cial of the com­pa­ny said on Thurs­day. The Gov­ern­ment's con­cern re­sult­ed in a meet­ing on Ju­ly 14 at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter and in­clud­ed the Prime Min­is­ter, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Em­manuel George, Di­rec­tor of the SSA Colonel Al­bert Grif­fith and Dig­i­cel's chief ex­ec­u­tive Niall Dor­ri­an.

Dor­ri­an, in a let­ter to Grif­fith af­ter the meet­ing, stat­ed: "At the meet­ing you ex­pressed con­cern that Dig­i­cel was not pro­vid­ing the re­quired as­sis­tance to the SSA for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of le­gal in­ter­cept ca­pa­bil­i­ties on our net­work. "I wish to em­pha­sise that at all times Dig­i­cel has of­fered its full sup­port and co-op­er­a­tion with this project. How­ev­er, this co-op­er­a­tion has not been rec­i­p­ro­cat­ed by the SSA, which has caused us great con­cern. "As you will no doubt ap­pre­ci­ate, we are con­trac­tu­al­ly ob­lig­at­ed to pro­tect the pri­va­cy of our cus­tomers and can on­ly de­vi­ate from this du­ty where clear­ly re­quired to do so by leg­is­la­tion," the let­ter con­tin­ued.

How­ev­er, in the let­ter, Dor­ri­an ex­pressed con­cern that from the very out­set of dis­cus­sions with the SSA in March 2011, Dig­i­cel raised ques­tions re­gard­ing the scope and in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the In­ter­cep­tion of the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Act. Dor­ri­an chose not to com­ment on his cor­re­spon­dence which was ob­tained by Sun­day Guardian. At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan de­ferred all ques­tions to Sandy. How­ev­er, he did ex­plain that a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee was set up by Par­lia­ment and in­clud­ed Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Dr Roodal Mooni­lal and Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley among oth­ers to con­sult with stake­hold­ers. He said pro­pos­als were in­vit­ed from the con­ces­sion­aires on this mat­ter. Sandy, when con­tact­ed, said he could not com­ment on mat­ters of na­tion­al in­tel­li­gence.

TATT: No new in­ter­cept clause

The con­ces­sions signed by the mo­bile op­er­a­tors-TSTT and Dig­i­cel-from the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Au­thor­i­ty al­low for le­gal in­ter­cept. The In­ter­cep­tion of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Act re­quires an au­tho­rised of­fi­cer to ap­ply for and ob­tain a war­rant from a judge for the wire­tap­ping of a phone "for the pre­ven­tion or de­tec­tion of any of­fence where there are rea­son­able grounds for be­liev­ing that such an of­fence has been, is be­ing or is able to be com­mit­ted." Cris Seecha­ran, TATT's ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor, ex­plained that the in­ter­cept clause was added af­ter the con­ces­sions were award­ed. It was a re­quire­ment from the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.

The In­ter­cep­tion of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Act, as amend­ed, was passed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on De­cem­ber 10, 2010. The Act pro­vides the le­gal frame­work with­in which pub­lic or pri­vate com­mu­ni­ca­tions, which are be­ing trans­mit­ted by means of a pub­lic or pri­vate telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions net­work, can be law­ful­ly in­ter­cept­ed. Seecha­ran ex­plained the amend­ed Act would su­percede what present­ly ex­ists. How­ev­er, he said, TATT has not ap­proached the mo­bile com­pa­nies with a new in­ter­cept clause for their con­ces­sions.

Flash­back

How the SIA op­er­at­ed

The SIA, which had main­ly op­er­at­ed un­der­cov­er, be­came in­fa­mous for phone tap­ping of sev­er­al high-rank­ing gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials in­clud­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar (then in op­po­si­tion), Dr Kei­th Row­ley (now Op­po­si­tion Leader) and Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards. Af­ter its ex­is­tence was re­vealed by Per­sad-Bisses­sar, it en­dured a sec­ond wave of scan­dal with its short-lived di­rec­tor, 31-year-old Resh­mi Ram­nar­ine. But it sparked a de­bate on the in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing and in­tel­li­gence units. The Gov­ern­ment sub­se­quent­ly tabled the In­ter­cep­tion of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Bill, which was unan­i­mous­ly ap­proved in Par­lia­ment.

To this end, in Feb­ru­ary Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy said an im­ple­men­ta­tion com­mit­tee would be set up to fa­cil­i­tate the merg­er of the Spe­cial An­ti-Crime Unit (SAUTT), the Se­cu­ri­ty In­tel­li­gence Agency (SIA) and the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) in­to one le­gal cor­po­rate body known as the Na­tion­al In­tel­li­gence Agency (NIA) by the end of March. To fa­cil­i­tate the for­ma­tion of the NIA, Par­lia­ment will have to abol­ish the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) and the Act that cre­at­ed that agency would have be re­pealed and re­placed by the Na­tion­al In­tel­li­gence Agency Act. For now, the agency re­mains the SSA with Grif­fith as the head.