Wiretaps still not audited

(CNS): The Human Rights Commission (HRC) has issued a warning that until government puts in place the necessary audit committee to oversee the interception of telecommunication messages by the police, the public cannot have confidence that the wiretapping and other message surveillance being carried out by the RCIPS is lawful or proportionate. In the wake of allegations by the opposition leader Thursday in the Legislative Assembly that his emails, messages and phone calls were unlawfully intercepted, the HRC has queried why, more than 18 months after it was assured government was setting up the required audit commission, it still hasn’t been done and none of the RCIPS electronic snooping has been reviewed.

“Until the Audit Committee is established, the public cannot be sufficiently assured that the surveillance equipment and circumstances underpinning each instance of telecommunication message interception is compliant with the ICTA legislation or established human rights standards intended to protect against unlawful, arbitrary, and unreasonable interceptions,” the HRC said in a new report released to the media on Friday.

The committee raises a number of concerns in regard to the ability of the RCIPS to intercept messages with just a warrant from the governor for what are supposedly only for very serious crimes without any oversight.

McKeeva Bush, who is facing a number of charges under the anti-corruption law, revealed that all of his communication had been intercepted and the police had got hold of his personal bank and finance details. Although he was stopped from going further by the speaker because his case is still in the courts, the issue illustrates the concerns being raised in the community about how much, who and why the RCIPS is intercepting messages. The claim has been made by the deputy police commissioner, the governor and most recently the UK's overseas territories minister, Mark Simmonds, that the police powers to monitor or intercept private calls and electronic messages were for only the most “serious of crime” or “terrorism”.

With the potential of serious intrusion into an individual’s private life, the HRC said it was absolutely necessary for oversight to safeguard people from unlawful intrusion. It said the creation of an Interception of Communications Audit Committee was essential. It was now of concern that, although required by the Information Communications Technology Authority Regulations, which have been in force since 2011, such a committee has not been established

The committee was supposed to conduct an audit of all interception equipment and data records at least once every six months to determine whether interceptions were conducted in accordance with the law's relevant regulations.

Without that committee, the HRC said, it was impossible for the general public to be assured that the use of interception and communications data was properly authorised as an investigative technique and government was interfering in people’s privacy.

“The CI Government is required to refrain from interfering with a number of ways in which a person may express themselves … with a person’s correspondence or other means of communication. In general this means that you have the right to voice opinions and express your views subject to the rights of other persons,” the HRC stated in the report.

The commission said it had warned the former governor, Duncan Taylor that telecommunication message interception carry the potential for human rights infringements and indicated that it considered the Audit Committee to be one of the most important checks and balances in the process.

“For this reason, the HRC stated in its letter to former Governor Taylor that the appointment of members to the Audit Committee by the Governor-in-Cabinet, as per s.17 of the ICTA Law (Interception of Telecommunication Messages Regulations), 2011, should be considered a priority by the government as a means to providing a necessary layer of oversight to the process of telecommunication interception by the police service," the report reveals.

“On 22 March, 2012 the Deputy Governor responded to the HRC confirming that the (then) Portfolio of Internal and External Affairs was in the final stages of identifying members of the Audit Committee and indicated that the matter would go before Cabinet within the next thirty (30) days.”

However, eighteen months later and after repeated enquiries there is no committee, and the HRC described the apparent lack of willingness by previous governments to establish an Interception of Communications Audit Committee as “disconcerting” and pressed the new government to act to create this necessary layer of oversight.

Speaking in the House on Thursday, Premier Alden McLaughlin, who raised his own concerns about the lack of judicial oversight on this surveillance, pointed out that when the UK want something in this regard there is little that the CIG can do, but he said that he would be setting up the audit committee at the earliest opportunity.