Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

14 October  2020

 

 

ICAC Phone Tapping & Wikileaks

We in New South Wales learnt this week about the private life of our Premier who has not been found guilty of serious wrongdoing. It did not seem right in a nation whose sovereignty is highly valued. Does the government have the authority to listen to the private conversations of its  People, leave alone publishing it. If yes, then no government has the moral authority to punish those who tap into its communication systems. I find the ICAC revelations immoral. It had the moral authority to release parts that were relevant to one who is proven to have cheated but not others. The pathway seems like that of cowards who do not have the skills to find objective evidence.

We recently had the parallel in Northern Sri Lanka. In his Tamil Mirror article of 08 October, headed ‘Tamil-parties-to-learn-political-morality’, Johnsan Bastiampillai raises this issue in relation to lawyer-politician Visvalingam Manivannan’s conversation with his party leader Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam being tapped. The details as per my understanding were published recently through social media. Members of the Australian Tamil community who ‘accept’ such ‘eavesdropping’ are likely to be entertained by the revelations of private life of their leader in government. This in turn leads to expressing themselves loosely in unstructured ways which are weak in self-control. Stealing information during normal times, confirms lack of moral authority. In a ‘free’ environment it produces its heirs in the People. That is the way of Truth. Wikileaks is one such heir and we now know that the Australian government produced that heir.

Which measure is used to allocate rights and wrongs is as important as ‘facts’ to which they are applied. Using the measure that we do not believe in amounts to judging on the basis of hearsay. Information gathered through eavesdropping is frivolous unless it is embedded in objective evidence – in which instance it confidentially supports the visible evidence.

That is the moral way. Transparency and Confidentiality oppose each other. If they are shown at the same time – the outcome is false.