Zimbabwe, Like Bush Administration, Wants Ability to Tap All Overseas Calls

Zimbabwe, which still suffers under the dictatorial excesses of Robert Mugabe, says that cell phone providers pose a security threat to the country because international calls go through private gateways that cannot be wiretapped, according to Reuters.

"The mobile service providers have their own international gateway system, and from a security point of view, this is dangerous to the state because we need to monitor traffic coming in and outside, but at the moment we can not," the Zimbabwe Defense Forces director for communications, Colonel Livingstone Chineka, was quoted by the Herald newspaper as saying. [...]

Zimbabwe early this year unveiled a proposed law that would give it authority to monitor phones and mail–both conventional and Internet–to protect national security and fight crime. [...]

"We want to listen, to make sure the nation is safe. If we liberalize the gateways then it means there would be a group of people who would communicate without our knowledge," Chineka said in a quote cited by the Mirror, a government-controlled daily.

More on how a blue-ribbon commission might help after the jump...

Meanwhile a hand-picked White House civil liberties board that was recommended by the 9/11 Commission, created by law in 2004, finally sworn in early 2006 was finally allowed to be briefed on the government's warrantless wiretapping program last week. The board is headed by Carol E. Dinkins, a former deputy attorney general under President Reagan and a partner at Attorney General Alberto Gonzales'
former law firm. According to the 9/11 Commission report, the board should make sure that antiterrorism powers "actually materially enhance security and that there is adequate supervision of the executive's use of the powers."

The board says it is impressed with the briefing:

Alan Raul, a former White House lawyer for President Ronald Reagan and the board's vice chairman, said he too was impressed.

"We found there was a great appreciation inside government, both at the political and career levels, for protections on privacy and civil liberties," said Raul, author of a book about privacy and civil liberties. "In fact, I think the public may have an underappreciation for the degree of seriousness the government is giving these protections."

The board members are prohibited from discussing specific protections or tactics because the NSA program remains classified.

File Under: I Learned It From Watching You, Dad

Hat Tip: RC, Photo: 1LB