The writer is a member of staff.
Prime Minister Imran Khan probably did not intend to shed the light he did on the operations of the Intelligence Bureau or the Inter-Services Intelligence when he said that “The ISI and IB know whatever I do and whoever I talk to on telephone.” However, he did, telling the intelligence communities of the world that these organisations were dealing with domestic politics, in addition to, or to the exclusion of, their original mandates. It will be of some interest to learn that intelligence agencies usually observe a strict distinction between domestic and foreign operations. The USSR’s MVD (later NKVD) operated abroad, and the MGB (later the notorious KGB) operated at home. Similarly, in the USA, the CIA is forbidden by law from operating in the USA, while the FBI is forbidden from operating abroad.
Operations should not be confused with intelligence or information. The CIA, for example, might get information about foreign spies in the USA, but it would not arrest them. It would pass on the information to the FBI, which would mount the operation to prevent the espionage, down to tapping telephones or bugging any conversations.
Imran’s justification, that even the CIA listened in on the US President, for security reasons, is thus incorrect (not that his word can be taken on anything, not after the way he once put Japan on the German border). The CIA would be unable to get a warrant for a wiretap for the Presidency, as it is not allowed to operate within the USA. As a matter of fact, the FBI would not do this. The responsibility for the President’s security (as with that of former presidents, serving and past vice-presidents, presidential and vice-presidential candidates, and their families) is with the Secret Service. The Secret Service is still formally on the books of the Treasury Department. (Originally, it was set up in 1865 to trace and capture counterfeiters, and was detailed to guard the President as well only in 1901, after the assassination of President William McKinley. It’s still responsible for tracing counterfeiters and investigating financial cybercrimes).
However, that example does highlight an important point. The Secret Service can also tap phones, for security purposes, but it can only do so by obtaining a warrant. That means convincing a judge that there is reasonable cause to presume that the tap will lead to evidence about an offence. The applicant must also show that he is legally authorized to investigate, which means that the tap would require that the application be made by someone from the Secret Service. This naturally raises the question of who gave permission for the PM House phones to be bugged. It also raises the question of how anyone is allowed to tap any phone. Or do we have a separate law for the Third World, with certain organisations allowed to tap anyone’s phone?
Apart from that, tapping is an invasion of privacy. The question further arises as to who else is tapped. Is it a fair estimate that other Cabinet ministers are being tapped? Imran seems to know more than he disclosed, because he had earlier remarked that Mian Nawaz Sharif had reason to fear the ISI because the latter knew about his corruption. Thus, in Imran’s world, the PM’s phone is routinely tapped, and Mian Nawaz’s corruption was caught, but his wasn’t, because of his squeaky clean and honest. However, the tapping continues, which he is OK with.
It seems that the practice is a holdover from Benazir’s 1988 assumption of the office. The establishment assumed she was a security risk. However, there is a clear assumption that the PM does not control either the IB or the ISI, though both are supposed to report to him. However, the ISI is not only headed by a serving lieutenant-general, but has a large number of officers from the armed forces on deputation there. Though the DG ISI may control the ACRs these officers take from the organization, it is the services which decide on their promotions. Officers will also be repatriated to their services after their tour of duty in the ISI. The IB is usually manned at the senior levels by PSP officers, which makes it more civilian, but it should be noted that the PSP is a uniformed service, and though not military, provides an interface. It gained a more military colour in the 1970s, when numerous field-grade military officers were inducted into the PSP to provide the manpower that would combat the Baloch insurgency of that era.
The Watergate scandal in the Nixon years revealed that Presidents themselves had begun recording not just phone calls, but live conversations. This was not supposed to be for any agency, but because the President himself wanted those tapes, which were to be stored in his presidential library. Those tapes proved an embarrassment for Nixon, and his successors ended the practice. Though those recordings formed part of the evidence in the Watergate impeachment proceedings, there were no CIA recordings summoned in the recent Trump impeachment proceedings, which were based on a phone call to the Ukrainian President. The only recording of the call was made by the White House, and stored there.
However, in Pakistan, the intelligence agencies have got involved in political monitoring. In the 1970s, all agencies were tasked with estimating results. That meant monitoring political figures. It may also be remembered that Ayub Khan used the IB, where his brother had become DG.
There is a problem with the admission. Both organisations report to the PM. So who do they report the results of their tapping? Who else do they tap? It transpired during the judges’ crisis caused by Pervez Musharraf’s dismissal of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, that the phones of Supreme Court judges’ residences were tapped. This was strongly resented by both Bench and Bar, even though, to adopt Imran’s argument, their honesty could thereby be proved.
The only PM said to have been a spy on his own country was Australia’s Harold Holt, whose mysterious drowning in 1967 was alleged by some to have been faked, to cover him being picked up by a Chinese submarine and taken to Beijing. None of the allegations against Benazir Bhutto accused her of spying for any country. The idea of the PM being monitored is mind-boggling, but can be seen to fit in with the suspicions of intelligence agencies, described by the legendary chief of CIA Counterintelligence from 1954 to 1975, James Jesus Angleton, as a wilderness of mirrors’. Intelligence outfits do not trust anyone. However, they are not meant to prevent the government from carrying out its own secret initiatives.
The problem is that Mian Nawaz Sharif, desperate and with nothing more to lose, has been attacking the agencies directly, and mentioned the DG ISI by name. Imran has ended up playing Nawaz’s game, for his rebuttals are doing something that intelligence agencies hate: have a spotlight shined on them. He has also been making public more of their tradecraft than they are comfortable with. He should also realize that the comfort he shows at having his phones tapped is confirmation of the opposition narrative that the establishment backs him.
https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2020/12/03/blase-about-bugs/
Blasé about bugs: op-ed by M A NIAZI in Pakistan Today, Dec 4, 2020
The writer is a member of staff.
Prime Minister Imran Khan probably did not intend to shed the light he did on the operations of the Intelligence Bureau or the Inter-Services Intelligence when he said that “The ISI and IB know whatever I do and whoever I talk to on telephone.” However, he did, telling the intelligence communities of the world that these organisations were dealing with domestic politics, in addition to, or to the exclusion of, their original mandates. It will be of some interest to learn that intelligence agencies usually observe a strict distinction between domestic and foreign operations. The USSR’s MVD (later NKVD) operated abroad, and the MGB (later the notorious KGB) operated at home. Similarly, in the USA, the CIA is forbidden by law from operating in the USA, while the FBI is forbidden from operating abroad.
Operations should not be confused with intelligence or information. The CIA, for example, might get information about foreign spies in the USA, but it would not arrest them. It would pass on the information to the FBI, which would mount the operation to prevent the espionage, down to tapping telephones or bugging any conversations.
Imran’s justification, that even the CIA listened in on the US President, for security reasons, is thus incorrect (not that his word can be taken on anything, not after the way he once put Japan on the German border). The CIA would be unable to get a warrant for a wiretap for the Presidency, as it is not allowed to operate within the USA. As a matter of fact, the FBI would not do this. The responsibility for the President’s security (as with that of former presidents, serving and past vice-presidents, presidential and vice-presidential candidates, and their families) is with the Secret Service. The Secret Service is still formally on the books of the Treasury Department. (Originally, it was set up in 1865 to trace and capture counterfeiters, and was detailed to guard the President as well only in 1901, after the assassination of President William McKinley. It’s still responsible for tracing counterfeiters and investigating financial cybercrimes).
However, that example does highlight an important point. The Secret Service can also tap phones, for security purposes, but it can only do so by obtaining a warrant. That means convincing a judge that there is reasonable cause to presume that the tap will lead to evidence about an offence. The applicant must also show that he is legally authorized to investigate, which means that the tap would require that the application be made by someone from the Secret Service. This naturally raises the question of who gave permission for the PM House phones to be bugged. It also raises the question of how anyone is allowed to tap any phone. Or do we have a separate law for the Third World, with certain organisations allowed to tap anyone’s phone?
Apart from that, tapping is an invasion of privacy. The question further arises as to who else is tapped. Is it a fair estimate that other Cabinet ministers are being tapped? Imran seems to know more than he disclosed, because he had earlier remarked that Mian Nawaz Sharif had reason to fear the ISI because the latter knew about his corruption. Thus, in Imran’s world, the PM’s phone is routinely tapped, and Mian Nawaz’s corruption was caught, but his wasn’t, because of his squeaky clean and honest. However, the tapping continues, which he is OK with.
It seems that the practice is a holdover from Benazir’s 1988 assumption of the office. The establishment assumed she was a security risk. However, there is a clear assumption that the PM does not control either the IB or the ISI, though both are supposed to report to him. However, the ISI is not only headed by a serving lieutenant-general, but has a large number of officers from the armed forces on deputation there. Though the DG ISI may control the ACRs these officers take from the organization, it is the services which decide on their promotions. Officers will also be repatriated to their services after their tour of duty in the ISI. The IB is usually manned at the senior levels by PSP officers, which makes it more civilian, but it should be noted that the PSP is a uniformed service, and though not military, provides an interface. It gained a more military colour in the 1970s, when numerous field-grade military officers were inducted into the PSP to provide the manpower that would combat the Baloch insurgency of that era.
The Watergate scandal in the Nixon years revealed that Presidents themselves had begun recording not just phone calls, but live conversations. This was not supposed to be for any agency, but because the President himself wanted those tapes, which were to be stored in his presidential library. Those tapes proved an embarrassment for Nixon, and his successors ended the practice. Though those recordings formed part of the evidence in the Watergate impeachment proceedings, there were no CIA recordings summoned in the recent Trump impeachment proceedings, which were based on a phone call to the Ukrainian President. The only recording of the call was made by the White House, and stored there.
However, in Pakistan, the intelligence agencies have got involved in political monitoring. In the 1970s, all agencies were tasked with estimating results. That meant monitoring political figures. It may also be remembered that Ayub Khan used the IB, where his brother had become DG.
There is a problem with the admission. Both organisations report to the PM. So who do they report the results of their tapping? Who else do they tap? It transpired during the judges’ crisis caused by Pervez Musharraf’s dismissal of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, that the phones of Supreme Court judges’ residences were tapped. This was strongly resented by both Bench and Bar, even though, to adopt Imran’s argument, their honesty could thereby be proved.
The only PM said to have been a spy on his own country was Australia’s Harold Holt, whose mysterious drowning in 1967 was alleged by some to have been faked, to cover him being picked up by a Chinese submarine and taken to Beijing. None of the allegations against Benazir Bhutto accused her of spying for any country. The idea of the PM being monitored is mind-boggling, but can be seen to fit in with the suspicions of intelligence agencies, described by the legendary chief of CIA Counterintelligence from 1954 to 1975, James Jesus Angleton, as a wilderness of mirrors’. Intelligence outfits do not trust anyone. However, they are not meant to prevent the government from carrying out its own secret initiatives.
The problem is that Mian Nawaz Sharif, desperate and with nothing more to lose, has been attacking the agencies directly, and mentioned the DG ISI by name. Imran has ended up playing Nawaz’s game, for his rebuttals are doing something that intelligence agencies hate: have a spotlight shined on them. He has also been making public more of their tradecraft than they are comfortable with. He should also realize that the comfort he shows at having his phones tapped is confirmation of the opposition narrative that the establishment backs him.
https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2020/12/03/blase-about-bugs/
Published in Pak Media comment and Pakistan