Sweeping snooping enrages Parliament

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Sweeping snooping enrages Parliament

Saturday, 22 December 2018 | PNS | New Delhi

Sweeping snooping enrages Parliament

A massive uproar erupted inside and outside Parliament over the Government’s decision to empower several investigating agencies to intercept and monitor data on computers. While the Opposition accused the Government of turning India into a surveillance State, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley defended the move saying the authorisation was given under rules framed during the UPA regime in 2009.

The issue rocked the Rajya Sabha as Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad alleged “undeclared Emergency has taken final shape” and “all federal agencies have been let loose”. Congress chief Rahul Gandhi took to social media calling Modi an insecure “dictator.”

The issue was also raised in the Lok Sabha during Zero Hour with Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) leader N K Premachandran alleging that the move is a violation of the fundamental rights. The Opposition members questioned the motive of imposing such an order by Home Ministry for the first time ever after the rules were framed almost a decade ago.

While Jaitley hit back saying the Congress is crying foul over powers created by it when it was in Government, Congress leader and Deputy Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma said the issue is serious as it is related to fundamental rights and “India will become a police state” with such “sweeping powers” to agencies to intercept information.

Responding to the charge, Jaitley said it would have been better if the Opposition had obtained all information before raising this issue. He said the rules under which agencies will be authorised to intercept information were framed in 2009 when the Congress-led UPA was in power.

“So what you are doing Anand Sharma is making a mountain where even a molehill does not exist. You must know this and as a Leader of Opposition your word is sacrosanct, so don’t use it for a purpose where a power which you created, which is to be used in national security cases, now you are crying foul about that power,” Jaitley said in the Upper House.

Azad retorted that there is no mention of national security in the order and that the ruling dispensation seems to think it has ownership rights over national security and it means nothing to us, to which, Jaitley said, “These are elementary things. It is an authorisation order. The provisions of national security are written in Article 69... You are playing with the security of the country. That is what you have done just now”.

Since the Act has been in place these orders of authorisation are repeated from time to time, he said, adding that they can be used for interception in cases related to national security, disruption of public order, etc. Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad questioned if the Congress does not want action against terrorists and those who play with national security.

Rahul took to the social media alleging that the present regime is converting India into a police State. “Converting India into a police State isn’t going to solve your problem, Modi. It’s only going to prove to over one billion Indians what an insecure dictator you really are,” Rahul tweeted.

Facing the flak, the Home Ministry too clarified that it has authorised 10 Central agencies to intercept, monitor and decrypt all the data contained in “any” computer system and asserted that this was being done to prevent “any unauthorised use of these powers”.  In a clarificatory statement, the Home Ministry said adequate safeguards are provided in the IT Act, 2000 and similar provisions and procedures already exist in the Telegraph Act along with “identical safeguards”.

The new Home Ministry order, issued on late Thursday night, “does not confer any new powers” to any security or law enforcement agency, the Union Home Ministry said in a statement as the Opposition termed the move an assault on fundamental rights and joined hands against it.

The order was brought out by the ‘cyber and information security’ division of the ministry under the authority of Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba.

Therefore, it said, the latest order has been issued “in accordance with rules framed in year 2009 and in vogue since then and no new powers have been conferred to any of the security or law enforcement agencies”. The notification, it said, has been issued to notify the ISPs (internet service providers), TSPs (telecommunications service providers), and intermediaries among others to codify the existing orders.

The Ministry statement also said the new notification had three benefits. It is aimed at ensuring that any interception, monitoring or decryption of any information through any computer resource is done in accordance with due process of law. The latest order will also ensure that provisions of law relating to lawful interception or monitoring of computer resource are followed.  

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