SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Op­po­si­tion MP Sad­dam Ho­sein yes­ter­day ques­tioned why Gov­ern­ment has been us­ing the Pe­ga­sus spy­ware to main­ly “mac­co” and mon­i­tor its po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents in­stead of crim­i­nals who have been cre­at­ing a reign of ter­ror in the coun­try.

To com­pound mat­ters, Ho­sein said, the Gov­ern­ment had spent in the last sev­en years a stag­ger­ing $1.648 bil­lion on the Strate­gic Se­cu­ri­ty Agency (SSA) which is re­spon­si­ble for con­duct­ing and co­or­di­nat­ing in­tel­li­gence ap­proach­es to crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty but had very lit­tle to show for it.

The SSA is tasked with analysing and re­duc­ing iden­ti­fied threats. It al­so pro­vides sur­veil­lance and pro­tec­tion for the coun­try.

Speak­ing at a UNC press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, Ho­sein said, the Gov­ern­ment has not been us­ing the In­ter­cep­tion Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Act to its ad­van­tage by lay­ing its an­nu­al re­port in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives which gives an ac­count of how many peo­ple were ar­rest­ed and charged aris­ing out of in­ter­cept­ed calls or mes­sages deemed a se­cu­ri­ty risk to the coun­try and cit­i­zens.

Last Mon­day, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of us­ing the Is­raeli de­vel­oped Pe­ga­sus spy­ware to mon­i­tor a num­ber of peo­ple in­clud­ing jour­nal­ists, mem­bers of the Ju­di­cia­ry, sit­ting Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment, lawyers, union lead­ers and mem­bers of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty.

She claimed some hand­picked po­lice of­fi­cers, in­clud­ing a po­lice con­sta­ble who was a friend of a min­is­ter, were placed to mon­i­tor What­sApp mes­sages.

For­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith sup­port­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s claim about the ju­nior of­fi­cer.

Pe­ga­sus, the flag­ship prod­uct of the Is­raeli tech­nol­o­gy firm NSO Group is spy­ware that can stealth­ily en­ter a smart­phone and gain ac­cess to every­thing on it, in­clud­ing its cam­era and mi­cro­phone.

Both Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds de­nied the claims and ac­cused Per­sad-Bisses­sar of be­ing reck­less and mak­ing a ridicu­lous state­ment.

Row­ley, how­ev­er, said a State, in pro­tect­ing it­self, is re­quired on an on­go­ing ba­sis to be con­cerned about its se­cu­ri­ty and needs ma­chin­ery and equip­ment to equip the State to know what is threat­en­ing the State.

In 2010, Ho­sein said, the then Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment passed the In­ter­cep­tions Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Act which was used to reg­u­late the way com­mu­ni­ca­tions were in­ter­cept­ed and made the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter ac­count­able by lay­ing an an­nu­al re­port in the Par­lia­ment.

The Barataria/San Juan MP said the act al­lows in­ter­cep­tions with or with­out a war­rant.

“Those were the pro­tec­tions in place with­in the leg­is­la­tion.”

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Gov­ern­ment, Ho­sein said, in 2020 amend­ed and wa­tered down the Act to do three things-to ac­cess stored da­ta pri­or to 2010, au­tho­rised a con­sta­ble to ap­ply for a war­rant with­out the au­thor­i­ty of the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er and to record in­for­ma­tion in a prison van or with­in a prison which was passed with a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty.

Ho­sein said while the UNC has no is­sue if in­ter­cep­tions are made for the pur­pose of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty “when in­ter­cep­tions are made to ad­vance po­lit­i­cal ex­pe­di­en­cy that is where the is­sues lie. When you are us­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty as­sets to spy on po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents there is where the il­le­gal­i­ty is found.”

He point­ed out that un­der the law, on­ly three in­di­vid­u­als are au­tho­rised to give clear­ance on in­ter­cep­tions—the di­rec­tor of the SSA, the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er and Chief of De­fence Staff.

A po­lice con­sta­ble, cor­po­ral, sergeant, in­spec­tor or deputy po­lice com­mis­sion­er have no pow­er to in­ter­cept com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Ho­sein re­vealed.

“If the con­sta­ble has no writ­ten au­thor­i­ty from the com­mis­sion­er of po­lice to in­ter­cept any in­for­ma­tion the on­ly way he can do so is by ob­tain­ing a war­rant from a High Court judge.”

How­ev­er, if the con­sta­ble in­ter­cepts with­out the ap­proval of the com­mis­sion­er of po­lice or with­out a court war­rant, Ho­sein said “he com­mits a crim­i­nal of­fence and can be fined up to $1 mil­lion and 15 years im­pris­on­ment.”

If the in­ter­cep­tion is dis­closed to a Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial, Ho­sein said, that is al­so a crim­i­nal of­fence.

He said in­ter­cep­tion must take place in the in­ter­est of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty main­ly for the de­tec­tion or pre­ven­tion of an of­fence.

Ho­sein ques­tioned if the Gov­ern­ment was spy­ing on their own min­is­ters, MPs, di­rec­tors of State boards and oth­ers in the in­ter­ests of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

“Are they be­ing mon­i­tored be­cause they are com­mit­ting se­ri­ous crimes? I ask this ques­tion be­cause that is the on­ly ground in which you can in­ter­cept com­mu­ni­ca­tion with­out a war­rant.”

For the past four years, Ho­sein said, the Gov­ern­ment had failed to lay the in­ter­cep­tion re­port in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

“Mr Hinds, wake up and lay these re­ports in the Par­lia­ment. What are you hid­ing in these re­ports?”

These out­stand­ing re­ports, he said, would give a break­down of “how many in­ter­cepts are made” and the num­ber of peo­ple ar­rest­ed and charged.

Ho­sein cit­ed sta­tis­tics from the 2016 and 2017 re­ports.

In 2016, Ho­sein said, da­ta showed there were 144,911 in­ter­cepts com­pared to the 551,466 in­ter­cepts in 2017.

Of the 696,377 “in­ter­cepts” for the two-year pe­ri­od, Ho­sein said, on­ly sev­en peo­ple were ar­rest­ed.

The num­ber of in­di­vid­u­als con­vict­ed based on the in­ter­cep­tions for the two years was ze­ro.

There was al­so no com­mence­ment of pros­e­cu­tions.

“The num­ber of pend­ing mat­ters for the two years is 12. So we have to ask, are they re­al­ly spy­ing on the crim­i­nals or are they re­al­ly mac­co­ing their po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents?”

Ho­sein al­so dis­closed that for the pe­ri­od 2015 to 2022, the Gov­ern­ment al­lo­cat­ed $1.648 bil­lion to the SSA that “is in charge of the in­ter­cep­tions.”

Based on the sig­nif­i­cant sums spent, Ho­sein won­dered if tax­pay­ers got val­ue for mon­ey.

He al­so dis­closed that the Gov­ern­ment had in­ject­ed $149 mil­lion on the SSA in 2018 on­ly to seize one kilo­gramme of co­caine, ten firearms, 24 am­mu­ni­tion and 16 firearms com­po­nents.

“What is re­al­ly go­ing on with the in­tel­li­gence unit of T&T? They must ac­count in Par­lia­ment of what is tak­ing place be­cause bil­lions of dol­lars are be­ing spent on na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and to­day we have a crime rate...a mur­der rate of over 3,000 of our cit­i­zens who have been mur­dered since 2015.”

CLICK FOR MORE NEWS