Authenticate the tapes

A story circulating in the intelligence community is that during the election period last year, the administration itself had allegedly given government spooks the go-signal to place certain personalities under electronic surveillance. This is not unusual in this country, and previous administrations should not pretend that they never engaged in this kind of snooping.

Electronic surveillance is a complicated operation that can zero in only on a small number of people at any given time. Among a group of about 20 individuals allegedly targeted during a particular period was Virgilio Garcillano, at the time newly appointed commissioner of the Commission on Elections. He was supposedly under surveillance because, for some reason, there were doubts about his loyalty.

In the course of recording Garcillano’s mobile phone conversation, government spooks — among them Technical Sergeant Vidal Doble of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP) — allegedly stumbled upon a unique voice on the other end that has become easily recognizable in this country. The topic of the conversation involved Comelec matters, and the spooks did not immediately delete the recording. Instead copies of the taped conversation were stored.

The opposition somehow got hold of copies and was truly poised to drop the bombshell when Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye launched a preemptive strike. Bunye’s press conference, the story goes, was truly not intended to distract the nation from the jueteng scandal.

Samuel Ong, who established contacts in the intelligence community when he was deputy director for intelligence of the National Bureau of Investigation, apparently also got hold of copies.

Ong, whose camp is trying mightily to muster people power, has two key claims. One, he got hold of authentic "master tapes" of tapped conversations between Garcillano and President Arroyo. And two, the conversation shows that the President wanted Garcillano to rig election results in her favor.

Ong’s camp apparently hoped that Doble, allegedly the man who actually tapped the conversation in question, would corroborate Ong’s story. But over the weekend Doble refused to follow the script, apparently fearing that he would incriminate himself. Now he’s in government custody, his wife is crying illegal detention, and Ong must seek credible technical expertise to bolster his story.

Because neither the opposition nor the administration appears to be in a rush to have a foreign government send experts for official, credible authentication of the tapes, we haven’t gotten past conjecture in this scandal.

My guess is we will never know the whole truth here, because even the so-called master tapes have been polluted, and those directly involved in electronic surveillance are scared of going to prison for illegal wiretapping.

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Ong should stop playing cloak-and-dagger games. The government has to be incredibly stupid to cause him any harm after the accusations he hurled against the administration.

On second thought, considering the IQ of certain government officials, maybe Ong should remain in hiding. Why, the national security adviser is clueless even about the eavesdropping capability of government intelligence agents. No wonder presidential phone conversations are being tapped.

But obviously even the clergy at the San Carlos seminary in Makati thought it was safe enough to send Ong home, or wherever he wants to hole up while waiting for people power.

Ong should also be prepared for possible jail time for violating anti-wiretapping laws. If the tapes can be authenticated and his accusations proven to be true, the nation will be grateful for the disclosure of poll fraud, which is a criminal offense, and his prosecution may not succeed.

But if the tapes turn out to be fake or somehow altered, Ong will be considered a public official who has broken the law. People he has accused of poll fraud will face their own legal problems; he must face his own.

The Constitution guarantees the right to privacy, and no one wants his cell phone conversations tapped, whether by the ISAFP, the NBI, the police or the opposition. This message has to be sent to those who are tempted to abuse the power to conduct electronic surveillance for uses other than national security or criminal investigation.

It’s not just a question of whose voices are in the purported master tapes. There’s also the question of whether the contents have been altered in any way to change the context of the conversation. In the digital age, this is relatively easy to do, with the alteration detectable only to experts.

This is why it is urgent that foreign expertise is called in, with both sides agreeing to the choice of those who will do the authentication. We’re sure any foreign government with sophisticated intelligence capability will be willing to authenticate those tapes if asked. Why isn’t anyone calling for help? Are both the administration and opposition afraid of the truth?

The opposition knows better than to try to persuade skeptical Filipinos to take as gospel truth the supposed findings of an American firm that no one except Francisco Tatad seems to have heard of. What will stop the administration from trotting out the supposed findings of yet another American firm that only Ignacio Bunye has heard of, saying the tapes are fake?

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Congressmen are poised to investigate the wiretapping scandal, supposedly in aid of legislation. Why let those senators hog the headlines and live TV coverage? Perhaps the House of Representatives will finally tap foreign experts to give a credible verdict on the authenticity of the tapes. Then again, I must be hallucinating. Do any of the players in this scandal really want to know the truth, or do they simply want to kick out the current occupant of Malacañang through incendiary allegations, so that a new bunch of crooks can take over?

If the whole truth can’t be known, a congressional investigation may at least lead to legislation that will tighten regulation of electronic surveillance. In the course of the investigation, it might finally dawn on the national security adviser that, yes, sir, cell phone conversations can be intercepted by Philippine intelligence agents.

Apart from increasing penalties for illegal wiretapping, however, I don’t see how new legislation can stop electronic eavesdropping. With the state of information and communication technology, you have to live with the reality that all your electronic communication — e-mail, text messages and mobile phone calls — can be intercepted, recorded, reproduced, distributed across the country, and even sold in the piracy centers of Metro Manila.

The ease by which electronic surveillance can be undertaken by those with the funds, equipment and skills is matched by the ease by which records of the surveillance can be altered. This is why the first order of the day is to authenticate the controversial tapes.