Independent Senator Hugh Roach has called on National Security Minister Edmund Dillon to clear the air on whether citizens’ phone are being “tapped” in T&T following concerns about this. “We need to be very careful about transgressing people’s constitutional right to privacy and freedom,” Roach added on the issue in yesterday’s Senate debate of the 2016 Budget.
Noting the budget allocation for National Security, Roach wondered if that was properly used and if the assets at its focus were really reaping the benefits. He said for the last couple years he had noted friends and colleagues coming to speak to him, often removed the batteries from their cellphones and put them in their car to prevent intrusion on their privacy.
Roach said he did not know how prevalent that was and if it was real but he had been very distressed by it since he had worked in countries where the technology was readily available for a person sitting in a car to listen to someone’s phone in a house. He said he did not know if that technology was in T&T and was being used by local security.
But, Roach said, he would like the Parliament to get an account of what exactly the position was regarding T&T’s national security sector and whether they have the capacity for listening to people’s conversations, if so, on what basis and what it was being used for.
Roach added: “I’m not a drug dealer, I do not traffic in women, I don’t know why they will want to listen to my conversations. I don’t know anyone who calls me that deals in these things...narcotics.
“But certainly there must have some truth to it since too many people have come to me and practised that (removing phone battery) and I find it very distressing. We need to get to the bottom even though we are engaging in setting up a national security structure.”
As a concern about government expenditure on national security, he said he wanted to hear from the minister at some point on what in fact was the position, what was being used and if it was valid. Roach, who is wheelchair-bound, also expressed concern about adequate facilities to accommodate the disabled to navigate in T&T.
He cited, for example, the Parliament which he said lacked facilities for the disabled, including to allow him to move around to come near the Senate President’s chair for discussions or for him to get into position to head sessions in the event that need arose. Since Parliament has not rectified that travesty, he hoped all senators one day would attend in wheelchairs to experience what a disabled person went through.
Roach said he did not consider the budget “doom and gloom” or having draconian measures. He said economic challenges facing T&T presented an enormous opportunity to recalibrate operations and social order.