Following up on the situation in Lebanon, Meris Lutz reports:
Releasing vast amounts of data in the name of national security is a violation of the Constitution and the spirit of Law 140, which was adopted in 1999 and governs security and law enforcement access to telecoms data, analysts said this week.
The most recent chapter in the recurring controversy over the telecoms data effectively came to a close Wednesday, with the Cabinet backing the prime minister’s demand that he be allowed to approve or reject requests for data by the Internal Security Forces on a case by case basis, and urging the cooperation of the telecommunications minister.
The Cabinet’s decision ends the current standoff between Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Telecommunications Minister Nicolas Sehnaoui, who had refused to approve a proposal that amounts to an extension of a request that was granted last year giving security forces access to all technical data for the entire country.
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