Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Is your personal telecom medium still private?

Recently media announced that email, mobile and landline phones, and sms are going to be monitored in Pakistan. That was really shocking for everyone. Even opposition members of parliament criticized that every Pakistani has privacy and it should be respected. Politicians told that every party has some classified information and internal secrets which sometimes discussed on phone. How they can support this law?
On the other side of the scene, government officials were defending that it will not target normal people and politicians but the target is suspected individuals and non state actors. This news added one more chapter in the criticism of PPP government. After that PTA spokesperson clarified that the major target of this monitoring is to stop grey calls. Illegal telecom traffic (grey traffic) coming into Pakistan from outside the country through illegal means. Grey calls come from international locations but with local numbers.