INDIA on Tuesday (June 11) voiced its concern and surprise over reports that it was the fifth most tracked country by the American intelligence apparatus, which reportedly used a secret data-mining programme to monitor worldwide Internet data.
New Delhi also made it clear that it would be ‘unacceptable’ if it was found that domestic laws relating to privacy of information of citizens were violated.
“Yes, we are concerned and surprised,” Indian External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said.
He said that the US and India have a cyber security dialogue which is coordinated by National Security Councils on both sides.
“We feel that this is the appropriate forum to discuss such issues. We intend to seek information and details during consultations between interlocutors from both sides on this matter,” Akbaruddin told reporters.
Asked about possible violations of Indian privacy laws, he said, “Obviously, we will find it to be unacceptable if Indian laws relating to privacy of information of Indian ordinary citizens have been violated. Surely we will, frankly, find it unacceptable”.
He added that it was an evolving situation.
“Every day we find new issues coming up. We will take it, rather than jump to conclusions at this stage.
“We will take it as it evolves and have a better understanding and a clearer paradigm of how to tackle this issue, once broader parameters in its entirety are available to us,” he said.
According to the Guardian newspaper, India was the fifth most-tracked country.
The daily claims to have acquired top secret documents about the National Security Agency”s data-mining tool, called Boundless Informant.
A snapshot of the Boundless Informant data, contained in a top secret NSA ‘global heat map’, shows that in March 2013, the agency collected 97 billion pieces of intelligence from computer networks worldwide.
It showed that Iran was the country from where the largest amount of intelligence was gathered, with more than 14 billion reports in that period, followed by 13.5 billion from Pakistan.
Jordan, one of America’s closest Arab allies, came third at 12.7 billion, Egypt fourth at 7.6 billion and India fifth at 6.3 billion.
US officials defend program
Top US officials have defended the controversial secret surveillance programme of the Obama administration, saying such efforts helped them to abort several terrorist attacks and nab terrorists such as David Headley, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks convict.
“A second example, also occurring in 2009, involved one of those perpetrators of the Mumbai bombing in India, David Headley. And we aborted the plot against a Danish news publisher based on the same kind of information,” National Intelligence Director James Clapper told the MSNBC.
Pakistani-American Headley, 51, was arrested by the US security agencies in October 2009 for scouting the targets of the Mumbai attack for terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba.
He confessed to his role and managed a deal with the US authorities under which he escaped a death penalty.
Clapper was responding to questions on the revelation of a secretive government programme to tap into phone records of millions of Americans and emails of foreign nationals.
He argued that this has actually prevented terror plots.
“One was the aborted plot to bomb the subway in New York City in the fall of 2009. And all this started with a communication from Pakistan to a US person in Colorado. And that led to the identification of a cell in New York City that was bent on a major bombing of the New York City subway. And a cell was rolled up, and in their apartment, we found backpacks with bombs,” he said.
“So, those are two specific cases of uncovering plots through this mechanism that prevented terrorist attacks,” Clapper said.
“It’s just that this is emblematic of the serious debate that goes on in this country between the two poles of security and civil liberties and privacy. The challenge for us is navigating between those two poles.
“It's not a balance. It’s not either/or. There has to be that balance so that we protect our country, and also protect civil liberties and privacy,” the top intelligence officer said.
The White House too defended the programme, saying that it is important to keep a track of foreign activities.
“It’s entirely appropriate for a program to exist to look at foreign data and potential foreign terrorists,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said.
