I don’t know about you but I have spent the last two evenings with my head in my hands.
Nearly every channel has hosted some kind of discussion on the telephone tapping revelations and almost without exception, the discussions have been of poor quality, missing the wood for the trees.
Why does this matter? Well, because most TV discussions are about events that are independently generated. But the telephone-tapping controversy emerged out of media revelations. It is a story that the media uncovered and now, you would expect the media to do a better job of following up the issues that have been generated by that story.
First, the Outlook story. It told us that this government had taken an interest in telephone tapping, even importing new technology to make the process easier. This technology was sought to be justified on national security grounds but, in fact, organizations charged with national security have been used to keep tabs on politicians.
The government responded by saying that it had examined the Outlook story and had found no substance in the allegations. It had not ordered any tapping of political rivals.
Faced with this gulf between Outlook’s version and the government’s denials, there are three possibilities.
1) Outlook got it wrong. This is always possible but the magazine actually quotes four instances where phones were tapped. It is true that the story lacks documentation – there are no transcripts and few details – but it is unlikely that the magazine would make it all up or would print unless its editors were sure of their information.
2) The government is lying. The BJP inclines to this position. As Venkaiah Naidu thundered on TV, “This government has no credibility.” This sounds good but P. Chidambaram is too smart a man to lie to Parliament. If he says that the government has not ordered taps on those whose conversations Outlook claims were monitored, then he knows what he is talking about.
3) This is the most likely scenario: It is possible that both Outlook and Chidambaram are telling the truth. The way phone tapping works is that the agency that wishes to monitor a phone line has to get permission in writing from the home secretary or a state chief secretary. Chidambaram’s denial indicates that in these cases, no permission was granted by the home secretary. But the truth is that phones are routinely tapped by the security services without bothering with any written permission. Partly, this is out of necessity. In most countries (and especially the US), intelligence services regularly scan the ether to see if they can pluck out conversations of value. For instance, R&AW picked up the conversations of the 26/11 terrorists on board a dhow in the Arabian Sea during one such scan. It had no permission from the home secretary for this kind of surveillance – nor is it possible to ask for permission in such cases. (In the US, computers are programmed to look for key words in phone traffic and to tape conversations when they find such words.)
| "Nobody has touched on the real problem. And that is the nexus between politicians and policemen and the unhealthiness of a system that makes a policeman’s career progression dependent on the whims of politicians." |
When agencies have the ability to scan all traffic, it is easy enough to zero in on a specific number while pretending to conduct routine scans.
Further, all agencies conduct Black Ops, that is to say, operations of which no record exists. An agency needs an official tap if a prosecution is likely to result. But if a phone is to be tapped only to pick up intelligence, there is no need to make any record of the tapping.
Moreover, technology has now advanced to the level where even an amateur with a device that can be bought off the Internet can tap the home minister’s cell phone. In the UK, a recent scandal has involved journalists who have tapped phones of important people in an effort to generate stories. In such a situation, do agencies really need to bother with written permission from the home secretary?
And finally, there is the doctrine of deniability. Politicians are too clever to specifically order taps. Instead, they expect their spooks to give them advance warning of anything adverse that is likely to occur without worrying too much about how the info was collected. So, spooks cheerfully tap the phones of Opposition politicians, bureaucrats and journos (every editor I know works on the assumption that his phone is tapped) to gather information that will please their political masters. When this information is presented, the politicians can easily work out that it must have come from telephone taps. But they are too clever to ask specific questions of the spooks. So, when they are asked if they have ordered phone surveillance, they can issue their denials with clear consciences.
I am inclined to believe the substance of the Outlook story. My belief is based not on any inside information but on the uniformly low opinion I have of India’s politicians and spooks – at least in this regard. Every government expects the intelligence bureau to keep tabs on the Opposition and to warn it about unfavorable stories that are due to appear in the media. In the states, chief ministers expect state intelligence departments to perform the same function.
Why do the spies agree? Well, look at it this way. India’s intelligence agencies are not staffed by James Bond and George Smiley. They are staffed by policemen. And these policemen are drawn from the same pool of talent as state police forces where commissioners and DGPs routinely play politics, suck up to ministers and organize their promotions on the basis of political patronage. You have to be very naïve to believe that when a policeman works in a state he will cheerfully rush to do Mayawati’s bidding but when he joins the Intelligence Bureau he will be miraculously transformed into James Bond. These guys survive on politics and politicians.
The problem with most of the TV debates is that they have either descended into political duels between the Congress and the BJP or they have focused on such non-issues as parliamentary supervision of intelligence services. Nobody has touched on the real problem. And that is the nexus between politicians and policemen and the unhealthiness of a system that makes a policeman’s career progression dependent on the whims of politicians.
As long as politicians know that they have policemen and spies who will do their dirty work for them, phone tapping will never end.
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