“Bell: Terror-like threats make scrapping NIA a grave mistake” – The Tribune

Excerpt from this article; “THE Christie administration created the National Intelligence Agency after considering a number of serious, terrorist-like threats that threatened the Bahamas, former State Minister of National Security Keith Bell claimed  yesterday, warning the Minnis administration that is making a ‘grave mistake’ disbanding the agency.

On Monday, National Security Minister Marvin Dames announced that the NIA has been disbanded, saying the unit was isolated from other law enforcement units and had not functioned like an intelligence agency.

But Mr. Dames, countered Mr. Bell, should have in his procession ‘unequivocal’ and ‘undisputable’ evidence showing that he NIA served a meaningful purpose.

Mr. Bell avoided discussing the threats he said The Bahamas faced or the evidence he said proves he NIA’s importance.”

The long and short it seems to be that the former government forms a private agency that is purported to protect the country from terrorist attacks but cannot seem to be able to sit down with the new government and provide the reasons why the agency was formed and why it should still exist and it does this in “the interest of national security”?

“We’ve had enough threats to cause us to move into action at times,’ he [Keith Bell] said.

‘I cannot disclose the threats in the interest of national security, but I am sure the minister and the prime minister have been briefed properly.  If not, then I am prepared in the interest of national security to brief them.”

These fellows can’t even form a ‘secret agency’ properly.

The former minister of state of national security seems to imply that it was someone’s responsibility to appraise the present minister of national security of the functions of the NIA but it seems as if it never happened but on the bright side he is willing to brief him, hopefully he will brief him on why the NIA seems to operate outside the scope of the law in a democratic and independent country.

Of course, the former minister of state will now get up and grand stand, it is easy being in opposition but if you have something to say then simply say it otherwise please sit down, as you have had five years to pull someone aside and let them know what you were doing on Nassau Street and explain to them why it never was legislated to operate as a part of the Ministry of National Security but yet you wish to now spout nonsense.

“When asked why the former administration failed to bring legislation governing the NIA if the agency was so important, Mr. Bell said the Christie-led administration wanted to get the legislation right and spent time benchmarking it against other ones in the region.

He also suggested that because of the criticism the former administration faced over the NIA, the previous government wanted to make sure it got the timing of the legislation right.

He insisted that the methods the NIA used to collect intelligence were legal, even as he refused to discuss the nature of those methods.”

This is funny because later in the very same interview Mr. Bell states; “….the NIA did not require legislation to function”; well sir which is it, you were awaiting the right time to table the legislation or your government simply felt that the agency did not need legislation to function and what was the nature of the information being collected and the method by which this information was collected, since you suddenly seem to be in a talkative mood?

The Progressive Liberal Party continues to fail for one reason, it is their nature.

END