Leaked Hadeed-Sabga audio fuels debate over privacy, surveillance

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Sen­a­tor Fos­ter Cum­mings yes­ter­day warned that the leaked Hadeed-Sab­ga au­dio record­ing rais­es se­ri­ous ques­tions about cit­i­zens’ pri­va­cy rights, say­ing every per­son should be con­cerned if pri­vate con­ver­sa­tions can no longer re­main pri­vate.

He said it ap­pears that even se­nior cit­i­zens are be­ing sub­ject­ed to the Gov­ern­ment’s “heavy-hand­ed abuse of ex­ec­u­tive pow­er.”

“The in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty will un­doubt­ed­ly take note of the con­tin­ued ero­sion of con­sti­tu­tion­al rights and the abuse of ex­ec­u­tive pow­er against cit­i­zens. My heart goes out to the many fam­i­lies who have be­come vic­tims of this Gov­ern­ment’s in­creas­ing­ly dic­ta­to­r­i­al con­duct. Dis­turbing­ly, it ap­pears even our se­nior cit­i­zens are now be­ing sub­ject­ed to this heavy-hand­ed abuse of ex­ec­u­tive pow­er.”

He said it was alarm­ing that the In­ter­cep­tion of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Act could be abused in this way.

“Is it that the pri­vate con­ver­sa­tions of cit­i­zens are now be­ing in­ter­cept­ed with­out due process or the ju­di­cial safe­guards re­quired by law? Even more dis­turb­ing is the fact that such com­mu­ni­ca­tions could be leaked—an un­for­giv­able in­va­sion of pri­va­cy and to­tal be­tray­al of pub­lic trust.”

Cum­mings said the Gov­ern­ment owes the coun­try an apol­o­gy and that if any pub­lic of­fi­cial or Gov­ern­ment min­is­ter is found to have ex­ceed­ed their law­ful au­thor­i­ty or abused ex­ec­u­tive pow­er, “they should be held ac­count­able and ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tion should be tak­en.”

El­der­ly woman vent­ing but

no “death plot” — Robin­son

Po­lit­i­cal strate­gist and con­sul­tant Pearce Robin­son, who analysed the au­dio, said in a Face­book post that it did not es­tab­lish an as­sas­si­na­tion plot.

“The au­dio records an el­der­ly woman vent­ing pri­vate­ly to her niece about what she be­lieved was the per­se­cu­tion of her com­mu­ni­ty. It records as­ser­tions of in­no­cence, con­cern for liveli­hoods, dis­cus­sion of the em­ploy­ment and treat­ment of black cit­i­zens, racial and po­lit­i­cal hos­til­i­ty, and reck­less pre­dic­tions of vi­o­lence. The Gov­ern­ment con­vert­ed that pri­vate con­ver­sa­tion in­to a na­tion­al-se­cu­ri­ty al­le­ga­tion and de­tained three cit­i­zens un­der ex­tra­or­di­nary pow­ers.

“Do­minic Hadeed is ab­sent, Genevieve Hadeed re­peat­ed­ly speaks of in­no­cence, Star Sab­ga iden­ti­fies no agree­ment or ac­tion di­rect­ed to­wards as­sas­si­nat­ing the Prime Min­is­ter,” Robin­son added.

Robin­son said the racial slur used to­wards “Kam­la” should not have been used. How­ev­er, he said the gravest state­ments were Sab­ga’s pre­dic­tions of po­lit­i­cal vi­o­lence.

“Those words jus­ti­fied in­ves­ti­ga­tion to de­ter­mine whether any ma­te­r­i­al threat ex­ist­ed. They re­veal anger and an ir­re­spon­si­ble pre­dic­tion that vi­o­lence could oc­cur. (But) they iden­ti­fy no per­son who agreed to com­mit vi­o­lence, no in­tend­ed at­tack­er, no weapon, no in­struc­tions and no act di­rect­ed to­wards car­ry­ing out a killing.”

He said the pub­lic de­served an­swers.

Not too late for

Gov­ern­ment re­set — Mo­hammed

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Shane Mo­hammed said the is­sue had shift­ed from an al­leged threat against the Prime Min­is­ter’s life to a wider na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and po­lit­i­cal con­tro­ver­sy.

“We’ve gone from an al­leged threat on the Prime Min­is­ter’s life to a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sue in which the PM has gone from be­ing loved to be­ing hat­ed, and it’s now a po­lit­i­cal furore,” he said, not­ing com­ments on so­cial me­dia.

Mo­hammed said the Gov­ern­ment still had an op­por­tu­ni­ty to change course.

“Tak­ing all things in­to con­sid­er­a­tion, it’s not too late to re­set. I’m not ‘spin­ning’ any­thing. Giv­ing an hon­est opin­ion and at the risk of com­ing across bi­ased, I be­lieve the PM needs hon­est ad­vice in the in­ter­est of all. The bot­tom line is to ‘read the ground,’ and it’s not too late for re­set,” he said.