(Reprinted with permission from the Indian Express, January
14, 2001)
Forensic examination a must in the digital age
By Jaya Jaitly
For the first time in India an
inquiry commission has been set up based on material provided by videotapes.
These have been made by so-called investigative journalists in the domain of
website communication. Most people inIndia are yet to understand the
intricacies of digital technology
Technology has leapfrogged over knowledge, laws and
journalistic ethics and the issue of the use and misuse of technology in this
field must be tackled urgently. The Justice Venkataswami Commission inquiring
into various aspects of the Tehelka tapes as an excellent opportunity to kill
two birds with one stone. By having the tapes forensically examined by
impartial experts for veracity and also examining the ethics of making
allegations against a number of people and broadcasting these within minutes,
without undergoing the rigorous process of providing corroborative evidence,
the Commission can create corrective mechanisms in this new world of
information technology.
According to conventional wisdom, tapes are adequate
evidence of truth."The camera does not lie" and "seeing is
believing" are the old cliches of those who believe the Tehelka team is a
bunch of heroes. These people will watch TV everyday and see advertisements in
which a black-haired lady will turn into a blonde, and cartoon lions will speak
like humans. All these creative"realities" have been made possible
because of the marvels of digital technology. So, seeing is no longer believing
because the computer is often manipulated to lie. Old-fashioned dubbing meant
that Lata Mangeshkar sang while Madhuri Dixit mouthed the words with perfect
lip synchronisation.
Every film-maker, editor, sound engineer, cameraman,
TV programme producer and digital technologist knows words can be added,
deleted, superimposed and scenes interchanged, cut, rearranged. All this is a
part ofacceptable film-making but it cannot be a part of investigative
journalism. Journalists are supposed to produce the truth rather than create a
"story", allowing for fiction to creep in. As far back as 1964 the
Supreme Court ruled in the Kairon case that tapes (then only audio, but would
now obviously include video) cannot be accepted as primary evidence. Various
subsequent judgements have reiterated that the only way tapes can be used as
primary evidence is if their authenticity is first verified. In the Verma
Commission inquiring into Rajiv Gandhi¿s assassination the videotapes of
cameraman Haribabu were sent for forensic examination abroad. The more digital
technology advances the more it is specifically geared for creative
manipulation; therefore the absolute need for forensic examination before the
material contained within those tapes is examined or used as evidence or even
as a basis for an inquiry.
A film-maker and editing expert showed the
Venkataswami Commission how Bangaru Laxman can be shown opening his drawer and
taking out Rs 1 lakh and giving it to the Tehelka man on his request for help
as his chairman was in difficulty. The very same voices, the very words they
had spoken, the very same visual (only reversed) were all put together to tell
a completely different story!
The original filming was on H18 tape with AFM sound
in which the audio and video cannot be separated. It was then transferred to a
digital system where the audio track can be separated and changed around and
all finally put back on a H18 tape. Only a forensic expert testing the tape
with specialised equipment would be able to tell whether the second tape was an
original or not and whether it had been meddled with. Until then, who is to say
which of the two tapes was true, and who alone can find out the truth but a
forensic expert?
The Tehel