Gail Alexan­der

A to­tal of 316,374 in­ter­cep­tions of speech and da­ta were done in 2021 un­der the In­ter­cep­tion of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Act to in­ves­ti­gate var­i­ous crim­i­nal is­sues in T&T.

The in­for­ma­tion was giv­en in the 2021 re­port con­cern­ing the use of the In­ter­cep­tion of Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Act.

Of the to­tal num­ber of in­ter­cep­tions, 270,674 per­tained to speech and 47,700 to da­ta.

The re­port was laid in the Sen­ate on Tues­day, along with re­ports from 2018 to 2020.

The to­tal in­ter­cep­tions done in each of those years were: 798,884 (2018), 437,746 (2019) and 258,237 (2020).

The ma­jor­i­ty of in­ter­cep­tions in each of those years were al­so for speech, as op­posed to da­ta.

Due to the pan­dem­ic, there were re­stric­tions since 2020 and a State of Emer­gency in 2021, re­duc­ing pub­lic move­ment. The State of Emer­gency end­ed last No­vem­ber.

The 2021 re­port stat­ed that the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) ap­plied for 83 war­rants for in­ter­cep­tion as a re­sult of their ac­tiv­i­ty. War­rants were for 90 days and the court nei­ther re­fused nor re­voked any.

Of­fences at fo­cus in­clud­ed mur­der, con­spir­a­cy to com­mit this, am­mu­ni­tion sell­ing/trans­fer­ring, cor­rup­tion, an­ti-gang is­sues and in­tel­li­gence on is­sues con­cern­ing ter­ror­ism—from re­cruit­ment and fi­nanc­ing to sup­port­ing such acts and train­ing for this. The re­port al­so list­ed quan­ti­ties of drugs de­tect­ed, arms com­po­nents, cur­ren­cy and ar­rests on in­tel­li­gence and ev­i­dence.

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