The Central Information Commission recently holding that intelligence agencies cannot claim exemption when data of legal interceptions or phone tapping is called for under the Right to Information Act, 2005, has triggered is a debate among stakeholders on the extensive use of technology-backed surveillance by Central and State intelligence organisations.
Surveillance, both in the good old days and in the technology era, has been a sensitive but crucial link in investigations. It still remains a debating point as to which is better — the conventional surveillance or tech-intensive monitoring?
Many years ago, Robert Payas, one of the suspects in the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi assassination case [now a life convict], was travelling in an autorickshaw in Chennai. The ‘Q’ Branch-CID had deployed staff to shadow his movements.
He got off the autorickshaw near the police headquarters in Mylapore, waved at the following autorickshaw to stop and told the driver, a police constable in plainclothes, “Why travel in two vehicles to the same destination, I will better come with you. Let’s go...”
Former chief of Tamil Nadu intelligence M.S. Jaffar Sait recalls this incident to argue conventional methods of human intelligence not only got compromised over a period of time but did not yield the desired results. In another episode, Mr. Sait says former Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi was travelling to Bengaluru in an Ambassador car.
When the car was nearing Hosur, one of the tyres turned flat and there was no spare tyre. After driver Sanjeevi said the only option was to take assistance from some passing vehicle, the witty politician told him to get the spare wheel from the Ambassador car parked closely behind. He knew sleuths of the State intelligence were following him.
Mr. Sait, credited with modernising the State intelligence machinery, insists the advent of technology has become the game changer. Technical surveillance is effective, credible and legally admissible too.
“What more can you ask for than hearing from the horse’s mouth? Instead of hearing from friends or associates, intelligence officers get to hear from the person concerned. It is a live and actionable input that needs hardly any further verification to ascertain facts. The world’s best intelligence agencies fully rely on technology-backed surveillance,” he says.
Mr. Sait recalled that a sensational murder was prevented with the timely interception of a suspect’s mobile phone. “Minutes after we heard him discussing the final plan to eliminate a person near the Secretariat, we alerted the then Chennai Police Commissioner who sent his team to intercept the suspected car and arrest the armed gang.”
Hand in hand
K. Ramanujam, former DGP who had a long innings in the Tamil Nadu intelligence, says technical and human intelligence must go hand in hand. Neither can supplant the other.
“In human intelligence, great care has to be taken to evaluate the credibility of the source and also determine the level of access to information — whether it was first hand, second hand or a mere gossip. If this is not done properly, a scoop could turn out to be egg on your face,” he quips.
Another former DGP A.X. Alexander feels less reliance on human intelligence seems to be the order of the day, which is lopsided. “A face-to-face interaction with an agent/source or first-hand reading of a journal/press would be more convincing than technical intelligence which has a lot of proclivity to mimic, morph and modify the truth,” he says, adding, “I have come across cooked-up photographs and mimicked conversations.”
Mr. Ramanujam says technical intelligence was not confined to eavesdropping or interception. The vast network of CCTV cameras is another valuable resource.
T. Rajendran, former chief of Intelligence, who served as the Chennai Police Commissioner, says the growth of technology has resulted in a tremendous increase in technical intelligence. Coupled with information explosion on the social media platforms, this has gradually led to less reliance on human intelligence, a trend which is detrimental to overall intelligence collection.
“Human intelligence is vital at all times, regardless of technical aids, and can never be substituted. All ideas, good and bad, first originate in the human mind and to elicit this further, another human being is required. Technology-backed surveillance was always there, but a value system was in place. Most people now use internet-enabled voice calls even for normal conversations... they have become very conscious while speaking on the phone,” adds Mr. Rajendran.
Mr. Alexander is of the view that technical intelligence should be profitably used to confirm or deny human intelligence. “In the business of collecting intelligence, both tech intelligence and human intelligence are important. The officer who analyses intelligence should by his experience be able to decide how far he can accept or reject either,” he concludes.
