Union Home Ministry’s authorization of security agencies to monitor, decrypt any information generated in any computer is an extreme act of governance overreach. Analyze (200 Words)
Refer - Business Standard
Enrich the answer from other sources, if the question demands.
IAS Parliament 6 years
KEY POINTS
Union Home Ministry’s decision, governance overreach
· The decision lacks accountability; provide the way for misuse without safeguards, thus violating the right to privacy.
· Also, the rules provide for tapping to start, with the home secretary’s clearance to be obtained within a week. Since most people don’t know when their phones are being tapped, the agencies can tap at will without clearance.
· The blanket authorization being given to security agencies — which include not just intelligence agencies responsible for domestic security, such as the Intelligence Bureau, but also foreign-focused agencies that have no business snooping on Indian citizens such as the Research & Analysis Wing.
· The Delhi Police and tax agencies have also been given untrammeled powers of surveillance.
· There is no real basis in law for many of the agencies named in the order from the home ministry; they were simply inherited from the British Raj.
· They lack parliamentary scrutiny, lack judicial control or approval, either in open or closed courts.
Union Home Ministry’s decision, not a governance overreach
· Terrorists mostly utilize social media as a platform for planning, recruitment, and execution, so to prevent their misuse, security agencies need snooping of Indian Citizens computer.
· Allows security agencies to fight cybercrime effectively; attacks such as ransomware, phishing, currency mining can be prevented.
· Anti-social elements utilize computers as a medium to create faults in the unity of the country by creating division on the basis of caste, gender, religion, paving the way for internal security problems. (Cow slaughter issue). This can be prevented by the security agencies by accessing the information generated in the computer.
However, there must be a process in which a reason is given and in which, afterward, responsibility can be assigned. Such invasion of privacy should need authorization from a magistrate, who has to record the specific reasons in each case. There needs to be a balance between individual rights and societal rights for a healthy democracy in India.
Davi 6 years
Kindly review.
IAS Parliament 6 years
Try mentioning issues of cyber security, prevention of terrorist attacks, misuse of powers by authority, lack of accountability by authorities. Keep Writing.
