Security, Corruption, Myopic Vision, E-Surveillance And Indian Projects

Law enforcement and anti terrorism concerns are the sure shot formula for converting a welfare society into an orwellian state. Our Home Minister Mr. P Chidambaram is also following the same formula. He is leaving no stone unturned in this regard. Whether it is National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) Project or Aadhar Project/UID Project, the end objective is the same, i.e. making India an endemic e-surveillance society.

India is so blinded by the concept of Orwellian State that it fails to realise what is happening to countries that have tried similar projects and have failed miserably. The only justification for sticking to these projects even if they are Unconstitutional, illegal and bound to fail can be either attributed to lack of insight or corruption. Let us discuss few failed projects of the role models on whose basis India is committing these blunders.

The Central Government is working upon a Rs 2,000-crore ambitious project titled Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS). A similar initiative undertaken by the US Government to modernise the FBI’s crime tracking system known as the Virtual Case File failed miserably due to lack of planning and effective strategies. The same would happen in case of India.

The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) has put on hold the Natgrid project of India temporarily due to absence of safeguards to protect civil liberties of Indians. Natgrid is still at hold as privacy protection safeguards have not yet been established by the project coordinators.

Experience from countries like UK and US has shown that projects similar to Natgrid and Aadhar have been great failures and were ultimately scrapped off completely. These countries have learnt this hard way by spending crores of money before saying a final good bye to these projects.

For instance, recently, UK scraped National ID project as it was too expensive and an infringement of civil liberties. The Aadhar project/UID project of India would also face similar fate as it is also violative of civil liberties of Indians and is unconstitutional and illegal.

The latest to join this list is the declaration by the British Government that it will review counter-terrorism laws. This review has been triggered after it came to government’s notice that security and law enforcement forces across the country have misused the controversial powers. There is no reason why projects like Aadhar, Natgrid, CCTNS, etc would not be violated by Indian intelligence agencies and law enforcement. This is more so when they are practically governed by no law in India and have indulged in such acts in the past.

In a welcome move the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) last week presented a new set of institutional and policy practices for intelligence agencies that it said would help to improve accountability and protection of human rights in intelligence policy. It seems the entire world is moving in the direction of protection of civil liberties and India is deliberately engaging in activities that are clearly Unconstitutional and illegal.

When Mr. Nandan Nilekani joined the Aadhar Project of India, I was very happy to know that at least we have a person of character and strength who can actually accomplish the task assigned to him. I was also optimistic that he would take care of the Civil Liberties issues as well. Although he has promised civil liberties protection but he has not yet delivered any protection for the same. I hope he would not fail India and join the breed of our incompetent politicians and bureaucrats.

Mr. Nandan where is the law you promised to formulate or have been promising to formulate for months? You are more known to us by your deeds than by your words and you must leave the promise or noise culture for our politicians and bureaucrats.

UID Project Of India Is Still Violating Civil Liberties Of Indians

Indian projects are characterised by lots of noises with no results and outputs. If this is not enough they also bring there own share of civil liberty violations teasing and making the constitutional guarantees just legal jargon. There is no sense of empty constitutional safeguards if they cannot be enforced. India is presently in full swing to ride upon and ignore constitutional rights like right to privacy.

Aadhar project of India/UID project of India has been imposed upon citizens of India by direct as well as indirect calculations and strategies. So far there is neither a legal sanctity nor a requirement based justification for hushing up Aadhar project. In fact, there cannot be any way Aadhar can be proceeded with unless there is a constitutionally sound law supporting the same.

The UIDAI realising the gravity of the situation just declared that it would come up with the concerned law. This was intended to silent the critics of Aadhar project. The fact is that till now Aadhar project is illegal and unconstitutional and the government of India is spending upon a project that is going to fail in the near future.

There is no performance appraisal, no feasibility report, no planning and coordination and still the government is willing to impose Aadhar upon Indians. By clubbing it with other projects like national intelligence grid (Natgrid), Population Census, CCTNS, etc the government has shown the real purpose and intention of the Aadhar project.

Aadhar project is nothing but a façade to hide the unconstitutional acts of Indian government and its agencies. Unfortunately, even the Delhi High Court and Supreme Court of India have also failed to take a suo-motu action against this patently unconstitutional act of Indian government.

In these circumstances, it is not the right thing to give your crucial biometric details and make your privacy more vulnerable. It is better to protest against the Aadhar project right now than subsequently feeling sorry about the same.

E-Surveillance And Internet Censorship: A Deadly Combination In India

India has not enacted adequate safeguards against e-surveillance and Internet censorship activities by its government and its agencies. On the other hand, India has now officially become an e-police state. The sole cyber law of India is incorporated as Information Technology Act 2000 (IT Act 2000) that was amended by the Information Technology Amendment Act 2008 (IT Act 2008).

The IT Act 2008 although provided draconian, unreasonable and sweeping e-surveillance and Internet censorship powers to the agencies and instrumentalities of Indian government yet it deliberately restrained from prescribing any procedural safeguards to prevent their abuses.

Recently Google released the raw estimates of governmental requests regarding disclosure of information stored by it. No surprise India occupies third position for “removal request” and fourth spot for “data requests”.

India must immediately enact a suitable legislation to prevent growing incidence of e-surveillance. India also does not have dedicated and separate privacy laws and data protection law. This is why projects like Aadhar/UID project and Natgrid Projects are fatal for the civil liberties of Indians.

The government of India is not wiling to rectify the situation. In fact the situation is getting worst as now e-surveillance activities of India are supplemented with Internet censorship acts of governmental agencies. Any dissident who has raised a voice against Indian government must be aware of the brutal censorship of his online voices. You might have wondered why your online news and search results have disappeared suddenly without any reason or explanation. This is because known agencies like Cert-In and many unknown and unaccountable agencies are actively enageged in Internet censorship the moment they see any unpleasant topic at Internet.

There is also no whistleblower protection law in India. In these situations self help seems to be the obvious choice for law abiding and constitutionally protected citizens. As an additional step, if you are a law abiding citizen and you suspect that your online transactions and acts are under surveillance you can use the techno-legal recourses mentioned at the Human Rights platform. If you are a Google search fan, you must consider using its Google SSL service that would frustrate a sniffer’s attempts to violate your privacy.

The Eagle Eyes

The outer space is an area dominated by few countries and India is one of them. India has its own indigenous capabilities to build and launch space vehicles and in many cases has supported other nations as well in their space activities.

One aspect that I firmly and strongly endorse is very limited use of outer space for military proposes. Further, intelligence agencies or law enforcement agencies must also not use the same for the sake of using. Space is a common territory meant for the common betterment of mankind and no country should claim monopoly over it and abuse it on flimsy grounds.

This debate over sovereign control of space territory by any single nation started when the first “Sputnik” was launched in the space by the U.S.S.R on October 4, 1975. Since then numerous space ventures have been undertaken by various countries, including India. These activities led to the enactment and adoption of the Outer Space Treaty in 1996. It contains the following important principles:

(1) Freedom of exploration of outer space,
(2) Non-appropriation of outer space,
(3) Peaceful use of outer space,
(4) Jurisdiction of States over objects launched,
(5) International responsibilities for national activities,
(6) Assistance to personnel of space craft,
(7) Promotion of International Co-operation in the use of outer space, etc.

Besides this treaty many other agreements have been entered into on the International level from time to time.

It must be appreciated that “military use” of outer space is prohibited almost in all these agreements but military oriented activities in the outer space have been intensified in the recent past despite their prohibition. The systems and techniques capable of destroying an adversary’s satellites have been a major focus of arm race in outer space.

However, there are many positive sides and advantages of outer space usage as well. One of them pertains to use of military and spy satellites for bringing peace and order within a national territory. If a nation is facing real and imminent threat from either internal or external aggression, there is nothing wrong in using these spy satellites for tackling such threats. For instance, there is nothing wrong if Indian government uses its satellites for repelling the threats of Maoists or other terrorists’ organisations who are violating various Human Rights in India without any regard for human dignity and any piece of humanity. Killing innocent people does not prove any point and neither would a soft stand on the part of government of India would be useful in this situation. India should rise about regionalism and political agendas and unite in this fight against terrorism.

However, with great power come great responsibilities as well. This is almost always forgotten by governments of various nations, including India. Such sweeping powers must be suitably regulated and exceptionally used. It should not be unregulated and there should be no arbitrary use of these technologies. The eagle eyes are not meant for fun or curiosity satisfaction but for achieving the larger national interest of India.

Why Legislation For Aadhar Project Of India Is Required?

No time in the history of India the threats of Civil Liberties violations and e-surveillance were as great as are in the present times. The instrumentality that has become the core of this civil liberty fiasco is Aadhar project of India or UID project of India. This is because the UID project intends to gather information that is very sensitive and secret in nature. Combined with other publicly announced projects like national intelligence grid (Natgrid) as well as secret projects of India it can peak into the personal lives of Indians anytime and anywhere. That is why there is an emergent need of good and robust privacy law in India as well as data protection law in India.

It seems the history is repeating itself in India. India is launching projects after projects without proper legal framework. The projects like Aadhar, Natgrid, etc are not only unconstitutional but also undesirable in the absence of just, reasonable and fair law prescribing procedural safeguards.

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has recently got an approval from the Cabinet Committee on UIDAI headed by the Prime Minister of India Dr. Manmohan Singh. It can now gather demographic and biometric data of Indian residents for UID project. However, the process does not stop here. UID project would not only be combined with projects like Natgrid but also with projects like National Population Register (NPR) operational under the ongoing census of India.

Think about a scenario where every minute and single details of an individual are combined with his biometric details and put at a single place at the disposal of as many authorities as desired by the government of India. Some of them would be authorities that would neither seek the permission nor report to the Central Government while performing its surveillance and e-surveillance activities.

It would be prudent if the government of India formulates both privacy laws and data protection law before proceeding further with projects like aadhar, Natgrid, CCTNS, etc.