By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE Minnis Administration will amend its Interception of Communication Bill to ensure the Minister of National Security does not have the power to authorize use of listening devices, Attorney General Carl Bethel announced in the Senate yesterday.

Activists and the Progressive Liberal Party had criticized the administration not only for tabling a Bill it opposed in opposition just several months ago, but for modifying it to give the power to authorize wiretaps to the Minister of National Security and the Commissioner of Police. 

Unlike the PLP’s Bill, the FNM’s Bill encompasses the provisions of the Listening Devices Act, the controversial law that would be repealed if the Interception of Communication Bill passes through Parliament. 

The LDA gives the Minister of National Security power to authorize the use of listening devices for up to 30 days and for the Commissioner of Police, in consultation with the Attorney General, to do the same for up to 14 days.

“The Privy Council suggested that a mature Parliament in a modern state might wish to review (these) parts,” Mr Bethel acknowledged yesterday, adding: “We understand that so that power is out. The legal authority the present law has for the Minister of National Security to just himself authorize, that is going to be out. We’re taking out the offensive elements.”

However, the Minnis Administration may not yet be willing to go as far as the PLP contends it should, with Mr Bethel suggesting he favours keeping the provision that allows the Commissioner of Police to authorize the use of listening devices in consultation with the Attorney General without having to get a warrant. 

“The minister of national security has no further role to play in any form of Interception of communications,” he said.

“It will only be the Attorney General, the commissioner and the court. A case could be made that in matters of great urgency the police do need to have the ability in real time without preparing court documents (to intercept communications) and even though (the Bill) says you can go to a judge you still have to thereafter prepare court documents. (When you need) real-time, immediate voices on the communications, it is with that possibility in mind that those provisions (authorizing use of listening devices in the LDA) have been added in. The point is that there are situations of grave emergency where the police may need to move very quickly to hear a conversation. And so we will have discussions with civil society and we will see how far that goes. The important part about that already is based on comments on that which have already been received, the police will only be able to go to the Attorney General, get the consent from the Attorney General and use a listening device for 14 days. After 14 days they must go to court.”

Mr Bethel said the original Bill has been amended to ensure communications can’t be intercepted except when serious crimes are suspected.

“The PLP’s Bill would’ have given the right to obtain an interception warrant for any offence so if some employer decides that some employee is tiefin’ by reason of employment they would’ve had the right to go make a complaint and get the police to go wiretap some staff member,” he said. “Yes through a judge (they would get that power), but the point is that it applied to any offence and there are many, many minor criminal offences in respect to which (it could’ve been applied).”

“The first thing we did is we took that phrase out and limited the operation to the most serious offences, those that really count: murder, drug trafficking, terrorism and human trafficking. There was some reference (in the original Bill) to sedition and treason; they’re ridiculous offences, they’re going to be taken out after the consultative process. Any political offence like criminal libel, we in the FNM, in our history, we know about what appeared to us to be the abuse of the state’s power to charge people with certain offences for political reasons.”

On Wednesday, human rights activist Fred Smith, the fiercest critic of the original Bill, said the FNM’s Bill “is worse than the PLP Bill.”

While Mr Bethel reiterated yesterday the administration will have widespread consultation on the Bill before debate begins in Parliament, Mr Smith said yesterday the Bbill should be withdrawn from Parliament for proper consultations to continue. 

“The government should withdraw the Bill from Parliament and conduct a sensible consultation exercise with the public,” he said. 

The Minnis Administration has not responded directly to hypocrisy charges even though several elected officials, including Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis, shredded the PLP for tabling the Bill several months ago.

Anthony Newbold, Dr Hubert Minnis’ press secretary, said Tuesday that Dr Minnis has indicated no regrets to him over statements he made months ago criticizing the PLP’s Bill.