Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor News­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

Judges ap­proved 314 war­rants to in­ter­cept com­mu­ni­ca­tions in Trinidad and To­ba­go be­tween 2020 and May 2026, ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia through the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act (FOIA) re­quest to the ju­di­cia­ry.

The fig­ures re­leased by the Ju­di­cia­ry show the use of in­ter­cep­tion war­rants has steadi­ly de­clined since reach­ing a peak of 80 ap­provals in 2021.

The Ju­di­cia­ry con­firmed that 30 in­ter­cep­tion war­rants were grant­ed in 2025 and ten be­tween Jan­u­ary and May 2026.

Judges, how­ev­er, re­fused to grant war­rants nine times in 2025, but no re­quests for in­ter­cep­tions were re­fused in 2026.

Guardian Me­dia had re­quest­ed in­for­ma­tion on the num­ber of au­tho­rised judges, an­nu­al over­sight re­ports, the num­ber of ap­pli­ca­tions sub­mit­ted and ap­proved be­tween 2020 and the date the re­quest was processed, and how many in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­sult­ed in mat­ters be­fore the Mag­is­trates’ Court or High Court where in­ter­cept­ed ev­i­dence was pre­sent­ed. While the Ju­di­cia­ry pro­vid­ed the ap­proval and re­fusal fig­ures, it did not pro­vide in­for­ma­tion on how many cas­es ul­ti­mate­ly reached the courts us­ing in­ter­cept­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tions as ev­i­dence.

Be­cause the FOIA re­sponse on­ly gives raw da­ta, it’s hard to say whether any of the dis­closed in­ter­cep­tion war­rants aid­ed in any of the pre­vi­ous or on­go­ing State of Emer­gency de­ten­tions.

The fig­ures show that the num­ber of ap­proved war­rants has steadi­ly de­clined since peak­ing in 2021. That year, 80 ap­pli­ca­tions were ap­proved and one was re­fused. There were 53 ap­provals in 2020, 56 in 2022, 49 in 2023, 36 in 2024, 30 in 2025 and ten dur­ing the first five months of 2026.

Gary Grif­fith was com­mis­sion­er of po­lice in 2021 when the high­est num­ber of war­rants was grant­ed.

The coun­try was al­so un­der a state of emer­gency that year, but it was im­ple­ment­ed due to the COVID-19 Pan­dem­ic, not crime in­ter­dic­tion.

Asked about the in­crease in war­rant re­quests dur­ing his tenure, Grif­fith said, “Well, it means that the com­mis­sion­er of po­lice was work­ing a lot more than the oth­ers!”

Un­der the In­ter­cep­tion of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Act, on­ly three of­fi­cials are au­tho­rised to ap­ply for in­ter­cep­tion war­rants: the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, the Chief of De­fence Staff and the Di­rec­tor of the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency. While all three have that pow­er, in­ter­cep­tion ap­pli­ca­tions are most com­mon­ly made by the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, ac­cord­ing to Grif­fith.

“So, in­ter­cep­tion is not al­ways just sole­ly for the sake of vi­o­lent crime, but al­so to deal with white-col­lar crime,” he not­ed.

The is­sue of “spy­ing” or “tap­ping” isn’t new.

Grif­fith not­ed the cur­rent le­gal safe­guards gov­ern­ing in­ter­cep­tion war­rants were in­tro­duced af­ter con­cerns over po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed sur­veil­lance be­fore the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship took of­fice in May 2010.

In No­vem­ber 2010, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar told Par­lia­ment that the Se­cu­ri­ty In­tel­li­gence Agency had il­le­gal­ly mon­i­tored the com­mu­ni­ca­tions of politi­cians, judges, jour­nal­ists, trade union­ists and oth­er promi­nent cit­i­zens.

Grif­fith said his own name was on that list.

In April, Guardian Me­dia al­so sub­mit­ted an al­most iden­ti­cal but sep­a­rate Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion re­quest to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice seek­ing sim­i­lar in­for­ma­tion, in­clud­ing the num­ber of in­ter­cep­tion war­rant ap­pli­ca­tions made by the TTPS, how many were grant­ed or re­fused, how many in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­sult­ed in mat­ters be­fore the Mag­is­trates’ Court or High Court where in­ter­cept­ed ev­i­dence was pre­sent­ed, and any in­ter­nal re­ports track­ing the ef­fec­tive­ness of in­ter­cep­tion war­rants be­tween 2020 and the present.

Up to the time of pub­li­ca­tion, the TTPS had not re­spond­ed to that re­quest.

The FOIA re­sponse from the ju­di­cia­ry al­so con­firmed that 13 judges were au­tho­rised to ap­prove in­ter­cep­tion war­rants.

Un­der the In­ter­cep­tion of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Act, on­ly au­tho­rised of­fi­cers may ap­ply to a judge for an in­ter­cep­tion war­rant. Be­fore ap­prov­ing a war­rant, a judge must be sat­is­fied that it is nec­es­sary for na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty or the pre­ven­tion or de­tec­tion of an of­fence, that oth­er in­ves­tiga­tive meth­ods are un­like­ly to suc­ceed or are im­prac­ti­cal, that the in­ter­cep­tion is pro­por­tion­ate, and that it is in the in­ter­ests of jus­tice. War­rants are gen­er­al­ly valid for up to 90 days and may be re­newed in lim­it­ed cir­cum­stances.