If you’re a big fan of Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, you can relax.

Despite the headline, this is not about the foreign minister telling his obviously older-in-age Chinese counterpart, “You will always be my elder brother,” which was read as he “kowtowing” to Beijing as “big brother” and has thus triggered the recent controversy.

This is about the audio recording of a telephone conversation allegedly between Umno president Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and PKR president Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, which many are excitedly talking about now. Well sort of, but not exactly.

Rather, this is about you and me and our right to privacy.

As for the audio clip, first it was Johor Umno’s Datuk Seri Nur Jazlan Mohamad who said it, and now Anwar himself says even if the clip “is not fake, where is the wrong?”

To Jazlan, if it is genuine, there is nothing wrong for the Umno president talking to the PKR president as both parties are trying to find common ground ahead of the next election.

While Anwar has questioned whether there are any elements of treason, corruption or crime, if the recording is genuine.

If no such elements then there is nothing wrong and nothing criminal about it.

That’s true, I must say.

As for Zahid, the issue is sticky politically, considering what he had told his party general assembly last month on no Umno electoral cooperation with Anwar (and no DAP, no Bersatu as well).

Anyway, Zahid and Anwar have denied “featuring” in the recorded phone conversation.

Let’s leave it there.

But going back to the “if the audio clip is real” notion, I have to agree with Anwar when he asked who was responsible in recording the conversation.

As Anwar sees it, “to distribute it (the clip) and to spy on others is wrong.”

Yes, if the clip is not fake, not doctored, then I too want to know who did the eavesdropping and recording.

Before that I must ask: does this mean in this country of ours we have such a technology to enable such recording to take place? If you have heard the clip, you would know it is quite impressive, so to speak.

Next thing to ask: does this mean we have people within our midst who are actually capable of doing it such “things”? Our own people i.e. Malaysians? Or could it be foreign elements?

Come to think of it, all the above posers can be applied even if the clip in question is fabricated, right? But for this article, let’s stick to the assumption the audio is real.

So, who have the capability, ability, resources and motive to do it?

Let’s go back to media reports of January 2020. According to EdgeProp in the light of the MACC revelations of audio recording of telephone conversations between Datuk Seri Najib Razak and several people in 2016 on the 1MDB issue, civil rights lawyer Syahredzan Johan said it was legal for the authorities to tap tele-conversations. And it was during Najib’s administration that it was made legal.

Ironic that it was Najib’s government who made it legal and his phone conversations were recorded. Legally at that.

“Najib’s government made it legal for the government to spy on you,” Syahredzan wrote in a number of tweets on January 8 last year.

The lawyer went on to explain that changes to the Criminal Procedure Code or CPC which made intercepting and recording private conversations possible “was made in 2012 during Najib’s stint as prime minister”.

Going back to the alleged Zahid-Anwar phone conversation, another irony is that Zahid is Najib’s ally as the Umno president faces dissidents in his party.

Anyway, back to the CPC. According to a Malaysiakini report last year, the CPC (Amendment) Act 2012 has an inclusion of Section 116C on the “interception of communications and admissibility of intercepted communications”.

The report said this allows a public prosecutor to authorize a police officer to “intercept, listen or record” any conversation or install a device to intercept specific communications should the former believes it contains information relating to the commission of an offense.

I think all that answers the questions posed earlier in this article.

Agree, the law was made to combat crime and even terrorism. That not withstanding , can or should we, ordinary law-abiding citizens, say “big brother” is also watching us as well? And there’s nothing wrong with that, as it is allowed by law?

“Big brother” here is a reference to the government. But I must say it is not the fictional character and symbol in George Orwell’s novel ” Nineteen Eighty Four”.

In the Society, Orwell describes in the novel every citizen is under constant surveillance by the authorities and the people are constantly reminded by the slogan “Big Brother is watching you”.

That, as said, is fiction. Still, we hope we are not in such a situation as penned by Orwell.

The alleged Zahid-Anwar audio clip is political, as many see it.

Speaking of which I am reminded of the Watergate scandal in the US in 1972. It was about wiretapping and stealing documents of a rival political party. Linked to the re-election campaign, long story short, it led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

(Mohsin Abdullah is a veteran journalist and now a freelancer who writes about this, that and everything else.)