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Fearing surveillance, CBI’s 2G probe team seeks Blackberry

CBI officials probing the 2G spectrum scandal suspect their mobile phones might be under surveillance by the very mobile phone companies they are probing.

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CBI officials probing the 2G spectrum scandal suspect their mobile phones might be under surveillance by the very mobile phone companies they are probing.

They believe that the telecom companies have an obvious interest in listening to their conversations and reading their messages.

So, the 2G probe team of the CBI’s anti-corruption branch has put up a request for 16 new “Blackberry mobile phones”.

It is not yet known whether the request was triggered by any specific intelligence input, or is a precautionary move, but the CBI is learnt be taking the matter very seriously. Leak of Niira Radia’s tapped phone conversations has only strengthened the CBI’s suspicions of a possible involvement of an “outside” hand.

“Our probe is against some of the biggest telecom operators of the country. Listening to the developments in the probe and our strategy will certainly be of great interest to them,” a senior CBI official said.

The CBI apprehending surveillance is amusing, serious and ironic. This is, perhaps, the first time that a top probe agency has had to encounter such fears — and serious because of the implications on the investigation.

This is also ironic as the government had not long ago threatened Blackberry with a ban if it did not compromise with its privacy policy and give the government access to its technology.

The CBI feels that two services of Blackberry —Messenger and Enterprise Server Services — cannot be intercepted by any mobile phone service provider.

“Text messages and emails sent through Blackberry are safe. Considering the high secrecy we have to maintain during probe, we have made a proposal for 16 Blackberry mobile phones,” an official added.

Besides, the CBI officials also plan to switch to the state-owned MTNL or BSNL. “At present, most of our officials are using mobile phone connections of private telecom operators. And all those telecom operators are under our purview of investigation. It gives them easy access to our conversations. We are also thinking of using government telecom operators,” he added.

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