(Trinidad Express) It’s a lie.
That was Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley response to claims from Opposition Leader Kamla Persad Bissessar that Government was spying on people in all walks of life, including politicians, its own members, the media, members of the business community, trade unionists and members of the judiciary, businesspersons, and journalists.
“That spying story is all rubbish fed into the ear of a willing participant,” he said. He said the Opposition Leader’s “ridiculous statement” is meant to poison the atmosphere.
“When she wants to make mischief, she says a whistleblower told her” that the Government is spying on everyone, including Faris Al Rawi. “They now the greatest defender of Faris,” he quipped. He was addressing a public meeting in Diego Martin.
“I must respond as chairman of the National Security Council of T&T, a democratic nation in the Commonwealth of nations, governing our country under law, I tonight must respond to Mrs Kamla Persad Bissessar, a former Prime Minister, now the Leader of the Opposition, who paints up her face, puts on her nightly clothes, goes behind a screen and tells the world that the Government of Trinidad and Tobago which I lead, is spying on the entire population,” he said.
He said Persad Bissessar had identified and named the security services and also went on to name virtually every category of persons in T&T, claiming that they were being spied on by the government. And why would she do that?” he asked.
He said a State in protecting itself required on an ongoing basis to be concerned about its security and required machinery and equipment to equip the State to know what is threatening the State, what is happening in the State so the State could be defended. “Every criminal in this country is an expert with a cellphone. Every bandit in the prison, law or no law, is in contact with some lawyer outside and Mrs Persad-Bissessar knows these difficulties because she was a Prime Minister.”
“And today in this technological world if the Government has bought equipment for the SSA to be able to know what the gang leaders and the criminals are doing in this country because they do it on the phone. The best tool for the criminal…anywhere in the world is that cell phone system. So Mrs Persad Bissessar wants us to stay out of that. Leave it for the gang leaders, leave it for the prisoners. We come to Parliament to make a law to make it illegal for you to be communicating with prisoners in the prison, they wouldn’t support it,” he said.
“I can tell you, and Mr (Fitzgerald) Hinds (National Security Minister) knows, that a significant number of the murders in this country are hits called from inside the prison. You clean the prison on evening (of phones) by next morning it full of cellphones again. Come on, Mrs Persad Bissessar knows that.
So why does she come here and try to tell the country that if the SSA has equipment to be able to be on the ball like every other country in being able to have information to protect the State, why would she come and lie to the country and say it is the government doing that to spy on everybody. What the hell are you (Persad Bissessar) doing that you afraid the government would know? If you are a legal, law abiding citizen you don’t have that paranoia. It is only the criminals that have that concern,” he said.
“And I am not surprised that she is so upset because she is leading a handful of criminals around the country who the police looking for and she don’t want them to know and she don’t want them (the police) to have any capacity,” he said.
The Prime Minister recalled that Persad Bissessar made the same allegation when she became prime minister in 2010. “One of the first things she did was to destroy the security system in this country by alleging that she was being spied up,” he said. He added that Persad Bissessar instructed them to bring the files to her home and the end result was that 20 of the country’s best trained intelligence officers were fired and the taxpayers ended up having to millions to these persons. “It was all a lie. But it is sensational and the media loves it because the media does not question them and ask where is the iota of evidence to support those widespread allegations,” he said.
