"Mr Wayne Madsen an acclaimed investigative journalist, and former NSA employee, wrote before the investigations on congressional hearings on the situation in the DR Congo on November 29, 2001 that: "In particular, the NSA maintained a communications intercept station at Fort Portal, Uganda, which intercepted military and government communications in Zaire during the first Rwandan invasion in that country."
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The Monitor (Kampala)
COLUMN
October 4, 2003
Posted to the web October 3, 2003
Emma Mugarura
Kampala
The Member of Parliament for Lira Municipality, Ms Cecilia Ogwal, is up in arms with government and President Yoweri Museveni in particular for allegedly tapping her mobile phone conversation.
Ogwal also wants to sue her service providers, MTN for failure to notify her that her conversation was being leaked to another party.
MTN say there is no such a thing as tapping and that if it ever exists, Uganda, and MTN in particular do not possess it.
Mr Thomas Bragaw said, "MTN has never been asked to tap phones. We don't even have the technology."
But this is an issue that has been going on for quite a long time. A prominent member of parliament told The Monitor that phone tapping could be another gimmick to intimidate people into not using their phones to have conversations for fear that their conversations will be tapped.
"Do you remember the cat stories during the bush days? The rebels used it effectively and people lived in perpetual fear of shadows," said the MP.
He said the government might not have the capacity to have the mechanism in place though it exists.
However, there is evidence that phone tapping exists and it is done in such a manner that if well executed, even the source, physical location and length of time can be known.
In Russia and most of Western Europe countries, it is a very common practise.
It is said that the government of Uganda purchased its first equipment from Russia.
A security source told The Monitor that there's no myth in phone tapping or bugging as they call it technically.
Others believe that short of collusion with service providers, State House cannot have the ability to bug phones.
Otherwise it would need government to invest in expensive satellite software to tap phone conversations to intercept the mobile phone conversations.
But Americans do it in the name of interception Intelligence Newsletter
An American based intelligence publication, wrote in its January 25, 2001 edition that,
"Eavesdropping operations by the National Security Agency (NSA) at its stations in Uganda and Rwanda are said to have put the FBI in a particularly uncomfortable position."
Mr Wayne Madsen an acclaimed investigative journalist, and former NSA employee, wrote before the investigations on congressional hearings on the situation in the DR Congo on November 29, 2001 that: "In particular, the NSA maintained a communications intercept station at Fort Portal, Uganda, which intercepted military and government communications in Zaire during the first Rwandan invasion in that country."
This simply means that tapping is not a myth. Mr Askan Schmeisser, the sales manager at Uganda telecom said that in this present information technology, anything is possible.
"The Americans do it, so anybody can do it. The question is how best can one do it?" he asked.
But he said that if anyone is doing it, he or she does not have the blessing of utl.
Celtel spokesman, Mr George Mutagubya declined to comment on the issue. Most interestingly, the Ugandan laws do not allow it.
According to the communications and electronic media act of 1997, the service providers can only avail such access and information to the government only on court order.
And this is for security and judicial purposes only. There should be satisfactory grounds.
A source in Uganda Law Society (ULS) said that Ogwal could petition ULS for violation of her rights.
And if the fiery MP's words are anything to go by and she proceeds to drag the president into the courts of law, we are destined to see one of the landmark cases in Uganda.
