Turkish Forum

Tag: bugging operations

  • Minister Says Erdogan’s Bedroom Was Bugged

    Minister Says Erdogan’s Bedroom Was Bugged

    Turkey: Minister Says Erdogan’s Bedroom Was Bugged

    by Yigal Schleifer

    A street vendor in Istanbul's Tahtakale bazaar district sells listening and surveillance devices. In recent months, sales have shot up for cheap Chinese-made devices disguised as pens even as the government has used more sophisticated technology for political gains. (Photo: Yigal Schleifer)
    A street vendor in Istanbul's Tahtakale bazaar district sells listening and surveillance devices. In recent months, sales have shot up for cheap Chinese-made devices disguised as pens even as the government has used more sophisticated technology for political gains. (Photo: Yigal Schleifer)

    Egemen Bagis, Turkey’s Minister for European Union Affairs, has a penchant for making unpredictable or surprising statements. On Nov. 30, during a talk in Brussels, Bagis dropped another bombshell: opponents of the Turkish government managed to surreptitiously record Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s bedroom conversations. From a Dogan News Agency report in Hurriyet:

    Private conversations between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his wife in their bedroom were secretly recorded, Turkish EU Minister Egemen Bağış has said.

    “Unfortunately, even this country’s prime minister’s personal conversations with his spouse in their own bedroom have been recorded. This is not a simple affair that could be regarded as the freedom of press,” Bağış said at the European Union Press Club in Brussels on Nov. 30.

    Speaking in relation to ongoing criticism about the arrest of journalists in Turkey, the minister said no one in the country had been arrested due to their journalistic activities and added that those currently in prison had been incarcerated for their ties to outlawed groups or other groups that sought to overthrow the government via illegal means.

    The news should actually not be very surprising. Bugging, wiretapping and video surveillance have become an integral part of the Turkish political, legal and media landscape over the last few years. In fact, in a 2009 In a television interview, Erdogan said he was concerned about his phone being tapped. “What do you think? Of course,” Erdogan answered his interviewer.

    “Therefore I watch what I say over the phone. I’m not comfortable speaking over the phone,” Erdogan told his interviewer on Turkey’s private NTV news network.

    Hidden camera footage was instrumental in last year’s downfall of Deniz Baykal, the former leader of the opposition Republican Peoples’ Party (CHP), who was recorded having an affair with his former secretary. Several members of the Nationalist Action Party (MHP) were also forced to resign prior to last summer’s parliamentary elections after video footage showing them in compromising situations with young women was released online (see this previous post). From a Eurasianet story I filed last year on the growing fears in Turkey that privacy rights are falling to the wayside:

    “My strong view is that what has happened to Mr. Baykal is an offshoot of an environment that has been created in Turkey over the last three or four years. Widespread and systematic violations of privacy and freedom of communication have taken place in this country,” says Sedat Ergin, a columnist with the daily Hurriyet newspaper, another Dogan newspaper.

    Wiretaps have been an integral part of the “Ergenekon” investigation, but privacy advocates have accused civil servants of leaking to pro-government newspaper transcripts detailing the occasionally compromising personal conversations of suspects.

    “These violations have created a psychological environment. The government has been usually complacent about such violations. They have not made this an issue and have not really taken step to deter such violations. So when there is not deterrence, people think they can engage in such violations and get away with it,” Ergin says.

    Turkish officials have rejected the claims that wiretaps are being used as political weapons, saying the number of taps in Turkey is no higher than in other European countries. In the case of Baykal, government officials worked quickly to stop the online distribution of the controversial footage and asked intelligence officials to look into how it made its way online.

    But critics say more needs to be done to protect the privacy of individuals. “Turkey is behind European states in terms of the protection of personal information,” says Yaman Akdeniz, a professor of law at Istanbul’s Bilgi University.

    via Turkey: Minister Says Erdogan’s Bedroom Was Bugged | EurasiaNet.org.

    Originally published by EurasiaNet.org

  • Councils carry out over 8,500 covert surveillance operations

    Councils carry out over 8,500 covert surveillance operations

    Only 4.5% cases result in prosecution and the research shows that the vast majority were concluded without anything substantial being discovered

    Alan Travis

    More than 8,500 covert surveillance operations on members of the public have been carried out by 372 local authorities in Britain in the past two years – the equivalent of 11 a day, according to a study published today.

    The research by the pressure group Big Brother Watch names Newcastle upon Tyne as the worst local authority in the country for the use of its powers under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, having spied on its residents 231 times over the past two years.

    West Berkshire and Walsall were close behind, however, with 228 and 215 Ripa authorisations respectively since April 2008.

    The survey used freedom of information requests to collect details of 8,575 covert surveillance and bugging operations carried out under the Ripa powers, and demonstrates the rapid advance of the “surveillance society“.

    The councils reported that the large number of surveillance operations resulted in 399 prosecutions, representing fewer than 4.5% of all operations, although some councils said they did not keep details of prosecutions. But the results show that the vast majority were concluded without anything substantial being discovered.

    The survey found that councils in England, Wales and Scotland had used their powers to spy on their own employees. In Darlington they checked up on their car parking, in Exeter on their working times, and in Hammersmith and Fulham on their sick pay claims. In Liverpool, they spied on wardens employed to spot crime.

    More than a dozen councils have used their Ripa powers to catch pet owners whose dogs are fouling the pavements. A further five mounted covert surveillance operations to enforce smoking bans. In Bromley the council even spied on a charity shop to see if people were “fly-tipping” their donations at the door.

    The coalition agreement published last week promised action to curb the use of surveillance powers. Ministers intend to introduce legislation to ensure that the Ripa powers are used only in cases involving serious crime and only if a magistrate’s warrant has been obtained first.

    Alex Deane, director of Big Brother Watch, said the survey revealed the “absurd and excessive lengths” local government was prepared to go to in using the Ripa powers.

    “These powers have to be taken away from councils,” he said. “[That] the coalition government plans to force councils to get warrants before snooping on us is good, but it doesn’t go far enough. If the offence is serious enough to merit covert surveillance, then it should be in the hands of the police.”

    He said there should also be an obligation to notify innocent victims who have been placed under surveillance but subsequently acquitted of any offence. Deane said it would change the culture if officials knew they had to justify their actions to their victims.

    The watchdog group says that it will still be possible for councils to catch the fly-tippers and dog-foulers without using these snooping powers. It cites Bradford council, which reduced its use of Ripa covert operations by telling noise pests that their noise levels would be monitored by tape-recording equipment in their neighbours’ houses, or by council officials turning the operation into one of overt surveillance, which was much more effective.

    The most notorious Ripa case occurred in 2008, when Jenny Paton and her family in Poole, Dorset, found themselves the subject of a three-week covert surveillance operation, including being secretly followed by council officials, after Paton was wrongly suspected of lying about her address to get her daughter into a particular school.

    Total number of uses of Ripa from 2008 to 2010

    1 Newcastle upon Tyne 231

    2 West Berkshire 228

    3 Walsall 215

    4 Oxfordshire 192

    5 Birmingham 176

    6 Bromley 150

    7 Salford 149

    8 Hampshire 137

    9 Kent 136

    10 Sandwell 135

    11 Durham 124

    12 Wandsworth 120

    13 Surrey 105

    14 Camden 104

    15 Liverpool 101

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/may/24/councils-covert-surveillance-operations, 24 May 2010