Sunday,
October 15, 2006
Italians Sweat over "Snooping" on
Drugs and Loose Talk
The
ANNOTICO Report
When
a satirical television show conducted surreptitious in person drug tests on
Italian MPs last week, they embarrassed parliament and thrust
Telephone
intercepts, an essential tool for police and a source of many press stories,
also came in for scrutiny.
Italians
love to talk and the country has the highest level of mobile phone ownership in
But
indiscreet chat kept newspaper readers entertained this summer, as evidence of
football match-fixing and the exchange of sexual favours
for jobs at state broadcaster RAI emerged.
Juventus director general Luciano Moggi was betrayed by his
candour in some 100,000 calls made over eight months
on his four phones. [RAA: Eight months is 240 days divided into 100,000 = 4,000
calls per day divided by 16 hours = 250 calls
per hour = 4 calls per minute= a call every 15 seconds NON STOP. Do you think
there is a typo there????]
Prince
Victor Emmanuel of
Whereas, Bernardo Provenzano, the
recently arrested Mafia boss, knew the score. He shunned modern
technology, preferring to write coded messages on scraps of paper known as
pizzini. The FBI is still trying to break
his code.
ITALIANS
SWEAT OVER DRUGS AND LOOSE TALK
Sunday Herald
From Philip Willani
In
October 15, 2006
WHEN
journalists from
a satirical television show conducted surreptitious drug tests on Italian MPs
last week, they embarrassed parliament and thrust
The politicians
had been duped into parting with a sample of sweat from their brow by a
journalist posing as a make-up artist, while his colleague pretended to canvas
their opinions on the forthcoming budget. The controversy was heightened when
the independent Privacy Commission banned transmission of the report, which had
been due to air on a television channel owned by former prime
minister Silvio Berlusconi.
It wasnt so much the violation of the MPs privacy
the commission objected to the
swabs had been put together in one container, making it impossible to identify
individuals as the underhand and
illegal method used to gather the samples, said one member. If the show had been
allowed, it would have set a precedent for other illegal tests, such as secret
health tests on job applicants.
It was hard not
to conclude that the MPs rights had been given special treatment, though,
when the programme went ahead with a report on drug
use among club-goers. Tests were conducted on urine samples taken from the
mens toilet of a disco: the dancers outdid the MPs drug use but there
seemed much less concern for their privacy rights.
The case caused
cross-party confusion and much mirth, with the granddaughter of Benito
Mussolini, the right-wing MP Alessandra, claiming the Privacy Commissions
intervention threatened fundamental democratic freedoms, while a leading
lawmaker called for compulsory drug tests on all his colleagues.
With the TV
journalists thwarted over the MPs, things went better last week for one of
their print colleagues. A judge in the northern town of
The prosecutors
had confiscated Carlo Boninis computer and
cloned its hard disk after he used it to send a report on the alleged CIA
kidnap of an Egyptian cleric in
Signals have been
more mixed over telephone intercepts, an essential tool for police and a source
of many press stories. Italians love to talk and the country has the highest
level of mobile phone ownership in
Juventus director general Luciano Moggi was betrayed by his candour
in some 100,000 calls made over eight months on his four phones.
Prince Victor
Emmanuel of
Highlights of
some of those frank conversations have been published in Hello, Whos
Spying? The Black Book Of Telephone Intercepts. But the book may be the last,
as the government has passed a law requiring the destruction of illegally
obtained intercepts and threatening to fine newspapers up to 1 million for unauthorised publication of private calls.
Bernardo Provenzano, the recently arrested Mafia boss, knew the
score. He shunned modern technology, preferring to write coded messages on
scraps of paper known as pizzini. The FBI
is still trying to break his code, believed to be based on his well-used copy
of the Bible.
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