Gail Alexan­der

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s claim that Gov­ern­ment is us­ing Pe­ga­sus spy­ware to spy on cit­i­zens is com­plete­ly false and she’s now du­ty-bound to present her “doc­u­men­tary ev­i­dence” of this in Par­lia­ment.

Row­ley made the chal­lenge yes­ter­day, as he dis­missed Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s claims that Gov­ern­ment was us­ing the in­ter­cep­tion tool Pe­ga­sus Spy­ware So­lu­tion to il­le­gal­ly in­ter­cept telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions and “spy” on cit­i­zens.

In a state­ment to Par­lia­ment, Row­ley point­ed out that the for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er (Gary Grif­fith) had con­firmed the pro­cure­ment of an in­ter­cep­tion of com­mu­ni­ca­tion so­lu­tion un­der his tenure from 2018 to 2021, but the pro­cure­ment of this in­ter­cept de­vice by the for­mer CoP wasn’t au­tho­rised by the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil for use by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice.

Row­ley said the then CoP was im­me­di­ate­ly in­struct­ed to pro­vide the hard­ware and soft­ware to the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency, which he did.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar made her “spy­ing” claim at a re­cent UNC fo­rum.

On Tues­day, dur­ing UNC’s fu­el price hike protest, she again ac­cused Gov­ern­ment of “us­ing state re­sources to do their dirty work.”

How­ev­er, speak­ing yes­ter­day as chair­man of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, Row­ley said, “The re­cent re­peat­ed al­le­ga­tions by the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion and Op­po­si­tion mem­bers that Pe­ga­sus spy­ware is be­ing used to spy on lo­cal jour­nal­ists, mag­is­trates, judges and par­lia­men­tar­i­ans by the Gov­ern­ment, the Strate­gic Ser­vice Agency (SSA) and/ or the TTPS are com­plete­ly false!”

Row­ley said it had be­come nec­es­sary for him to ad­dress a “dis­turb­ing, false nar­ra­tive, where there’s been a con­cert­ed, con­scious ef­fort, to mis­lead not on­ly the pop­u­la­tion but al­so those in the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.”

“I want to as­sure the peo­ple of T&T and all ob­servers that the state does not pos­sess, nor has it ever pos­sessed or used Pe­ga­sus spy­ware. Con­trary to (UNC’s) cur­rent mis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paign, there is no truth what­so­ev­er in the al­le­ga­tion that the state, in­clud­ing the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice and/or SSA (Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vice Agency), or any oth­er state agency has any of­fi­cer us­ing Pe­ga­sus spy­ware.”

He said it’s Gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy that the SSA is the sole cus­to­di­an of all known in­ter­cep­tion of com­mu­ni­ca­tion soft­ware and hard­ware pro­cured by Gov­ern­ment.

“My Gov­ern­ment even re­sist­ed re­peat­ed at­tempts by a for­mer com­mis­sion­er of po­lice to ob­tain, own and utilise, in­ter­cept tech­nol­o­gy by the TTPS. It is this Gov­ern­ment’s pol­i­cy that all such tech­nol­o­gy should re­side with­in the SSA’s con­trol,” he added.

Row­ley, who said SSA on­ly does le­gal in­ter­cep­tion of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, de­tailed how the SSA op­er­at­ed.

Row­ley said Pe­ga­sus us­es a method­ol­o­gy not cov­ered by the act “there­fore, there hasn’t been any au­tho­ri­sa­tion to pro­cure that so­lu­tion cur­rent­ly, or in the past.”

“Gov­ern­ment took a con­scious de­ci­sion not to pro­cure Pe­ga­sus due to its over­reach­ing ca­pac­i­ty for pen­e­tra­tion, abuse and jus­ti­fi­able con­cerns about it, in­clud­ing the many in­ter­na­tion­al­ly trou­bling re­ports sur­round­ing its use, which are less than favourable.”

Row­ley said no law en­force­ment or pri­vate en­ti­ty in T&T is known to be in pos­ses­sion of Pe­ga­sus, nor are there records to in­di­cate its pur­chase by any lo­cal en­ti­ty.

“This hav­ing been stat­ed here by me as Prime Min­is­ter and chair­man of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, the Op­po­si­tion Leader or her sub­or­di­nates in this House must make avail­able to the cit­i­zen­ry, the ba­sis on which these un­set­tling al­le­ga­tions are be­ing pub­lished lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, to the peo­ple’s detri­ment,” Dr Row­ley said.

“The Op­po­si­tion has made al­le­ga­tions sug­gest­ing the TTPS was spy­ing on law-abid­ing cit­i­zens. This al­le­ga­tion was lat­er pub­lished by tra­di­tion­al me­dia and on so­cial me­dia plat­forms. I re­spond­ed to these al­le­ga­tions con­firm­ing that in­ter­cep­tion of com­mu­ni­ca­tions is done but I made it abun­dant­ly clear that this is done with­in the pa­ra­me­ters of the law and is aimed at those en­gaged in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

“Notwith­stand­ing this, the Op­po­si­tion Leader per­sists with her claims, even ad­ver­tis­ing she has doc­u­men­tary ev­i­dence of such wrong­do­ing by this Gov­ern­ment.

“In this sit­u­a­tion and un­der these cir­cum­stances, the Op­po­si­tion leader is du­ty-bound to bring it here for treat­ment by this ho­n­ourable House,” Row­ley added to loud, ex­tend­ed PNM desk-thump­ing.

Row­ley said this isn’t the first time that false al­le­ga­tions re­gard­ing the in­ter­cept­ing of com­mu­ni­ca­tions were made by Per­sad-Bisses­sar. He re­count­ed that in 2010, she ac­cused the SSA, Spe­cial An­ti-Crime Unit SAUTT) and Se­cu­ri­ty In­tel­li­gence Agency of spy­ing on cit­i­zens.

“Now, in 2022, the same in­di­vid­ual has ven­ti­lat­ed sim­i­lar un­sub­stan­ti­at­ed al­le­ga­tions, not in Par­lia­ment where there is pro­vi­sion for over­sight but on po­lit­i­cal plat­forms from which peo­ple are be­ing woe­ful­ly mis­led.”

How SSA us­es in­ter­cept tech­nol­o­gy- PM

The SSA is an In­tel­li­gence Agency and it en­gages in a far wider scope of ac­tiv­i­ties than just in­ter­cept­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion. The SSA plays a crit­i­cal role in the fight against crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty in T&T. It gath­ers and analy­ses in­tel­li­gence, gath­ered in a num­ber of ways, not lim­it­ed to, the use of tech­nol­o­gy to in­ter­cept com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

Par­lia­ment, in en­act­ing leg­is­la­tion, en­sured that law-abid­ing cit­i­zens have noth­ing to fear with re­spect to these au­tho­rized in­ter­cepts as these ef­forts and au­tho­rized in­ter­cept tar­get on­ly crim­i­nal­i­ty and those op­er­at­ing in that realm.

In­ter­cep­tion of com­mu­ni­ca­tion is used sole­ly in the in­ter­est of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, for the pre­ven­tion and de­tec­tion of se­ri­ous crime, for the pur­pose of safe­guard­ing the so­cial and eco­nom­ic well-be­ing of the state and for the pur­pose of giv­ing ef­fect to the pro­vi­sion of any in­ter­na­tion­al mu­tu­al as­sis­tance agree­ment.

The SSA us­es its in­ter­cept tech­nol­o­gy to con­duct le­gal in­ter­cepts. Le­gal in­ter­cepts are those done with­in the pa­ra­me­ters of the In­ter­cep­tion of Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Act, Chap, 15:08 and amend­ments con­tained in the In­ter­cep­tion of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Amend­ment Act, 2020.

As part of the process and le­gal pro­ce­dure for ap­proved in­ter­cept of com­mu­ni­ca­tions, there must be a doc­u­ment­ed jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the tar­get­ing of any de­vice from which com­mu­ni­ca­tion is in­ter­cept­ed. This doc­u­men­ta­tion must jus­ti­fy the use of the state’s tools to in­ter­cept and cre­ates a record of all in­ter­cepts con­duct­ed.

The TTPS, De­fence Force and SSA strict­ly ad­here to the Act when car­ry­ing out any in­ter­cept.

The SSA Act stip­u­lates on­ly the Chief of De­fence Staff, the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er and SSA Di­rec­tor can au­tho­rize in­ter­cep­tion of com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

Au­tho­rized in­ter­cepts are on­ly grant­ed for a lim­it­ed pe­ri­od of time and if an ex­ten­sion is re­quired a ju­di­cial of­fi­cer must grant such an or­der or ex­ten­sion and this too leads to the num­ber of in­ter­cepts record­ed.

In­tel­li­gence pro­duced from in­ter­cep­tion is pack­aged and passed to the TTPS for fol­low up where nec­es­sary. In­for­ma­tion pro­duced from in­ter­cep­tion is used to find vic­tims of kid­nap­pings, pre­vent mur­ders, dis­rupt ter­ror­ist plots and lead to the seizure of drugs, guns and oth­er con­tra­band.

The SSA has pro­vid­ed an in­ter­cept suite to be used by TTPS. But the equip­ment is the SSA’s sole re­spon­si­bil­i­ty is to en­sure ac­count­abil­i­ty and con­trol by vet­ted of­fi­cers en­gaged in crime fight­ing and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty mat­ters.

In­ter­cep­tion of com­mu­ni­ca­tion is a dig­i­tal trans­ac­tion, sim­i­lar to a bank­ing trans­ac­tion, and there­fore, it is very easy to ver­i­fy or dis­prove al­le­ga­tions of mis­use and to de­ter­mine who made the in­ter­cept.

Any/all acts of in­ter­cep­tion of telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions with­out in­vok­ing the pro­vi­sions of the care­ful­ly craft­ed ex­ist­ing laws, are acts of il­le­gal­i­ty with very se­ri­ous con­se­quences for any per­son who so en­gages.

In The SSA’s an­nu­al re­ports the num­ber of in­ter­cepts don’t re­flect a di­rect cor­re­la­tion to the num­ber of per­sons or de­vices be­ing in­ter­cept­ed. Very of­ten per­sons en­gaged in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty have more than one de­vice and change de­vices fre­quent­ly thus lead­ing to an in­crease in the num­ber of de­vices in­ter­cept­ed.