THE Senate yesterday passed the bill formalising procedures for the use of wiretaps, and members urged that it be used by law enforcement to bring down drug traffickers and political dons.

“I hope the enforcement takes into account the dons,” said independent senator, Professor Trevor Munroe. “But in addition to the dons, enforcement needs to also deal with the drug kingpins, who are not downtown dons.”

Those drug traffickers who may otherwise be regarded as respectable citizens have to be “exposed and brought to justice”, Munroe added.

The wiretap law allows the security forces to apply to a Supreme Court judge for an order to intercept the electronic communication of people suspected of involvement in drug trafficking and terrorism, murder, treason, kidnapping or abduction, gun-running and money laundering.

Prior to this, there was no legislation regulating wiretaps and the authorisation for bugging people’s telephones came from the prime minister after a submission from the national security minister, following a request from the security forces.

The administration moved to change the system after the scandal in 2000 when a civilian-led intelligence group that operated within the police organised crime unit apparently went on a freelance wire-tapping spree. A number of politicians were alleged to have been among the people whose telephone conversations were intercepted.

The intelligence group’s head, Roderick (Jimmy) McGregor, having first denied it, later admitted to the illegal wiretaps.

During yesterday’s debate, Opposition Senator Oswald Harding argued that the law was likely to be an effective tool in helping to combat the country’s high level of murders, particularly those which were the result of political terrorism.

“I think that (because of) party political terrorism … and the movement of drugs through this country, the state has got to do things to get intelligence,” Harding said, in supporting the law. “There is a whole range of (crimes) that emanate from that kind of activity, (like) murders (and) money laundering.”

He added: “Don’t tell me that the authorities and the hierarchy in the police don’t know who these dons are. Does the Jamaican government have the will to lock up the dons? It seems that if we do that, the murder rate will go down.”

But even as there was strong support for the use of wiretaps, some members also cautioned against abuse, fearing its use beyond the requirement of legitimate law enforcement activities.

“A wiretap must never be allowed merely to ‘search’ for crime by tapping into innocent conversations,” urged government member, Fred Hamaty.

According to Hamaty, research by civil liberties groups in the United States, where wiretaps are widely used, showed that they resulted in a 17 per cent success rate in finding incriminating evidence.

However, 80 per cent of the time what was intercepted were innocent conversations, a concern that was also raised by Opposition Senator Brian Wallace.