The unbearable absurdity of listening to 7,000 people
The Star and Yeni Şafak newspapers, both known for their closeness to the government, ran the same headline on Monday. Both papers alleged that telephones belonging to 7,000 people have been tapped as part of the “Selam Terör Örgütü” (Tawhid-Salam Terrorist Organization) investigation.
If this is true, it is terrible. It is a horrifying idea that telephone wiretapping may have become this pervasive and reckless. I would say, “This all needs to be accounted for.” But when I consider that Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan uses tapes obtained from illegal wiretapping during his speeches at meetings, it all seems meaningless. In fact, a demand for accountability -- especially in an atmosphere where the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) has been authorized to carry out unlimited wiretappings and file-keeping on individual citizens -- might even seem absurd.
Anyway, let’s swivel our focus to the actual contents of the news. Somehow, the allegations just don’t make sense. It doesn’t seem believable that so many people, whose paths have never even crossed, would all be stuffed into the same “sack,” and listened to. A tip of the hat to the genius who thought of pairing Şule Perinçek with Yusuf Ziya Cömert, or Sebahat Tuncel with İbrahim Karagül, all in the same file!
What is even funnier is the idea of tapping the phones of Defne Samyeli and Ertuğrul Özkök as part of the investigation into Tawhid-Salam, the name of which came up in connection with the assassination of journalist Uğur Mumcu. If they had to make something up, at least it could have been a more middle-of-the-road organization. The inclusion of real names in the files is another strange aspect of the claims. MİT, when it listened in on the directors of the Taraf newspaper, had used code names like “Quaramaddin Fatimi” and “Pastör” for the individuals whose phones they had tapped. So those who know even just a bit about the procedures involved here are laughing at this news. When we look at the regulations involved, the true impossibility of having tapped the phones of 7,000 people in this case becomes more apparent.
In the news about this tapping, we hear about the names and file numbers of two prosecutors alleged to be a part of the greater “parallel” structure at hand. But even someone with a newspaper-level familiarity with the law knows that a prosecutor’s decision is not enough to authorize tapping. According to the Article 135 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK), prosecutors can render this decision in urgent situations, but the decision must be approved by a judge within 24 hours. And never mind if you’ve got the prosecutor and judge on your side; tapping a telephone for three years is not possible. The law says, “Permission is granted for three months, and can be extended one time at most.” In situations of organized crime, this time can be extended, but only one month at a time, to make sure proper controls and supervision are in place.
In other words, even when prosecutors are doing as much as they are allowed, they still have to obtain a judge’s permission at least 30 times over three years.
This is not all though. An even more difficult process awaits potential tappers at the Telecommunications Directorate (TİB). One can only head to the door of TİB accompanied by a judge’s written decision that clarifies the “type of crime, the identity of the person whose phone is to be tapped, the telephone number or code in question, as well the type and length of ‘precaution’ to be taken.” If TİB finds any of the aforementioned legal requirements missing in any sense, permission will not be granted, and tapping cannot occur.
The TİB head at that time was Fethi Şimşek, much trusted by the government, and someone who at one time had been the head public prosecutor for Ankara. So this really isn’t business that two lone prosecutors could take on by themselves. (As it is, the two prosecutors in question here have sharply denied these allegations.)
So just as these newspapers do not seem to be able to grasp the law, their take on mathematics is not very strong. To tap the phone of 7,000 people -- let’s say 20 conversations each -- that would mean 140 hours of talk a day, which would ultimately mean some tens of thousands of hours. Just think about what sort of army you would have to gather to get this task done. And don’t say that it could be done with computers; after all, this could maybe work with a small group of people that have shared traits, but which key words would you use to find 7,000 people that have no links with one another? For example, if your key words were “villa” and “bidding tender,” the same people would always come up. In which case, the remaining 6,950 people would have been listened in on for nothing. Another contradiction that appears over and over in the news on this story is the allegation that this was all done “secretly.”
In the fight against telephone wiretapping, it is baseless news that does the most harm. Leaders of states of law must always question wiretapping when it occurs. With this particular piece of news, it is clear that there is an attempt at hand to convince the public to accept the MİT draft law. But we are in big trouble if we have to face a legal memorandum for every law.
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