I stay in Melbourne and had seen T-News Channel publishing a Wikileaks letter which reveals few emails to a consulting firm in Hyderabad contacting an Italian cyber-surveillance firm Hacking Team for Phone Tapping technology. The anti-TDP media is trying to create a sensation as if they have unearthed a massive scandal. However going through every thing in Wikileaks, I sort out of figured it out what happened and Questions posed by Anti-government media were answered there in itself.
Let us assume that AP Police really tried to buy the equipment. It is not a crime to do phone tapping. The state governments tap certain phones of anti-social elements with the permissions of Union Home Secretary. It is quite common for government to secure the equipments from third parties. AP tap the phones of several Maoists, Red Sanders smugglers every day. In fact, Telangana government also does that.
Also from the Wikileaks cables, it is revealed that a company called Semco India marketed Hacking Teams software to the Andhra Pradesh Police, the Intelligence Branch of the Karnataka Police, the Intelligence Branch of the Gujurat Police, the Special Branch and Economic Offenses Wing of the Delhi Police and the Anti-Terrorism Squad of the Mumbai Police.
Even the Cabinet Secretariat of the Government of India also procured the equipment from the same company. In fact, an email of Hacking Team leaked by Wikileaks in February 2014 revealed that the Hacking Team conducted a Webinar for the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), the National Technical Research Organization, the National Investigation Agency, and the Intelligence Bureau regarding the technology. Hence it is not a big crime to procure such equipment and is a normal practice.
This is just another example of how every thing can be twisted in present Politics. I think all we need is just the ‘common sense’ to understand this.
Radha Mohan SV, Melbourne
