- It is a well-established fact that the ruling dispensations assuming governance after winning at the hustings will embark on certain measures not entirely backed by the prescribed rules, acts, or statutes under the law of the land. One of those underhand enterprises nonchalantly carried forward by the party in power, irrespective of political affiliations, is to indulge in discreetly tapping telephone conversations and/or spying surreptitiously. People in the know would infer how several governments have played out this particular issue attempting to keep an unauthorized tab on mostly political opponents, critics, and personalities repeatedly failing to toe the official lines.
PC:
- There are instances in the past when an elected government was forced to give-up power owing to the incessant noise created by tapping controversies. Of course, there are many other instances too when the elected government has cited national security as the reason to not only dodge the relentless opposition barbs aimed at exposing the unauthorized/unlawful indulgences but also succeeded in escaping the scrutiny of the judiciary too. People closely following the current affairs in the country would know how the Pegasus spyware incident played out in recent times completely overshadowing the Parliamentary session from conducting meaningful businesses.
- The same Pegasus is back again as a political controversy, and given how these things play out, there will be plenty of sounds and no light. The best and the logical choice to shine a light is the Supreme Court, which has the matter before it. As you are aware, the Supreme Court has constituted a committee mandated to identify those surveilled, establish if any government agency acquired the spyware, and whether lawful procedures were followed for operating it. Therefore, whether Israel sold Pegasus to India, as reported by the New York Times, is a question the committee should be able to answer.
PC: Srishti Ojha
- Mind you, the opposition is expected to demand a discussion in the ensuing Budget session of Parliament but disrupting the crucial session over the issue may do it little good. This holds good even in an election season since the issue is not easily saleable in the rough and tumble of a campaign. Needless to mention, the government should cooperate fully with the committee without resorting to usual stalling methodologies citing national security as a reason. Moreover, it is obvious now that some answer is necessary on whether and how Pegasus was bought by official agencies. Agreed, some national security imperatives require covert surveillance. However, there is also no doubt that in a democracy opposition leaders, judges, journalists, and activists cannot be spied on.
- The SC has rightly said that a government cannot get a free pass every time it mentions national security. The moot point to ponder over here is why major political parties have not stressed the need to have a national security law with a set of rules to govern surveillance measures undertaken with a stamp of authorization. Remember, intelligence gathering in a democracy cannot be dictated by ad hoc decisions, and neither can citizens’ privacy be violated similarly. Hopefully, the Pegasus row would force our lawmakers to usher in all-encompassing and much-needed national security laws to address the same sooner than later.
