Dr Peter Phillips, the former security minister, suggests that Jamaica, in the context of technological advance and the acknowledged efficacy of wiretapping in crime fighting, should perhaps consider adjusting its laws covering communication intercepts.

"Technology is facing us head-on and is coming at us at a very rapid rate," Dr Phillips told this newspaper. "The law enforcement and the legislation governing the operations have to keep pace with the technological changes and be relevant in a new technological environment."

We agree.

Although it is only four years since Parliament codified the former ad hoc arrangements for wiretaps in the Interception of Communications Act, it is perhaps not too early for a review of the law to determine how it has worked and how it might be improved to enhance national security without a wholesale trampling on people's constitutional right to communicate freely and in privacy.

Put another way, we have to find a proper balance between the use of all available tools in responding to the violent criminality threatening to overwhelm the Jamaican state, while maintaining more than a shell of democracy.

In the current law, for example, there is, it appears to us, need for clarification/precision in at least one area that might improve efficiency in its use by law enforcement and the judiciary.

An application for a warrant to intercept communication is made ex parte by an authorised person to a judge in chambers. That request is in writing - except in an emergency, when the judge may take an oral argument so long as the documents follow within 72 hours - and outlines the bases on which the plea is made and why other investigative techniques are not being advanced to get the information.

cellphones and gang leaders

It should be made clear in the law that any such application against an individual would cover his several modes of communication, rather than, say, a single telephone. Indeed, today's gang leader is likely to operate telephones operating through various networks. He perhaps changes SIM cards on a whim.

It would, therefore, be impractical, if not improbable, to apply for separate warrants for each instrument and its specific networks. The law, therefore, needs to acknowledge these peculiarities and specifically allow for omnibus warrants.

While we are aware of the great potential of communication intercepts to help Jamaica grapple with its serious crime and security problems, we are also aware of the dangers of abuse - a fact implicitly acknowledged by the law. For example, the legislation limits to 90 days the initial period for an intercept - with the right of the authorities to seek extension. It also requires that the judge be satisfied that the authorities do not merely act on a whim in their request and sets out relatively precise ways in which the acquired information may or may not be used.

What, though, is glaring in the legislation, is a lack of oversight. There is no clear mechanism to determine whether, at the expiry of a warrant, an intercept is maintained without a judge's order; or if, as is required, information not relevant to a proceeding is destroyed. Yet, there are sanctions for such breaches.

There appears to be need for an oversight body that conducts periodic inventories of the intercept orders granted and whether they are executed in accordance with the law.