The PNM leader strongly condemned the SIA activities that Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar exposed in Parliament Friday. The agency had been illegally eavesdropping on telephone conversations on prominent citizens, including President Richards.
Manning has made his own defence saying he didn't know whose names were on the list but at the same time did not say that the work of the agency was wrong.
Commenting on the whole issue Friday after the PM's revelations, the present leader of the People's National Movement (PNM) urged citizens not to judge his party by the actions of one man.
"I disassociate the PNM from individual wrongdoing and individual excesses and wrongdoing on the part of officeholders, who as we've been told many times before, individuals are to be held accountable for their personal conduct, and in this matter, the PNM accepts no blame, only if we take the position of defending wrongdoing...leave the PNM out of it," the opposition leader said.
Rowley added, "I will be very surprised, indeed, to find out that the PNM, as represented at Balisier House by our tens of thousands of members, had any interest in finding out about what Miss Cox or my children, or what anybody have to do, when the day comes, and what they have to say on their phones. The PNM has no interest or involvement in that, so the broad-brushing, we reject."
Rowley said he was deeply saddened by what took place. He said it is impossible for him to truly express his feelings to learn that "the prime minister in the Cabinet, of which I served" was snooping on people.
"I was surprised at some of the other names because one cannot accept that the President is subject to the listening post of some junior officer or a senior officer in a back building somewhere. I did not think that was happening in my country," Rowley told reporters.
Rowley pledged opposition support for the new legislation proposed by the government to deal with the matter. He admitted that the legislation was drafted since 2007 but was never laid in Parliament. He said if Manning had done the right thing this "shame" and "embarrassment" would have been avoided.
He also disagreed with Manning that Persad-Bissessar should not have made public all the information on the illegal activities. Manning called it irresponsible.
However Rowley is not of that view. "The Prime Minister has done nothing wrong in telling this country that we have an illegal spying agency violating the rights of citizens, including the President, members of Cabinet and persons who may be law-abiding citizens trusting our State agencies," he said.
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