K/News engages in BLACKMAIL to intimidate persons
- using illegally amassed private information as trump card
THERE has been a great debacle within the media recently, concerning the illegal tapping, distortion and manipulation of a conversation between the Attorney General (AG) of Guyana Anil Nandlall and a senior reporter of Kaieteur News Leonard Gildarie. While many critics have been swift to condemn the conversation that was attributed to the AG, those same critics have been silent on the trespasses and violations made by the Kaieteur News, more specifically its publisher Glenn Lall, who made public the recording and lodged a copy of same with the Police.Even though the Government highlighted the illegality of Kaieteur News, recording and distorting a private conversation of one of its ministers, not much heed has been paid to the impunity with which the Kaieteur News has been invading the fundamental right of persons to their privacy, unhindered. A right that if circumvented will damage the very fabric that constitutes the pillars of an ordered society.
These underpinnings of the Glenn Lall’s refusal to respect that fundamental right to the sanctity of privacy, has started to unravel itself. It is now in the public domain that Lall has in his possession illegal recordings of members of the Judiciary, the Diplomatic sector, other Government functionaries, the business community and members of the combined Opposition – A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance For Change (AFC).
Speaking to this newspaper under the condition of anonymity, out of fear of being targeted, a well-known public source said, “the recent release of the Attorney General’s recording in a distorted form has demonstrated the willingness of the Publisher of Kaieteur News to use this private information that he has amassed through illegitimate means as a tool, or as a trump card to exact revenge, blackmail, or intimidate persons.”
APNU’s Member of Parliament (MP) and attorney-at-law James Bond, who recognised this and publicly admonished Lall for invading the privacy of others, was met with intimidation from Lall, who it is reported, threatened to use a recording that he has of Bond against him. Bond had said, “Glenn, you have a responsibility, as a citizen, not to violate the rights and privacies of other citizens. By spying on your own people, you have endangered their sources and betrayed the confidence of your staff. No one is going to feel comfortable speaking to any member of your staff. You have crossed the line and you are wrong.” Bond’s remarks, which were made on Facebook, have since been removed because of the reported threats made to him by Glenn Lall.
This by itself provides “glaringly and unbiasedly, the unethical, illegal and immoral depths that the Publisher of Kaieteur News is willing to go to promulgate his agenda with impunity”, the source said.
The Government in a statement has since emphasised that Lall orchestrated those illegal attacks of recording and distorting private conversations and hacking into the emails of public and private personalities, in an attempt to avoid an impending audit by the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA), as a result of criminal charges filed against Lall and his relatives for evasion of taxes to the tune of $100M on the importation of two luxury vehicles.
Observers have said that it is only a matter of time before those same organisations that have been condemning the Government Minister and remaining silent on the fundamental issue of the infringement on a person’s right to privacy, become, or if not already are, part of that invasion of privacy which the publisher of Kaieteur News is seemingly promulgating.
The source also pointed out to this newspaper that “only in Guyana can a man openly blackmail the Government and other personalities under the rubric of freedom of the press to avoid impending criminal charges and not be put in jail. Had this been the case in the United States it would’ve been an entirely different ball game.”
