IS BIG BROTHER WATCHING US?

FOR the second time in a decade and a half, an intelligence-gathering State agency has been exposed as spying on law-abiding nationals.

The revelation of a unit of the Strategic Service Agency (SSA) tapping phones and monitoring cyber communications follows a similar scandal in 2010.

In November 2010, then-Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar said that several prominent nationals – all decent and respectable – were monitored by the previous Patrick Manning Government.

Now, amid the current SSA internal investigation, there is the revelation of a unit covertly intercepting the electronic communications of various law-abiding citizens.

The agency, Research and Analytical Unit, uses modern and high-powered Israeli equipment to conduct data mining and other related technological activities.

In both cases, the surveillance was outside of what may have been conducted on organised underworld criminality.

The clandestine stakeout of upstanding nationals prompts several serious and pertinent questions.

Why are upright citizens under close sinister study by an official State agency, one that ultimately reports to politicians in national office?

Are such furtive activities illegal?

To what use is that information being put and could it be utilised to affect the lives, welfare, and respective families of those targeted?

Are the relevant findings shared with other agencies and powers?

Are the SSA operatives also monitoring criminals, including drug, gun, and human traffickers, and, if so, has that function led to arrests and prosecutions?

Are suspected terrorists and gangsters under effective cyber surveillance?

If so, why do they still operate with impunity, killing randomly, invading homes, demanding extortion, and undertaking other brutal crimes?

Why haven’t the big underworld fishes involved in the narco trade been nabbed and brought to justice?

Are opposition politicians under illegal cyber-watch?

Were similar issues raised by officials of the United States Department of State during the Prime Minister’s recent discussions in that country?

There are more questions than answers, as Johnny Nash once sang.

There ought to be full accountability to the population, which financed the purchase of the costly equipment, employed the intelligence staff, and has a vested interest in the matter.

Just like the national security blimp that once sailed the skies, there is no evidence that the Pegasus-branded apparatus is positively impacting the campaign against crime.

In fact, the rate of criminality continues to surge, in spite of empty claims of victory by Police Commissioner Erla Harewood-Christopher.

The 2010 expose had sparked deep concerns that Prime Minister Manning had menacing tabs on the lives of citizens, including then-President Max Richards.

The telephones of judges, opposition politicians, journalists, broadcasters, entertainers, sports personalities, attorneys, councillors, and others were also wiretapped.

Dr. Keith Rowley, then Opposition Leader, supported Ms. Persad-Bissessar’s disclosure.

Rowley said it was “a pity” that there was not improved legislation on phone tapping “because it may have protected us from the shame we face today.”

The current SSA interception of communication is a reminder of a Big Brother totalitarian society in which nationals are under surveillance by the ruling party.

George Orwell’s dystopian 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four detailed a land in which there was constant scrutiny of citizens as they went about their routine affairs.

Is Big Brother currently watching us?