KATHMANDU: Nepali Congress lawmaker NP Saud has warned that the government’s draft bill on the National Investigation Department (Intelligence) would violate constitutional guarantees of privacy if passed into law.
Speaking during zero hour at Wednesday’s meeting of the House of Representatives, Saud said the proposed legislation would allow the government to control, monitor, and tap citizens’ phone calls, messages, and other communications, a move he argued goes against the spirit of the constitution.
According to Saud, granting the intelligence agency legal authority to record, archive, or tap into private lives, especially given its lack of a transparent track record, would severely damage the image of the constitution as a defender of personal freedoms.
He stressed that while counterintelligence and domestic security operations are important for national safety, such powers should be exercised within judicial oversight and with due regard for constitutional rights.
“I draw the government’s attention to ensure that this bill, and others of its kind, adhere to constitutional principles,” he said.
Saud also cited British author George Orwell’s 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, which depicts an authoritarian regime’s pervasive surveillance and control over thought, warning of the dangers of a “Big Brother” state.
In the book, Orwell describes how state control over information, history, and language strips citizens of the ability to think freely and live independently.
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