We does real forget yuh know ...
Himself Still Investigating HimselfPosted on June 17, 2013 by The Pantomime
Despite the AG’s bold and brave response to Opposition Leader Rowley a few weeks ago in Parliament that the emails were fraudulent and he (and his govt) have nothing to hide; all the actions thus far of both him and his Prime Minister are forcing me to draw a different conclusion: like people have cocoa in the sun?
In the aftermath of Rowley’s allegations, instead of the government listening to the requests of
the population and calling for an independent investigation and stepping aside, they have instead asked Mervyn Richardson, the man responsible for investigating Assassination Gate, who is on contract, to spearhead another investigation involving Kamla and the AG.
And if it wasn’t bad enough that we have a police officer with questionable investigative skills leading the investigation, the AG and the PM are now trying to influence and thwart the investigation at every stage of the game.
Thus far we have had:
1. Richardson seizing Rowley’s compute: I can only assume it is to ascertain that Rowley didn’t create the typed transcripts himself. Yet he didn’t seize the printer to examine it to see if the documents were printed from it…because you do know printers have their own identification marks…..Richardson baffles me, he truly does. Mind you he hasn’t seized any computers from the AG, the PM, Suruj Rambachan of Gary Griffith just yet.
2. The AG paying two local IT persons to produce reports to say the typed e-mails are fake.
3. Kamla Persad-Bissessar, through her lawyer Israel Khan hiring a foreign IT Expert, Jon Berryhill, to say that the documents presented in Parliament by Rowley are fake. Mind you in his report he does say: “The authenticity of an e-mail message requires corroborating information from multiple sources. “If the authenticity of an e-mail is in question, a single-source printed copy would never be sufficient to resolve the issue,” it added. “The analysis of printed e-mails in the absence of other data can never prove its authenticity.”
4. The PM refusing to have her data devices examined unless she and her attorney are present. So much for a free and fair investigation by the police.
So, unless Persad-Bissessar and Ramlogan provided a digital archive for Berryhill to sift through how on earth can we know what is or isn’t authentic?
The saddening thing is the government will continue to interfere with this investigation and try to influence its course.
We have had Anand and Kamla bring in local and foreign experts. What next? A keynote address from a Steve Jobs hologram to say Apple thinks the e-mails are fake based on typed transcripts?
And while they are busy trying to skewer this investigation they are also fighting the Integrity Commission on another front. And making much of the meeting between Rowley and Gordon. If it’s that problematic then replace the chairperson, Kamla…but stop tampering with the investigation. And stop investigating yourself so publicly. It isn’t solving anything for anyone.
To the members of the media, I truly hope you ask Mr Berryhill the right questions:
1. What were his instructions? To form a view on the authenticity of the document handed to him or the method to authenticate the existence of the emails?
2. If his job was just to examine the printed documents, then what is the point of his report and investigation?
3. If he had access to digital files, why was he given access and not the police who are investigating?
4. Did he access reports from Google, Microsoft and TSTT, and if so, through what channels.
5. Why are the PM and AG investigating Emailgate themselves? Are they attempting to pervert the course of justice and influence the outcome of this case?
See Kamla and Anand, your hope is that the public either too stupid or too tribally loyal to ask the right questions. But we see this for what it is….whether or not those emails are true….you and your government are acting very guilty.
Pity the Law Association, DPP, President and Chief Justice wont step forward and tell the Silkened AG and PM to cease and desist. Because it seems that the silkened twins are attempting to pervert the course of justice and no one is pulling them up. Pity too that Herbert Volney of all people seems to be the most sensible voice in this enter fiasco.
Step Down and Step Aside AG and PM….or else I might start to think you’ve got something to hide.
Like we heading to Perversion of Justice in Full Dotish Mode!
Distract and DiscreditPosted on June 15, 2013 by The Pantomime
Ever since the last Motion of No Confidence wherein Keith
Rowley revealed the possibility of an exchange of emails between 3 senior government officials and their favourite lap dog, Kamla’s Fete Match Side has been in Distract and Discredit Mode…..going at Full Dotish pace too.
The discovery that Rowley and chairman of the IC had a twenty-minute meeting at Gordon’s private home to discuss whether or not Emailgate was a matter before the IC has played itself nicely into the government’s hands as yet another tool to discredit the validity of the alleged e-mails; and now, to discredit the IC and perhaps avoid going the route of an independent investigation. And while they aren’t in the wrong to question the occurrence of the meeting, the irony of this government querying private meetings is too rich. And it’s so obvious that their tactic will now be to use this meeting to avoid what the public and Opposition has been clamouring for: an independent investigation.
It didn’t take the AG more than a hot minute after Roodal Moonilal’s announcement of the
meeting in Parliament – complete with side (and snide) comments from the PM egging him on – to imply that Chairman Ken Gordon was compromised. And if you have followed the fate of this Integrity Commission it is always mired in mud and controversy….from inception. The Government knows well that the country has little faith in it; and further that UNC supporters will use any excuse to blame and label anyone and anything as PNM…..and so, a private meeting about a public matter between the Opposition Leader and the chairman of the IC takes on a particularly questionable face.
You would think that seasoned men and politicians like Rowley and Gordon would be incapable of what is obviously a very rookie move. You’d also think that Rowley, fully aware of how the last Prime Minister shot himself in the foot would avoid moves that so remind one of Patrick Manning for its abject carelessness. You would think too that Rowley by now would realise that because he is a very black Tobagonian (yes, I said it…there is a lot of colour prejudice involved here where Rowley is concerned) he is always held up to a different and much higher standard by both PNM supporters and the rest of the country.
It is unfortunate, but that is the truth of it.
You would also think too that UNC supporters and Government ministers would have less to say about public meetings being kept in private homes when:
1. Cabinet Meetings are held in the Prime Ministers home regularly.
2. The last emergency meeting to determine what happened to a Government Minister and MP was held in the Prime Minister’s home.
3. The State of Emergency was announced from the PM’s private home.
4. Budgets announcements are made from UNC political rally stages
5. The Prime Minister – a public official – works from her home and keeps sensitive and important public material there.
For the last 3 years protocol and good sense have been tossed to the wind, and because there is no Constitutional law that prevents it, the Prime Minister has gotten away with administrative murder.
Mind you, Gordon and the IC ensured there was an aide memoire that recorded the meeting. I wonder if we ever get minutes of Kamla’s private Cabinet meetings?
The AG’s hounding of the Integrity Commission’s Chairman today will have an impact on Emailgate.
Two days ago the AG announced rather loudly that he was recusing himself from Emailgate. He was handing over the investigation to the Central Authority, a body that falls within his Office of the Attorney General and headed by Netram Kowlessar. The AG has pointed out that the Central Authority is independent. My concern now is how independent is Kowlessar: a man who first shot to public attention as a member of the Anti-Kidnapping Squad in 2002, thereafter became a defence attorney and after a handful of cases was appointed by this regime as the head of the Central Authority. I’m concerned. I hope in his case it was merit and not cronyism that got him the job.
Having now raised questions about the integrity of Ken Gordon and the independence of the Commission itself, I feel quite certain that any call for an independent investigation into Emailgate by an Integrity Commission will be shot down by the AG and his government using this meeting as the reason.
I continue to maintain that the only thing that will lay Emailgate to rest is an independent investigation that allows us to get at DIGITAL files……but in the meantime we do have a by-election in Chaguanas West to entertain and distract us, not so?
De Vice Cyah Done!
Himself Investigating HimselfPosted on June 9, 2013 by The Pantomime
I’ve been watching Emailgate evolve, because I really wanted to see if the PP Govt would actually launch an independent unhindered investigation….and Kamla and her Small Goal squad haven’t let me down.
Today’s Express story should get you angry…because we have yet another instant of the Attorney General interfering with an investigation.
The AG says the emails are fake.Now In a serious and sensible country lemme tell you what would have happened.
1. The investigation would have been suruj in orange shirthanded over to an independent body. If not, it certainly wouldnt be put into the hands of a police officer whose credibility is already compromised in the public’s mind and who is on contract with the Police Service and therefore dependent on the good will of others for his job to be renewed.
2. The investigators would be attempting to determine if the PHYSICAL TRANSCRIPTS that Dr Rowley produced actually have DIGITAL versions. Not the BS we have been getting over the past weeks of people looking at type written pages to determine whether they are real or not. There is NO WAY you can determine if the e-mails are real from typed pages. Instead, what is needed is an expert in Forensic IT, someone who can tests the computers/cellphones/ipads etc of the various parties involved to find the corresponding digital files.
Instead we have Kamla, Anand and Suruj making asses of candidate_keith-rowley-lgthrough Richardson. To date the only computer he has seized is Rowley’s. Is Rowley’s name on the e-mail thread? Then why was his computer seized? Why haven’t the computing devices of the folks named in the email threads seized?
Why are typed pages the only thing being examined by Richardson?
Is Richardson trying to make this investigation fail?
3. If I am to believe everything written in that Express story today, then it seems too that the AG is spearheading this investigation. The Office of the AG doesn’t have the power to investigate an alleged crime…that is the DPP’s job, yet here we have a case of Ramlogan not only providing a statement, but:
1. Drawing a conclusion in his official statement, while a matter is still under investigation.
2. Hiring his own “experts” and paying them to produce a report that says typed pages are not the real emails. Is a court case going on that we don’t know about? Why are experts being paid to give evidence? Why are experts being hired to examine typed pages?
How can a public official who is under investigation be leading and influencing the investigation? Is that legal? Is it ethical?
Why is it that the Police investigation refuses to do the first practical thing and seize the computing devices of the persons named on the email thread and have the email archives for these people retrieved and checked?
In short….why is the Investigation being done Ass Backwards?
Is it that the Government wants it to fail?
Is it that Kamla and Co have something to hide?
Why wont President Anthony Carmona appoint a new board at Ken Gordon the Integrity Commission so the public has the chance to call for an independent investigation? The powers we think he have disappear?
Full steam ahead in Full Dotish Mode!
#Keep Calm and Change Yuh Password!Posted on May 23, 2013 by The Pantomime
Three days ago Keith Rowley had my jaw on the floor….three days later it’s still there, but for entirely different reasons.
By now you’ve heard about EmailGate, or as I like to call it: Keep Calm and Change Yuh PassWord!
Opposition Leader Keith Rowley lead another No Confidence Motion against Kamla and her Motley Crew, this time levelling allegations that were nothing short of criminal against the Prime Minister, the AG, the Minister of Labour, Works, The Kitchen, The Kitchen Sink Toute Bagai and everyone’s favourite lapdog and baggage carrier, Gallery Griffith.
According to 30+ email exchanges read out by Rowley in Parliament on Monday, the PM and AG were well aware of the implications of S34, and were so pissed off at the diligence of reporter Denyse Renne, and DPP Roger Gaspard that they were conspiring to tap the phones of the DPP’s office, offer him a position on the judiciary as a bribe, and were considering doing harm to Ms Renne.
At the centre of this latest political shitstorm seemed to be the AG…or rather, his email accounts. One appeared to be
anan@gmail.com while the other was a TSTT address.
Much ado was made about whether or not a person can have an email address shorter than 6 symbols in Parliament…had any of the MPs on either side of the house deigned to use their Ipads to conduct a Google search (see what I did there?) they would have gotten the answer in quick time and spared me sighing heavily at the monstrous stupidity of the proceedings. But you see, the last three days showed me in blatant terms how little we know about technologyin this country…and further how little we know about using it to build a case.
Dr Rowley took a massive gamble accusing the government of conspiring against the office of the DPP and conspiring to harm a citizen of the country with just a pile of transcripts. To have pulled it off successfully what was required were digital files or actual screen shots of the e-mails so that the members of the doubting public would have irrefutable proof, create a significant hue and cry and catapult the powers into action.
In Rowley being the accuser, he had to realise that the burden of proof fell on him, and like the proverbial victim in a rape case, it was he who was on trial and not the perpetrator of the act of violation….unless of course, he playing coy and allowing the PP to hang themselves with their exuberance. But, again, even that is risky, unless he holding all the trump in his hands.Without those digital files it all boiled down to playing the blame game….yet again. It is a game the country has been caught up in for the past 3 years and it has gotten old and tired. Despite the numerous scandals and missteps this government has gotten itself embroiled in, this Motion of No Confidence had the potential to land a PM, an AG and a senior government Minister in jail had it been handled right.
Now, three days later, with Keith pointing fingers and Kamla sticking out her tongue and saying prove it, we have the country right back where it started…wondering who lying. And all of this just mere months away from a Local Government Elections and a By-Elections.
Ironically enough, it is Rowley who may be hardest hit from this, because once again the question of the type of leader he will be is raised. In fact, Kamla had a ball with that question in Parliament today..and showed us just how petty and vindictive she can be.
The further irony is that with some team work from his small bench of MPs, the Opposition could have come out looking better. Instead, with the formidable Mr Imbert missing they seemed unprepared to properly discuss and dissect the implications of an electronic paper trail of a conspiracy.
You see, while it is possible for the email accounts of 4 people to be hacked and controlled remotely….it is impossible for the owners of these email accounts to not notice the emails that are being sent to and from their accounts…unless they were never checking them. And if, as the AG admits, the TSTT account is his primary account, then surely he should have noticed all of those e-mails moving back and forth…unless they want us to believe that they don’t check email at all and Keith was controlling 4 accounts remotely and e-mailing himself all hours of the day and night through their accounts.
See, here’s my take on where these e-mails came from…and I am using myself as an example.
I have a tablet and a smart phone….I have all of my email accounts stored on both devices. If I lost a device I’d have to change the password on all of the accounts through my computer or another smart device, and hope that my files weren’t all saved to the device’s internal memory storage. If I bought a new device like say a smart phone, I’d have to make sure I wiped the old phone before selling it or giving it away….something tells me that a device from one of the persons got lost, stolen, sold or misplaced….and friends of the Opposition got their hands on it and got the information.
Given that the starring figure in all of these e-mails seems to be the AG….I’m willing to bet it is either his blackberry or tablet…..I’d faster go with phone because so many messages were sent late in the night and were one liners….the larger a device is, the more we type. We tend to keep our phones on or close to us late at nights. Also, on phonse we tend to send quick, one-line responses.
If Stephen Williams wasn’t such a compromised Commissioner of Police, if we had a serious cyber crimes unit here, if the Integrity Commission actually functioned and if the President had the power he thinks he has….there would be an independent investigation and the first thing to be done would be to confiscate the devices of these individuals and to ask their email hosts for transcripts on the dates Rowley gave….
But this was a rape trial. Rowley accused them of freaking us over….it was up to him to prove there was unwanted penetration…and before he managed to accomplish that in Parliament…he pulled out.
Keep Calm and Change Yuh Password!
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