Of Sacrificing Civil Liberties and Incompetence of Sri Lankan Security Structures

I was at the Sri Lanka Press Institute the whole of last week, attending a workshop on advanced photo journalism conducted by Fojo. Since I’m a wannabe photographer, I was eagerly looking forward to this and the whole experience was worth it.

I’ve been into the arts of the lenses for just over two years now. It’s something I accidentally stumbled upon, and as a follower and believer of Citizen Journalism, it is something I have a passion towards. And looking at how open information sharing is gaining pace, and how waves (or trees) of SMS bring breaking news around the country, I strongly believe that Citizen Journalism is the way forward.

And this is where I get pissed off. First it was prohibiting recordings with a video camera, which led to an incident where a friend had to spend a night detained. Then came the time when taking a picture with a “professional” camera was wrong. You’d find yourself surrounded by dozens of civilians and police officers if you tried to take a photograph with any camera bigger than a fist. Then came all cameras, and now it’s a state where all kinds of photography is explicitly or implicitly prohibited.

I checked with a law-student friend of mine, and then with a couple of lawyers. Apparently, the only laws governing photography in Sri Lanka are the ones relating to privacy and obscenity. And depending on the circumstances, regulations relating to security may also apply.

This brings me to the oft asked question: Up to what extent are we willing to sacrifice our civil liberties in the name of public security? I have photos and videos of Tony Blair leaving the House of Commons, photos taken with the Senegalese Military, and photos of Pakistani and Indian military structures. Did security personnel see me at these places with a “big” camera? Yes. Was I ever detained? No. The Senegalese were more than happy to have all four of us pose with them one at a time.

Do we have to undergo the tortures simply because the Sri Lankan security structure is not competent enough to “uphold national security”? I understand that taking pictures of a high profile location can pose a threat, but in this day and age of Google Earth and Wikimapia available for anybody and everybody, intelligence gathering for a specific location is made much easier. And an operative who is gathering information for an attack or any other non-peaceful cause is highly unlikely to whip out a camera for the whole public to see.

In my view, what is reflected in these policies is the understanding of the utter incompetence of the national security structures. As Dr. Rohan Gunaratna points out, Sri Lanka has several major flaws in it’s intelligence and counter-intelligence structures. He goes on to say “It is vital to recruit qualified intelligence officers to the service and ensure continuity of service of intelligence officers. Once the Government changes we shouldn`t change or remove the intelligence officers engaged in counter terrorism”.

At the end of it, all of us seem to be sacrificing out civil liberties and fundamental rights at the altar of National Defence, because the defence sector is run by a couple of nincompoops who have a backup plan in sunny Florida.