Manuel Mallia doesn’t want the Secret Service to spend so much time monitoring drug traffickers: he said so himself, and we didn’t understand the significance
On 9 April, The Sunday Times published an interview with Manuel Mallia, Minister for the Police and trial lawyer to some of Malta’s most notorious criminals, including the most significant cocaine trafficker.
It is in the light of this excerpt that we should assess his interference in/monitoring of the selection of recruits for the Secret Service. My thanks to Maryanne for bringing it to my attention.
The main purpose of the Security Service, Dr Mallia said, was the security of the state. Drugs could pose a danger to the security of the state, but it should not be the case that 70 per cent of the work of the Service was dedicated to drug crime.
Indeed, the fact that the service was run by former police officers may be influencing the state of mind of the service and the way it went about its activities. It was inhibiting the service from opening up to whatever was happening beyond Malta’s shores and the need to build relations with similar services overseas.
Success for the Security Service could not be measured by the number of drug hauls, but on how many strong networks is was able to forge.”
You will agree with me, perhaps, that this makes no sense. Minister Mallia appears to believe that the Secret Service is there to serve as a sort of Freemasons Lodge or old boys’ network, its sole raison d’etre being to network, but with the major difference that the networking is an end in itself, rather than the means to an end.
One of the reasons that Malta’s Secret Service needs to be better networked overseas is precisely to increase the number of drug hauls and to haul in more of Manuel Mallia’s clients.
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http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130409/local/manuel-mallia.464884
Given this goverment’s elastic interpretation of its powers and obligations, we also need to ask how far they’re invading privacy in the name of national security.
Didn’t Muscat brag about a long-term information-sharing agreement with China? And didn’t he say he admires the way China polices it’s citizens’ use of the Internet?
Could we have a reference?
http://www.scribd.com/doc/128130324/Joseph-Muscat-says-he-signed-an-agreement-with-China-on-Malta-s-behalf-it-Torca-18APR2010
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20080331/opinion/tax-deadline.202249
The Chinese are now adopting a media campaign to neutralise another media campaign.
Not all officers of the security services are creeps. There is talk of the wholesale monitoring of phones and emails. Please beware. They are not bothering with getting warrants. They are just doing it. And the equipment they have is the best
There is no reason to believe otherwise. The fact that Minister Joe Mizzi recently bought himself a piece of equipment worth €40,000 from public funds to ensure that his phones are not being recorded just shows how much he knows about the capabilities that are around.
This is from the link above:
“Henceforth, he said, whenever the service asks him to sign warrants for communication intercepts, he would do so on watermarked documents which would be numbered and would bear his signature, date and time. He had done so, he said, not because there was some irregularity in the past, but to have stronger safeguards. It was made clear that one could not have a situation where the security service started intercepts without permission and only sought authorisation when the intercepts produced results.”
Why all this fuss about watermarked documents, then?
It is imperative that Joseph Muscat clears all these questions.
And will the PN please step up their criticism before it will be too late? I know that Jason Azzopardi is doing his best but the PN as a whole needs to get tougher. It’s not as if they don’t know with whom we are dealing here.
Labour has already shown us what they are capable of in their first 100 days in office.
Doesn’t this guy realize that every move he makes and every word he utters, that, in his new capacity, is closely monitored and recorded? ( and not by his secret police).
A good find. Well done, girls! I must say your common-sense logic is not so common.
If only more people could realise that this talk of CHANGE for change’s sake is not only hollow but also very dangerous.
I am one step closer to understanding the meaning of the term ‘liberal conservative’.
I wonder why… Any friends or ex clients involved in the trade?
Mallia is now getting seriously confused and dangerous.
What on earth does he mean that the Secret Service should not be run by police? Is he suggesting the birth of a new policing agency such as the American CIA or FBI.
I should hope so.. He can’t mean having the service run by government.
I am waiting for comments by Mons. Victor Grech of Caritas.