Op­po­si­tion MP Don­na Cox says she has been told the cell­phones of some mem­bers of the Gov­ern­ment are be­ing tapped. She made the dis­clo­sure to the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day while re­spond­ing to ques­tions about her claim in Par­lia­ment on Wednes­day that she was re­li­ably in­formed her phone was tapped. She was speak­ing on the De­fence (Amend­ment) Bill at the time.

She added: "I was in­formed the phones of mem­bers on our side (Op­po­si­tion) and some on the oth­er side (Gov­ern­ment) are be­ing tapped. It was what I heard."Asked who she sus­pect­ed, she said: "I can't give that in­for­ma­tion." The In­ter­cept Unit first op­er­at­ed un­der the Spe­cial An­ti-crime Unit (SAUTT), a con­tro­ver­sial na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agency formed un­der the last Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Cox served as ju­nior min­is­ter in the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry in the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion. In No­vem­ber 2010, months af­ter the new gov­ern­ment was sworn in, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced in Par­lia­ment her phone and those of Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards, Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley and some of her MPs, Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters and me­dia per­son­nel were be­ing tapped.

It was im­plied the phone-tap­ping was done by a se­cu­ri­ty agency un­der the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion.

For­mer Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, in re­ply, said his gov­ern­ment nev­er au­tho­rised the agency to in­ter­cept the com­mu­ni­ca­tions of law-abid­ing cit­i­zens.

The T&T Guardian asked Cox if she knew about phone-tap­ping by the In­ter­cept Unit when she was in the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry.

She said: "SAUTT was nev­er un­der me. I would not have been aware at the time about in­for­ma­tion con­cern­ing SAUTT. I was aware that SAUTT was used to deal with crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty not to tap peo­ple's phones.

Cox said there were clear pro­ce­dures in the In­ter­cep­tion of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Act if there was a need to tap peo­ple's phones.

"We agreed to this bill and that phone-tap­ping (il­le­gal­ly) should not be tak­ing place," Cox said.

Asked why she felt their phones were be­ing tapped, she said: "The Gov­ern­ment will have to say why but I ex­pect it will be de­nied."

Cox said it was not a com­fort­able thing hav­ing one's phone tapped. She said af­ter she made the dis­clo­sure in Par­lia­ment on Wednes­day she heard noth­ing strange on her phone yes­ter­day.

"Pri­or to that, I could hear my­self talk­ing and cer­tain oth­er nois­es," she said.

Gary Grif­fith, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ad­vis­er to the Prime Min­is­ter, said Cox was mak­ing a very se­ri­ous ac­cu­sa­tion.

He said: "I have no knowl­edge about any­thing like that tak­ing place. Be­cause of new leg­is­la­tion it's il­le­gal for any such thing to take place with­out the rel­e­vant au­tho­ri­sa­tion by the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA)."

Asked what oth­er se­cu­ri­ty agency in­ter­cept­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Grif­fith said: "On­ly the SSA. If any oth­er unit is do­ing it, it would be il­le­gal."

He added: "There could very well be oth­er units out­side of the Gov­ern­ment do­ing it. They can eas­i­ly ac­quire such equip­ment. It's avail­able on the black mar­ket."

Asked what the unit in­ter­cept­ed, he said: "That is a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sue."