Monitoring Phone Call, SMS Activities to Continue for 15 Days
The Cabinet has agreed to keep monitoring of phone and SMS text messaging activity open for 15 days until a technical committee”s report is completed.
The daily An Nahar on Friday quoted ministerial sources as clarifying that the measure does not allow the Lebanese security apparatus to continue wiretapping of phone conversations or contents of cell phone text messages.
The sources said Cabinet, following hot discussions at the Grand Serail which continued well past midnight, agreed to meet again in light of the technical committee”s report to decide on whether it was useful to allow wiretapping to persist.
An Nahar said it had learned that the parliamentary majority is inclined toward signing a petition demanding a session of the Joint Committees to look into the wiretapping crisis.
Cabinet assigned Justice Minister Ibrahim Najjar and Telecommunications Minister Jebran Bassil, under the supervision of Prime Minister Fouad Saniora, to watch over the implementation of legal norms with regards to lawful interception of phone calls.
It also tasked Defense Minister Elias Murr, Interior Minister Ziad Baroud, in addition to Bassil and Najjar and also under Saniora”s control, to propose what is needed to develop an appropriate mechanism in light of modern techniques.
The Cabinet meeting followed a mini-debate Thursday to discuss the controversial wiretapping issue.
More than 60 MPs from various parliamentary blocs and political inclinations attended the Media and Communications Parliamentary committee meeting.
The committee decided to form a team that would investigate charges of illegal wiretapping.
Committee Chairman MP Hassan Fadlallah said the committee would resume its tackling of the thorny issue next Thursday and explained that commanders of security agencies would take part in the session.