A Home Ministry order designating 10 central agencies to intercept and monitor information in electronic devices triggered a political firestorm on Friday after the opposition flagged down the government order as “extremely worrisome”. Soon, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee also waded into the controversy and appeared to suggest that this was “dangerous”.

The government order listing 10 central agencies such as the Intelligence Bureau, CBI and the income tax department had been issued a day earlier under a 2009 rule under the information technology law.

The notification by the home ministry’s cyber and information security wing, signed by home secretary RK Gauba, authorises the 10 agencies to intercept, monitor and decrypt any information generated, transmitted, received or stored in any computer.

Senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel tweeted his reservations about the government’s move along with a copy of the order. “The sweeping powers given to agencies to snoop phone calls and computers without any checks and balances is extremely worrisome. This is likely to be misused,” he said, describing the order as a “direct assault on civil liberties and personal freedom of citizens”.

P Chidambaram, who was the Union Home Minister in 2009 when the rule invoked by the NDA government was brought in, said he hadn’t studied the fresh order. “But if anybody is going to monitor computers, then it is an Orwellian state,” he said, according to news agency ANI.

Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala linked the government order to the BJP’s loss of three states in the recently-concluded assembly elections and described it as a violation of the Fundamental Rights of citizens. “Having lost elections, now Modi Govt wants to scan/snoop YOUR computers? ‘Big Brother Syndrome’ is truly embedded in NDA’s DNA!” he tweeted.

Under the IT Act, the 10 notified agencies can be ordered to intercept any information transmitted through any computer resource, if required for the country’s sovereignty and integrity, security, friendly relations with a foreign power, preventing incitement for committing an offence and to maintain public order

Apart from the IB, CBI and tax department, the other agencies empowered to intercept include Narcotics Control Bureau, Enforcement Directorate, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, National Investigation Agency, Research and Analysis Wing and Delhi Police Commissioner. The armed forces’ Directorate of Signal Intelligence will also have this power for its operations in Jammu and Kashmir, North-East and Assam.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee wondered why the government had issued the fresh order if it was only for national security.

“Blanket surveillance is bad in law,” she said, and asked people to give their opinion about the move.

“If it is for National Security, then only for that purpose Central Government already has the machinery. But, why all commoners will be affected? Public Opinion please...,” she said.

Trinamool Congress MP Derek O’Brien tweeted: “If you use a computer, read this. Snoop. Snoop”.

MIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi said this signified “George Orwell’s Big Brother is here”

“(Prime Minister Narendra) Modi has used a simple Government Order to permit our national agencies to snoop on our communications. Who knew that this is what they meant when they said ‘ghar ghar Modi’,” he said in a tweet.

First Published: Dec 21, 2018 12:01 IST