Babe's Eye View article

The Supreme Court decision upholding the petition of Romulo Neri to invoke executive privilege is being questioned by a number of people, particularly "big businessmen" who are reportedly unhappy with the ruling. But aren't these the same people who were responsible for disrupting the Constitutional process by ousting Joseph Estrada? Now we have GMA who will be the longest-serving president after Marcos with a total of nine years—way beyond the six years provided for by the Constitution. Payback time for the last EDSA II.

By the time GMA finishes her term in 2010, she would have appointed all of the 15 justices of the Supreme Court. Obviously, the insinuation by these people is they see the justices as protecting GMA. But the fact of the matter is, if the Constitutional process was not disrupted, we wouldn't have this kind of doubt today. The problem in this country is that whenever something is not favorable, people complain about it. But when it's favorable to them, they praise it to high heavens.

If the integrity of the Supreme Court is being questioned, then that's precisely why we need to look into changing the Constitution, perhaps removing the power of the president to appoint Supreme Court justices, the Ombudsman and other critical judicial positions. This may ensure checks and balances and prevent situations like this where people question the independence of the SC in ruling on very important legal disputes like the Neri case.

On the other side of the fence, the Supreme Court is being asked once again to rule on an important issue of "habeas data" filed by Joey de Venecia. He told us at the Rotary Manila the other day he is doing this, not necessarily to protect himself, but according to him, to protect the public from being victims of wiretapping.

And really, wiretapping has truly gotten out of hand in this country. I'm told it's been going on for many years now. In fact, during the time of Joseph Estrada, eavesdropping equipment were reportedly brought in by Ping Lacson who was the PNP chief at the time—although Ping denies these allegations.

Last month, a three-minute audio clip featuring a conversation between two animated pigs was uploaded on YouTube—allegedly a wiretapped conversation between Joey de Venecia and Jun Lozada discussing ZTE kickbacks. Some say the clip is authentic while others claim the whole thing was spliced.

With technology having advanced by leaps and bounds, anything is now possible. There are sophisticated equipment that can eavesdrop on calls, peek at emails and even read text messages, developed after 9-11 precisely to prevent and counter terrorist activities. Whether we like it or not, Osama bin Laden has changed our way of life.

ISAFP most likely has such "surveillance" equipment. But what is disturbing, however, is the realization that anyone's privacy can be violated and his reputation destroyed if the information falls into the wrong hands, making it easy for criminals to engage in blackmail. In this day and age, one can never be too careful.

In August last year, President George Bush signed the Protect America Act of 2007 into law—giving the US government broader authority to eavesdrop on telephone calls and emails of Americans without need for warrants as part of America's war against terrorism. Naturally, this gave rise to heated debates with critics arguing this could be abused and could violate an individual's right to privacy.

The US government, however, maintained that warrantless intercepts will only be conducted if there is "reasonable basis" to conclude that one party to the communication is an al Qaeda member or supporter, and that one party to the conversation is a foreigner or outside of the US. Despite his unpopularity, it seems Bush has the upper hand judging from the US Supreme Court's dismissal of a complaint by the American Civil Liberties Union questioning his authority to order phone call and email intercepts within the US.

The fact of the matter is, foreigners are at the mercy of US intelligence authorities. A Filipino found out just how serious the United States is regarding any terror threat when he arrived in the US and called up a friend with his cellphone, jokingly saying, "The terrorist has landed." Within minutes, members of the Department of Homeland Security picked him up for questioning, detaining him for three hours before they were sufficiently convinced he was not a member of a terrorist group.

As a matter of fact, novels like Digital Fortress (by the Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown) talk about the existence of a top secret computer called "TRANSLATR" which is used by the National Security Agency to monitor and decode voluminous email to crack down on terrorists. "Unfortunately, it can also covertly intercept the email of private individuals. The plot thickens when a former NSA programmer tries to force the agency to publicly admit the existence of "TRANSLATR" by paralyzing it with a supposedly unbreakable mathematical code called Digital Fortress, and threatens to auction off the code to the highest bidder.

Conspiracy theorists and technophiles can insist such fictional technology actually exists, while skeptics can dismiss it as simply the product of an overactive imagination. But with fact supposedly stranger than fiction, one can never really tell. The way things look and with technology being so far advanced, there's a big possibility the time will come when everything you do can become public, including your bathroom habits. And to those involved in illicit activities—better be careful—it may not be Big Brother watching, but Big Angry Wife monitoring your conversations and text messages.