New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi trained his guns on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and termed him a “an insecure dictator” after a government order allowed 10 central agencies to intercept, monitor and decrypt “any information generated, transmitted, received or stored in any computer”.
“Converting India into a police state isn’t going to solve your problems, Modi Ji. It’s only going to prove to over 1 billion Indians, what an insecure dictator you really are,” Rahul tweeted.
According to the order, the subscriber or service provider or any person in charge of the computer resource will be bound to extend all facilities and technical assistance to the agencies and failing to do will invite seven-year imprisonment and fine.
Intelligence Bureau and NIA are among the 10 agencies that can now snoop into your computer.
The opposition parties said the Home Ministry order authorising 10 central agencies to intercept, monitor, and decrypt any information generated, transmitted, received or stored in any computer is unconstitutional and against fundamental rights.
The Congress, the CPI(M), the Samajwadi Party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Trinamool Congress and AIMIM spoke out against the order.
Taking to Twitter, AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi asked if this is what the BJP’s 2014 campaign slogan of ‘ghar ghar Modi’ meant. "Modi has used a simple Government Order to permit our national agencies to snoop on our communications. Who knew that this is what they meant when they said ‘ghar ghar Modi’. George Orwell’s Big Brother is here & welcome to 1984,” Owaisi tweeted.
The government justifies its move by saying the authorisation was given under 2009 rules and dismissed opposition's charge of snooping, saying they were playing with national security and "making a mountain where even a molehill doesn't exist".
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said in Parliament that it would have been better if the opposition had obtained all information before raising this issue. He told the House that the rules under which agencies will be authorised to intercept information were framed in 2009 when the Congress-led UPA was in power.
Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad questioned if the Congress does not want action against terrorists and those who play with national security.
An order to the effect was issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs on December 20. The 10 agencies with the freedom to peek into any computer are the Intelligence Bureau, Narcotics Control Bureau, Enforcement Directorate, Central Board of Direct Taxes, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Central Bureau of Investigation, National Investigation Agency, Cabinet Secretariat (R&AW), Directorate of Signal Intelligence (For service areas of Jammu & Kashmir, North-East and Assam only) and Commissioner of Police, Delhi.
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