Hyderabad: Citizens and the Opposition parties have severely criticised the Central government following its recent order that gives sweeping powers to 10 Central agencies to tap data on citizens’ computers.
The move is “undemocratic, unconstitutional and unacceptable”, said leaders from Opposition parties including Congress, Samajwadi Party, Trinamul, Rashtriya Janata Dal and Aam Aadmi Party.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of turning the country into a ‘police state’.
“Converting India into a police state isn’t going to solve your problems, Modiji. It’s only going to prove to over 1 billion Indians, what an insecure dictator you really are,” said Mr Gandhi on Twitter.
Senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal tweeted, “Supreme Court held privacy to be a fundamental right, GOI through a midnight notification says Commission of Police, CBDT, ED etc have a fundamental right to invade our privacy to de-encrypt encrypted material. Desh Badal Raha Hai.”
AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi said Mr Modi was like George Orwell’s Big Brother. “Modi has used a simple government order to permit our national agencies to snoop on our communication. Who knew that this is what they meant when they said ‘Ghar Ghar Modi’, George Orwell’s big brother is here & welcome to 1984,” Mr Owaisi tweeted, referring to the famous book by the British author on how insidiously a police state is created.
Former MP and vice-president of the Rashtriya Lok Dal, Jayant Chaudhary, who was among the firsts to criticise the order, said, “Among larger questions of limits to government control in our lives and the privacy vs national security debate, a puzzling addition to agencies empowered by this snooping order, the commissioner of Delhi police, government wants unfettered access on eve of elections.”
Former additional solicitor general of India Indira Jaising did not mince her words when the issue was raised in the Rajya Sabha on Friday. “This is a gross violation of the Supreme Court judgement. This is void for vagueness since the expression ‘any information’ could cover anything from our Facebook profiles to your WhatsApp messages, to twitter, it is being challenged as surveillance.”
Citizens have accused the government of turning the country into a surveillance state. Srinivas Kodali, a city-based independent researcher, puts it succinctly: “The Intelligence Bureau was snooping on the CBI Director, while the ED was busy investigating Vijay Mallya who skipped customs. Revenue Intelligence was trying to figure actual revenue through GST while RAW was directing NIA to use Aadhaar to dig into everyone’s past.” However, the BJP-led NDA government, as usual, blames the Congress.
Union finance minister Arun Jaitley said, “The authorisation given to these agencies was brought to the law under the UPA government in 2009. We cannot gain access to anybody’s phone or data unless it is related to national security.”
Countering Mr Gandhi’s ‘insecure dictator’ jibe at PM, BJP chief Amit Shah tweeted, “There were only 2 insecure dictators in the history of India. One imposed emergency and the other wanted unrestricted access to read letters of common citizens. Guess who were they @RahulGandhi?”
