T&T Government Legalizes Spying Legislation

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In a frightening turn of events, despite monumentous resistance by the Opposition Party and the people, the Government of Trinidad and Tobago has passed into law, a bill that gives the Government the right to monitor, track and spy on it's citizens. This comes after a recent upsurge in crime and illegal activity in the nation. The country itself is facing economic crisis similar to its neighbour, Venezuela.

 

Since the general elections of September 7th, there has been suspicions of voter padding and tampering of the election results. This case is before the courts of T&T and pending an outcome. There have been allegations of corruption and bribe taking against high ranking officials of the Elections and Boundaries Commission, the body that administered the election of September 2015 and some of these officials have since resigned. In its first budget, the PNM led government sought to immediately increase the price of gas and diesel fuel by a whopping 30% and further increases are projected as the fuel subsidy is removed. This has had a ripple effect on goods and services that rely on transport, with Taxi fares increasing by $2 to $5 dollars for fixed routes and 50% for hired cars. Grocery items and food stock that relies on transport have doubled in price since 2015. Adding to the cost of these items is a government imposed TAX of 12.5% on ALL food items, on top of the already existing 15% VAT. In addition, more than 20,000 contract workers and permanent employees have lost their jobs, as plummeting oil prices drives the heavily oil dependent economy into crisis. Of this figure, 1200 construction employees and 800 steel mill workers have been terminated as some parent companies have closed down and ceased operations in the country. The education sector is feeling the pinch, as students who benefited from laptops upon entry to high school, will not receive them anymore, students no longer receive textbooks, and government funding for tertiary education has been partially withdrawn. The hospitals in the country are running out of basic medication, as the lack of foreign currency and the newly imposed 7% online shopping TAX is making imports to the country extremely difficult. This as the TT dollar continues to depreciate daily against the US dollar and foreign investors are pulling out investments in the country as fast as the confidence in the inexperienced Prime Minister and under qualified cabinet is wreaking havoc on the nation's economy.

 

With dissent on the rise, the psuedo dictator, who was strongly condemned for dancing lewdly with underage girls earlier at Carnival celebrations in 2016, the Ministry of National Security is taking steps to prevent a coup and overthrow of the incompetent government suspected of rigging the last general elections. The SSA bill of 2016 now gives the police service the right to intercept, monitor and record text messages, phone calls, location data and internet traffic of any person deemed to be a person of interest and authorizes the mass collection of profile building data on all its citizens. According to the Minister of National Security, citizens should have nothing to fear if they have nothing to hide. He further states that citizens do not have the right to privacy. This has angered many citizens and small protests have already begun around the parliament building.

 

 

 

The country of Trinidad and Tobago has no cyber defense, with most banks and government agencies using Windows NT and Windows XP behind outdated firewalls with logging IP and access data as the only real countermeasure against hackers. The government services and the central bank is secured on a private intranet, with multiple points of exit at WiFi routers with 8 character passwords than can be broken in anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours depending on the speed of the hardware used. The police service database uses computers that have no antivirus software installed on them and no access to the internet. It is unknown at this time if the database of intelligence gathered on its citizens will be subject to this same ancient security protocol.

 

If you live in the country of Trinidad and Tobago, please use a VPN, cookie blockers, clear your browser history on your phones and computers, use end to end encrypted messengers like whatsapp, encrypt your hard drives, and anonymize your facebook profile with fake information, or better yet, not use facebook at all. These measures will become necessary until the guardians of the internet and digital freedom, (ie Anonymous, etc) intervene. 

 

Below is the location of the proposed secret SSA agency 

 

Link to goverment manipulated and truth bending article:

Quote

http://www4.guardian.co.tt/news/2016-05-10/2-independents-support-ssa-bill

 

 

[Jordan]

Source?

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1 minute ago, jordan4x said:

Source?

 

I wrote this article myself

However I gave a "credible and established" source at the end to validate what I was saying about the legislation, so you can know that I didn't make these things up and the bill was indeed passed.

[straycat19]

1 hour ago, Avitar said:

the Government of Trinidad and Tobago has passed into law, a bill that gives the Government the right to monitor, track and spy on it's citizens

 

Who cares?  If the citizens are running Windows 10 they already gave away all their privacy to Microsoft, and if they installed some of the updates for Windows 7/8.1 since last June the same telemetry items were added to those OSes too.  If you run windows you have no privacy from the government or anyone else.

[Jordan]

OK! i will see if it's acceptable (according to the rules). Thanks!

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Just now, straycat19 said:

 

Who cares?  If the citizens are running Windows 10 they already gave away all their privacy to Microsoft, and if they installed some of the updates for Windows 7/8.1 since last June the same telemetry items were added to those OSes too.  If you run windows you have no privacy from the government or anyone else.

 

Ahh you are correct my friend.. but before, the governments had no access to Microsoft's horde of data and could not compel them to hand it over. Now the government can collect the data themselves, LEGALLY.

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1 minute ago, jordan4x said:

OK! i will see if it's acceptable (according to the rules). Thanks!

 

Sure thing jordan4x. I have evidence to back up everything I've said, but I can't put my sources out in the open.

 

Your fellow admins and mods know me quite well, I take it that you were appointed within the last year or so you may not be familiar with me.

I am a long standing and ardent member of the community. It's nice to meet you.