Gail Alexan­der

Mur­ders are com­mit­ted in T&T as a re­sult of pris­on­ers us­ing phones and call­ing as­sas­si­na­tion plots. That hap­pened as re­cent­ly as yes­ter­day morn­ing, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al Rawi told the Sen­ate as he pi­lot­ed the In­ter­cep­tion of Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Bill.

Al Rawi said the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion is one of the most crit­i­cal to be laid in Par­lia­ment.

It al­lows for the in­ter­cep­tion of com­mu­ni­ca­tions with­in pris­ons and prison ve­hi­cles used to trans­port in­mates. Pro­vi­sions al­so pro­pose that in­for­ma­tion that has been in­ter­cept­ed will be ad­mis­si­ble as ev­i­dence in any pro­ceed­ings.

The AG said: “In the pris­ons of Trinidad and To­ba­go as­sas­si­na­tion calls are made from the prison. Na­tion­al forces—the SSA and Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er—have ac­tion­able in­for­ma­tion that phones are be­ing used in the pris­ons and as­sas­si­na­tions are be­ing car­ried out at the be­hest of pris­on­ers and you can do noth­ing about it as you lack the priv­i­lege of us­ing that as war­rant­ed ev­i­dence in court as you’ve in­ter­cept­ed it in cir­cum­stances where the ev­i­dence isn’t ad­mis­si­ble in law.”

He warned that law is be­ing draft­ed for manda­to­ry lie de­tec­tion tests across cer­tain as­pects of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.

“Tip­ping off is a re­al­i­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go and it has to be crim­i­nalised. We’re aware mem­bers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices, un­for­tu­nate­ly, find them­selves en­gaged in tip­ping off,” Al Raw added.

He said the In­ter­cep­tion of Com­mu­ni­ca­tion law passed in 2010 was con­fined to com­mu­ni­ca­tion net­works, while the cur­rent Bill per­tains to the in­ter­cep­tion of lis­ten­ing de­vices in prison. The 26-clause

The Bill re­quires a three-fifths spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty vote for pas­sage and re­quires the sup­port of Op­po­si­tion or In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors.

Its pro­vi­sions per­tain to stored da­ta such as texts and com­mu­ni­cat­ed or traf­fic da­ta which could help lo­cate an of­fend­er as well as the ge­og­ra­phy of a crime. He said that as­pect could help in kid­nap­ping cas­es.

Claus­es al­so pro­vide for of­fi­cers to ap­ply for a war­rant to ob­tain stored com­mu­ni­ca­tion from a telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions ser­vice provider and to ob­tain stored da­ta and dis­close the stored com­mu­ni­ca­tion and stored da­ta as spec­i­fied un­der a war­rant.

The Bill al­so cov­ers sen­si­tive in­for­ma­tion which the AG said wouldn’t be dis­closed if it jeop­ar­dis­es oth­er law en­force­ment en­quiries.

How­ev­er, pris­on­ers’ calls in the prison’s al­lo­cat­ed ar­eas won’t be in­ter­cept­ed since such calls fall un­der the cat­e­go­ry of “le­gal pro­fes­sion­al priv­i­lege”

Al Rawi said com­ments on the Bill were re­ceived from a va­ri­ety of agen­cies, from the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) to the po­lice, but none from the Law As­so­ci­a­tion. He said Gov­ern­ment pro­posed to dis­cuss the leg­is­la­tion fur­ther on an­oth­er day apart from yes­ter­day’s first leg.

He said he hoped Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tors would sup­port the Bill and ap­pealed to all sen­a­tors not to heed Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­cent ar­gu­ments against it. He urged them to drape them­selves “in na­tion­al colours” and con­sid­er it.

“I ask for your pa­tri­o­tism to­day,” he added.