Since the Indo-Pakistan conflict in the Kargil heights in 1999, there has been a major increase in the Technical Intelligence (TECHINT) capabilities of the Indian security community, which comprises the intelligence agencies of the Government of India and the intelligence divisions of the State Police.
A new organization — initially called the National Technical Facilities Organisation (NTFO) and subsequently renamed the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) — has come up to focus exclusively on the collection of TECHINT. It is somewhat — but not totally — similar to the National Security Agency (NSA) of the USA.
However, whereas the NSA comes under the control of the US Defence Secretary and is headed by a serving military officer of the rank of Lt. Gen, whose appointment by the President is subject to confirmation by the Senate Intelligence Committee, the head of the NTRO, called Chairman, is taken on rotation from the Intelligence Bureau (IB), the Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW) and the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
Whereas the head of the NSA is a serving officer, the Chairmen of the NTRO have come from a hotch-potch background — not found fit to head the organization to which they originally belonged, but sought to be placated by being made the chief of the NTRO with a fixed tenure. The selection process is not subject to review or scrutiny by any external mechanism — either of the Parliament or outside it.
There is a greater possibility of the political misuse of a technical intelligence organization than of a human intelligence organization. They, therefore, have to be subject to even more strict external controls than HUMINT organizations. The dangers of misuse have increased due to the easy availability of modern snooper technology and gadgets. When one was totally dependent on landline telephones for internal communications, the scope for misuse was limited, but mobile technology has placed in the hands of not only the State, but also non-state actors — terrorists, insurgents, organized crime groups, narcotics smugglers, corporate and political rivals — immense possibilities of snooping on the State, on each other and among themselves.
In India, the absence of effective external controls over organizations having the capability for snooping facilitates the misuse of the capabilities for purposes not connected with national security and for besmirching the well-earned reputation of innocent citizens, who find themselves without any defence because they do not know and understand what the hell has been going on.
It is important for the Government to go into this matter and establish an architecture of legal and procedural safeguards to ensure that our TECHINT capabilities are used only against suspected wrong-doers and not against innocent citizens — either consciously or unconsciously.
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