Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar SC MP, is al­leg­ing that the scan­dal sur­round­ing Gov­ern­ment’s il­le­gal spy­ing on law-abid­ing cit­i­zens goes even fur­ther and deep­er than can be imag­ined.

In an of­fi­cial state­ment is­sued to­day, the Op­po­si­tion Leader asks point­ed ques­tions as whether pres­sure was brought to bear on cer­tain se­nior of­fi­cials in the Po­lice Ser­vice and wants to know why the crime sit­u­a­tion is so bad if the ac­tiv­i­ty of crim­i­nals is be­ing close­ly mon­i­tored.  

She al­so hints at oth­er mech­a­nisms be­ing em­ployed in the il­le­gal sur­veil­lance ini­tia­tive, which she al­leges may have come from for­eign gov­ern­ments.

The full text of the Op­po­si­tion Leader’s state­ment fol­lows…

OP­PO­SI­TION LEADER: THE GOV­ERN­MENT HAS MORE QUES­TIONS TO AN­SWER ON THE IL­LE­GAL SUR­VEIL­LANCE OF LAW-ABID­ING CIT­I­ZENS

Row­ley’s ad­mis­sion on a po­lit­i­cal plat­form that his gov­ern­ment has in­deed been uti­liz­ing spy equip­ment should alarm every cit­i­zen of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

In ad­di­tion to the Pe­ga­sus spy soft­ware that is be­ing used to mon­i­tor law-abid­ing cit­i­zens’ pri­vate What­sApp mes­sages, this gov­ern­ment has an­oth­er sys­tem that is sup­plied and sup­port­ed by a for­eign en­ti­ty. This sys­tem is sup­posed to be used for the mon­i­tor­ing of il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties such as ter­ror­ism, drug smug­gling and gang or­ga­ni­za­tion.

How­ev­er, this sys­tem is al­so be­ing mis­used to spy on law-abid­ing cit­i­zens. Cer­tain hand-picked po­lice of­fi­cers have ap­proached this for­eign en­ti­ty and mis­led them, in or­der to gain their as­sis­tance in spy­ing on law-abid­ing TT na­tion­als.

Row­ley has claimed the equip­ment is be­ing used in the sur­veil­lance of gangs, but if that was in­deed the case, why is crime still ram­pant in this coun­try? Why are il­le­gal guns and am­mu­ni­tion still pour­ing in­to our land? Why are gangs in­creas­ing in num­ber? Why are cit­i­zens fear­ful for their lives and their loved ones be­cause crime con­tin­ues un­abat­ed?

Fol­low­ing my call on Wednes­day to Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds to state what is the role of Con­sta­ble Clement in the in­ter­cep­tion of com­mu­ni­ca­tions, I was fur­ther in­formed that Con­sta­ble Clement is re­port­ed­ly op­er­at­ing sep­a­rate­ly from the main TTPS struc­ture and is re­port­ing di­rect­ly to Min­is­ter Hinds. This op­er­a­tion is based at a house in north Val­sayn which is be­ing rent­ed by the TTPS, and equip­ment and per­son­nel in­volved in this il­le­gal spy­ing are cur­rent­ly based there.

It is note­wor­thy that this ju­nior of­fi­cer Clement was at­tached to the Po­lice In­tel­li­gence Unit (PIU) when for­mer Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Grif­fith was in charge. Then DCP Mac­Don­ald Ja­cob ex­pressed se­ri­ous con­cerns that a con­sta­ble was too ju­nior to have all this pow­er, and Clement was trans­ferred from the PIU to the Spe­cial Branch.

To­day, I ask Min­is­ter Hinds whether, at any time, he ex­pressed his op­po­si­tion to this trans­fer to then Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith, and whether at­tempts were made to pres­sure Grif­fith to re­verse the trans­fer?

I ask fur­ther whether, fol­low­ing Grif­fith’s de­par­ture, at­tempts were made to co­erce and ha­rass COP (Ag) Mac­Don­ald Ja­cob to re­verse Clement’s trans­fer? Was it Act­ing CoP Ja­cob who re­lent­ed af­ter con­stant ha­rass­ment and moved Clement back to PIU and set him up in the Val­sayn lo­ca­tion?

The de­lib­er­ate mis­use of equip­ment and per­son­nel by this gov­ern­ment to spy on cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go is deeply dis­turb­ing.

This gov­ern­ment has lost all le­git­i­ma­cy, and more so, the trust of the peo­ple of this na­tion.

Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, SC, MP

Leader of the Op­po­si­tion