To think those wires are ultimately in the hands of Manuel ‘Brown Suit’ Mallia
(…)
The company said wires had been connected directly to its network and those of other telecoms groups, allowing agencies to listen to or record live conversations and, in certain cases, track the whereabouts of a customer. Privacy campaigners said the revelations were a “nightmare scenario” that confirmed their worst fears on the extent of snooping.
In Albania, Egypt, Hungary, India, Malta, Qatar, Romania, South Africa and Turkey, it is unlawful to disclose any information related to wiretapping or interception of the content of phone calls and messages including whether such capabilities exist.
“For governments to access phone calls at the flick of a switch is unprecedented and terrifying,” said the Liberty director, Shami Chakrabarti. “[Edward] Snowden revealed the internet was already treated as fair game. Bluster that all is well is wearing pretty thin – our analogue laws need a digital overhaul.”
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http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/jun/06/vodafone-reveals-secret-wires-allowing-state-surveillance
I was just watching Sky News and they reported that Malta had requested about 3,700 wiretapping in 2013 against the 2000-odd in the UK for the same period.
Sky News has also reported that it was the highest number of requests per capita in the world (amongst the countries that disclosed the info). I tried to look it up on the Sky website but there seems to be no reference to this there.
Why are we surprised, it’s happening all over the world and we the sheep just keep on going our own way.
Snowden the whistle blower made to look as a traitor instead of a hero exposing the big corrupt government.
What surprises me is the fact we still call ourselves the Democratic West.
We are becoming nothing more than socialist states; it is creeping in disguised under the pretence of national security and anti terrorism.
What a great excuse the terrorist attacks were to bring the so longed for Orwellian State to fruition.
Hang on, I might have been spied on whilst writing this…should I be concerned?
Botox Jeff and Diva Debono should be concerned about this. Their Big Brother Joey is definitely listening to them. After all, this is a Gvern li Jisma’.
Gvern li jissemma.
I have a sneaking feeling that this lucky government found the system already wired when it took office.
Accuse Muscat and you will probably get ‘Gonzi did it first’.
The telephone tapping and the legal notice on student information are both connected together.
These facilities have been available for the last 25 years, to start with in the UK.
In Malta the first people who had ‘Telecells’ were the politicians, drug dealers and pimps/prostitutes. They were talking ‘in the clear’ and nobody did anything about it: so what else is new?
Don’t you think that governments need to have this access to be able to find out what is happening in the underworld? Whether they do anything about it is another story.
Jekk ma ghandekx faham miblul, minn xiex qed tibza?
[Daphne – God, what terrible reasoning: “It’s OK to have somebody listening in to your telephone conversations because you’re not talking about anything criminal.” No, but you might be talking about something PRIVATE, and in any case, a telephone conversation is between two people, and not between two people and the government or the police. Yes, of course the police – NOT the government – should be able to tap the telephones of suspected CRIMINALS, but under Maltese law, they need a warrant from a judge to do so, and the judge will need good grounds. Without that warrant, any evidence that they get from recorded/tapped telephone conversations is not admissible in court. What we have here – it appears – is listening in to conversations without a warrant from a judge: state surveillance of ‘enemies of the state’ for the sheer hell of it.]
I don’t think it’s ‘for the sheer hell of it’. Information other than that required for criminal proceedings could easily be used to harass an innocent person on political grounds, one example being whether one gets a promotion or not, or any other state service for that matter.
Mannix, imagine talking innocently in the street when someone you do not know stops next to you to listen in.
Would that fail to bother you, on the basis that you have nothing to hide?
Uncontrolled surveillance of citizens by the state turns Malta into a fully-fledged authoritarian state and this has now became so rampant that we in the Western democracies have been conditioned to accept it as the norm.
We who remember the Cold War years, used to mostly associate such state surveillance of individuals with the Iron Curtain Communist countries, the Soviet Union and China.
I believe that this is the single most important civil issue of our time that has become a free-for-all in these last 25 years with the excuse of SECURITY, that has overridden civil rights. Our new MEPs should make this issue a priority to solve at EU level.
I’m assuming the Police or Secret service need some sort of warrant from a judge. Someone please explain.
“while in Malta, with a population of under 500,000, it received nearly 4,000.”
http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240222086/Vodafone-blows-lid-on-government-spy-networks
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet-security/10880208/Vodafone-governments-use-secret-cables-to-tap-phones.html
As my nan used to say ” don’t speak on the phone”
This doesn’t surprise me in the least.
What I would like to know is what amount of that “spying capability” was manipulated by the LP in the years prior to the elections and who arranged for that to happen.
Big Brother is eavesdropping on you.
Isn’t privacy in telephone conversation safeguarded – to be broken only on a competent Court’s order?
Gvern li jisma’ – litteralment.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2651060/Unprecedented-terrifying-Scale-mobile-phone-snooping-uncovered-Vodaphone-reveals-government-requested-access-network.html
Ooh so I will have to be careful what I say on mobile as Manwel the Great may be listening in.
For those of you that are not worried by this news, remember that these cables are in the hands of the same minister that was caught snooping outside a room being used by the Opposition in parliament. As if we needed another reason not to trust him.
You mean Manuel overheard Ritienne and I making drowsies over the phone?
Everyone’s phone calls taghna lkoll.
From http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140606/local/updated-vodafone-lifts-lid-on-governments-phone-spying-capability.522183
“The Home Affairs Ministry said in a statement that the 3,773 requests referred to by the Guardian referred in their majority to police investigation requests relating to crimes. Only a very small number were requested by the Security Services.”
Except those 3,773 legitimate requests in the course of police investigations aren’t the real issue here, are they?
Can the Ministry of Amphibians and Princes-in-Waiting confirm or deny the existence of the Secret Service’s monitoring and unfettered access to all means of communications in real-time?
What happened to the ‘News of the World’ will never happen in Malta because we do not have enough people with a backbone to carry out a decent campaign besides we have complacent Members of Parliament who know fully well that they are immune from each other.
When one thinks about it, how difficult would it really be to obtain a post dated warrant from a Judge if it were really necessary in a country where the system appears to cover up for an Ex-EU Commissioner or delay the impeachment of a Judge, were government contracts are concealed and bribery is not considered corruption in some circumstances and absolved.
Joseph Muscat promised a sway from the past easily drawing massive support to his side. Who could really blame a population thirsty for change which had had enough of a political system where righteousness which had begun to fail with the start of Lawrence Gonzi’s second term in office took a definitive plunge and opened vast territories for Joseph Muscat to prospect in, something he did with great relish and astounding success.
Most of those thirty-six thousand odd who shifted sides weren’t after MLP iced buns they were after distancing themselves from the stale buns within the PN. It would therefore be extremely inappropriate for the PN to taunt them by reminding them that while others are gorging themselves to death on Muscat’s handouts they have received nothing in exchange for their vote. They wanted nothing but change. Whether they got that or not is different issue.
If in four years time, should the PN really manage to change from the ground up and should Joseph Muscat fail to deliver then there is a serious chance that many of them will shift once more but they will only do that if Simon Busuttil strives to inspire confidence, give serious thought to issues like rampant phone and internet tapping by the government for example, and manages to attract new faces to replace the old.
I’d use a carrier pigeon but now I hear the shooting and trapping season is to be extended.