“You have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide.”
I have heard this argument from every group of stakeholders countless times in my decade-long experience advocating for the right to privacy in Pakistan. But it’s an interesting realisation that these fundamental rights otherwise protected under the Constitution mean nothing to the government responsible to protect them, when an advisor to the prime minister of Pakistan says this on live television.
The comment was made in response to the many questions that people rightly have about the recently issued notification by the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication (MoITT) of Pakistan authorising the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the main intelligence agency in the country, “to intercept calls and messages or to trace calls through any telecommunication system.” The notification states that this order is issued in the interest of national security and in line with Section 54 of the Pakistan Telecommunication (Re-Organisation) Act of 1996, also known as the PTA Act.
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Image by Hija Kamran