What Shinde also seeks to 'crush'

BY Geeta Seshu| IN Opinion | 26/02/2014

There’s no doubt about it: Our Home Minister really does suffer from FITB (foot in the mouth disease). Either that or he really doesn’t listen to what he just said: that electronic, sorry, social media must be crushed!
 
But whether he is listening in to his own doublespeak or not, the moot point is that we need to pay closer attention to what he also said: “Since I'm also in charge of the intelligence wing, I know where this is coming from. We have been working silently to place checks on them, but there was a campaign from them over the past four months. We are now going to crush these elements in the electronic media spreading false propaganda”.
 
So he's been working ‘silently’ to place checks on them? Really? Like what? Just who are the government placing checks on and how? Which elements of social media is he checking on? How does the Home Ministry decide which accounts they must monitor? Don’t we have a right to know?
 
News channels and social media networks naturally went ballistic over the comments – first when he denied his comments, then – when confronted by news clips of the recording which clearly demonstrated the contrary – he clarified that he wasn’t taking about electronic media (or journalism, as he put it) but about social media.
 
The media focus was of course on the ‘venomous’ manner in which the Home Minister said he wanted to crush the (electronic/social) media. Lots of comments on freedom of the press were obviously made.

But alas, there was little attention to the other comments on surveillance. This gloating admission about surveillance is worrisome, to say the least. It comes, moreover, with little transparency and accountability.
 
Already, we are aware of the Union government’s quiet rolling out of surveillance mechanisms. The Central Monitoring System (CMS) has already been put in place. It is a mass electronic surveillance mechanism that mines data from a huge net of government agencies, under the Ministry of Home Affairs.
 
Last December, the government, again quietly, announced the first phase of NATGRID, which is a vast intelligence sharing network for 11 central agencies, including the Research and Analysis Wing, the Intelligence Bureau, the Central Bureau of Investigation, etc. And guess what data will be collected : our bank details, credit card transactions, travel details whether by rail or air, visa record etc etc.
 
And let’s add the Mumbai Police’s proud launch of the Social Media Lab at the hands of actor Abhishek Bhacchan (no idea why they chose him – perhaps because of his role as a cop in all those Dhoom movies). This lab is staffed by police trained in cyber communication and laws and will monitor the interaction of youth on social media networks!
 
And lest we forget, the UIDAI scheme and its much-touted Aadhar card is still not transparent on issues of privacy violations.
 
All this obstensibly to catch the mischievous elements that indulge in communal propaganda in Assam and in Muzzafarnagar.
 
The surveillance, none of which is in the public domain, is ambitious and expensive. It uses powerful technological tools and simply has no accountability. And, if it is headed by a man who believes in crushing what is uncomfortable or undesirable, welcome to Big Brother.