All Ears

The tally shows it8217;s not just Delhi and metros like Hyderabad that are tapping with impunity. States like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar head the tally of LIMs8212;ostensibily used only for nabbing terrorists, drug lords, smugglers and criminals.

Every political regime over the decades has been rocked by its own phone-tapping scandals, but the outrage expressed by the Samajwadi Party leader has been so vitriolic and sustained that it8217;s triggered any number of reviews and inquiries. The immediate result has been a tally of nationwide wire-taps.

As the Amar Singh probe progresses, the number of disturbing issues on the grey business of phone-tapping is increasing. This is even as top government officials, former cabinet secretaries and home secretaries, swear they follow the rule-book in authorising each and every tapping.

Given the emerging leads, there are some questions the government needs to urgently address: Why do letters of authorisation of home secretaries reach operators late and sometimes never at all? Do intelligence agencies outsource sensitive technical operations to private companies? How many wire-taps could have been ordered on the basis of forged documents? Has passive interception become de rigueur for law enforcement agencies and worse, for powerful citizens with deep pockets?

Switching from switchboards
WHAT8217;S been seen and not merely heard in this tapping showdown is the quantum technology shift in the surveillance business. Till the 8217;80s intelligence operatives would sit plugged to MTNL switchboards and listen in, but that8217;s passe.

With even BSNL upgrading to 8216;8216;next generation8217;8217; computerised systems and private cellular operators coming into the business in 1995, telephonic surveillance too changed forever.

Now, it takes 20 seconds for a cellular phone operator to feed in the target number into its Mobile Switching Centre MSC and extend the listening facility to a parallel telephone line. The trend is for enforcement agencies to ask for calls to be diverted to a mobile number, to apparently get 8216;8216;real time8217;8217; information even as they are on the prowl or hot on a chase.

But even as the sleuths get to hear tapped conversations in the comfort of their safehouses, houses or cars, they still need to contact the service providers to collect cumbersome call details and subsequently 8216;8216;map8217;8217; the call details who called whom, with what frequency, etc for their operations.

However, senior BSNL officials told The Sunday Express that just a few months ago, the Intelligecne Bureau8212;the agency that asks for maximum wire-taps8212;made another technology leap. For all cellular surveillence, the IB now has competence to get voice, data and SMS recordings directly in their offices. The IB8217;s systems for similar 8216;8216;self-sufficiency8217;8217; for landline intercepts, sources say, are at the final testing stage.

Former home secretary Dhirendra Singh explains that all intercept requests with specific reasons appended are handled by North Block with utmost secrecy. A vast majority of requests are granted. Some are not, for instance, those for interception of the Research and Analysis Wing RAW since it is not on the list of agencies selected by the Supreme Court that are allowed to tap phones.

In response to a PIL filed by the People8217;s Union for Civil Liberties, the Supreme Court in 1996 issued guidelines on tapping, in the event that it was unavoidable.

Says Singh,8216;8216;After the Supreme Court issued the guidelines, home secretaries all over the country would be very wary of appending their signature on an unathorised or frivolous request. Why would anyone take the risk? Especially in Delhi, the cabinet secretary holds a meticulous review of all wire-taps files every two or three months.8217;8217;

Hear, hear
IF the burst of new technology has been phenomenal, the increase in tapping requests has been astounding. For instance, during one review meeting, Cabinet Secretary B K Chaturvedi is known to have commented on how his chamber was fast getting filled with piles of intercept files the officials carried to the conference.

This evident rise in requests, along with the urgency sleuths express to get the wire-taps done, evidently led to the insertion of the 8216;8216;mischievous8217;8217; Rule 419 A which was first published in the Government8217;s Gazette on February 19, 1999. This rule permits agencies to carry out interception subject to its confirmation from the concerned competent officer within a period of 15 days.

The insertion of this rule virtually means that law enforcement agencies now have the fiat to intercept telephones for full two weeks without authorisation from the home secretary. It must be that in umpteen cases, sleuths may have either got a number intercepted which the home secretary may not have ordinarily cleared, or simply switched off the tap after the expiry of 15 days. And forgot all about delivering the formal order to the operator.

Coincidently,in June 2002, Delhi Police Commissioner K K Paul, then Special Commissioner of Police, had sent a stinker to his top officials on the misuse of the phone-tapping facilities. He had written, 8216;8216;Sometimes in very important cases, the mobile phone companies have extended facilities for listening on the understanding that formal requisition after obtaining the approval of the competent authority will be given immediately. Sometimes it is not given the next day and sometimes never at all.8217;8217;

Questioned over the large volume of wire-tap requests from Police Headquarters and the widespread use of provisions of the 419 Rule, Joint Commissioner Karnal Singh said, 8216;8216;Very often there is no time for us to get the formal orders. Once we get the mobile number of a suspect, we want to tune in immediately. Terrorists and criminals are known to frequently change mobile phones.8221;

Different frequency
EVEN before the Amar Singh scandal broke, there had been disquiet on the subject. This happened with reports on how government agencies were buying passive GSM monitoring equipment in large numbers and how some equipment had been sold to private individuals. The National Security Council is known to have probed the possible misuse of such technology.

Passive interception can be done with equipment resembling a laptop computer that allows tuning into a frequency and completely bypassing the line route.

With better equipment, the quality of interception has been improving fast. Sums up M K Dhar, a former IB Joint Director who included several phone tapping scandals in his recent book on the functioning of the agency: 8216;8216;Phone tapping is a neccessary tool from the national security point of view. We simply have to be tolerant of new technology and be cautious in our daily life.8217;8217;