The other day, a certain David Bowie asked me this question: “Do you remember President Nixon? Do you remember all the bills he had to pay? For even yesterday...?”
“Not now, David,” I replied. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

I mean, honestly. What is it with these British glam-rock icons, anyway? Selling a few billion records doesn’t give exactly them the right to distract people’s attention with questions like that while they’re trying to drive. Unless, that is, they are trying to cause another Rock N Roll Suicide.
But no matter. As it happens, the Thin White Duke didn’t exactly wait for an answer. He just carried on crooning about “Young Americans” doing something to each other “all night long” – never quite figured out what – then off he went, waltzing “Across the Universe” with Lennon and McCartney, while I duly crashed into the back of a truck... again.

It took a while for the implications of Bowie’s questions to sink in, but now that they have, I just can’t get them out of my mind. (Nor for that matter the tune, which goes something like: “Tanana... Tanana... Tanananana... A-a-a-a-all night... Tananana... Tana!”)
Meanwhile, sorry for the late reply... but no, David: I don’t remember President Nixon. I was only around two years old when he resigned. But I do remember a film I once saw, many years later, starring Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman and Hal Holbrook. It was called “All the President’s Men”... and to this day I am none the wiser as to what the hell it was all about.

Let’s face it: Watergate was (and still is) an impossibly complicated story. It involved the Cuban Bay of Pigs disaster... though don’t ask me how or why. There was also something about a “secret campaign fund” (What do you mean, “secret”? Aren’t all campaign funds secret? Or is that only in Malta...?)
There was, however, one small aspect to this mind-boggling political scandal that I did comprehend, and it effectively boiled down to this: US President Richard Nixon was caught with his pants down spying on the Democrat party during an election campaign. And despite having also ended the Vietnam war at more or less the same time – and even if history has since re-written the entire Nixon chapter, painting him as not half as nasty and horrible as we were all brought up to believe – the loss of trust in the American government and its major institutions (among them, the CIA) was so massive, and its ramifications for the country so earth-shattering, that the President of the United States himself was left with no option but to resign.

OK, so much for American History X. Here on planet Malta, things tend to work... um... somewhat differently.
So David, here’s a small question for you: Do you remember Opposition leader Alfred Sant? No worries, most people here don’t either... least of all the same Labour Party supporters who adulated him up until seven months ago, but who now hold him responsible for every disaster since the Second Ice Age.
In any case, this newspaper recently carried a front-page story under the headline “Emailgate” (I still think it should have been “Austin-gate”, but no matter) about how the same Alfred Sant suspected that he and two of his fellow MPs – George Vella and Anglu Farrugia – had their government internet and email accounts hacked.
It was a follow-on from previous revelations that three employees of MITTS (the Malta Information Technology & Tactical Spying agency) were under investigation by the police for leaking email account passwords and attempting to access personal bank details: pretty damn serious allegations in their own right, when you consider that MITTS is also privy to the private email accounts of both government and opposition MPs.

Needless to add, IT minister Austin Gatt responded with his usual display of impeccable politeness, describing the MaltaToday story as a “pack of lies.” Or was that a “bunch of bollocks”? Can’t remember now.

Well, what we didn’t know at the time was that Alfred Sant had already complained about problems accessing his government email account over a year ago, in September 2007. And guess what? Austin Gatt evidently didn’t know this, either.
This week, Austin told our newspaper that the alleged hacking could not have taken place, because – and here I quote – “...none of the Labour MPs mentioned complained of any intrusion. Anyone who is hacked would know, as his email is changed.”

Interestingly enough, Austin said this after Alfred’s speech in parliament last Wednesday, when the former Labour leader made it fairly clear that he had complained to the Clerk of the House about his email woes... and that he had been advised by MITTS to change his password.
So in a sense, it’s kind of generous of Austin to so graphically confirm that Alfred did indeed have good reason to suspect foul play on the part of the government-owned ISP.

But suspicious as this all undeniably appears, it does not in itself constitute proof that any spying took place. From my own little investigations into the wired world of State-provided electronic services, I discovered that gov.mt email passwords tend to regularly expire of their own accord, and that MITTS never informs its clients of the impending expiry until it has de facto already happened.
So it is perfectly possible that Sant’s account had simply gone walkabout, which would explain why he couldn’t check his mail, and also why he was asked to change his password.
HOWEVER: there is a tiny, weeny detail which simply does not fit into the above scenario, no matter how you hard you try and hammer it into place. And as the issue at stake here (in case nobody has actually realised yet) involves public trust in the most sensitive institutions this country has to offer – with ramifications that have caused even US Presidents to resign – I think it may be worth analysing in some detail.

This week, MITTS chairman Claudio Grech – who by a huge coincidence was head of secretariat in Austin Gatt’s ministry at the time when the presumed hacking was allegedly taking place – wrote Alfred Sant a letter, in which he made the following, extraordinary claim: “... and once again I reiterate that the (police) investigation at no point looked into or is looking into the allegations reported in the aforementioned newspaper...”

Huh? What? Quoi? Xiex? Sorry, Claudio, but I’m getting a bit dim in my early middle age, and I’m afraid I didn’t quite get that last point of yours. Are you trying to tell us that the police are NOT currently investigating the email-hacking allegations? And if the answer is ‘yes’... how on earth do you know?

I suppose it’s reassuring that the chairman of a government information agency would be so well informed about an ongoing police investigation into the operations of his own office... but then again, it doesn’t say a very great deal about the autonomy and efficacy of the police force currently performing – or not performing, as Claudio would have us believe – the investigation.
And this is but the tiniest of invertebrates to come crawling out of the can of worms that Claudio Grech so kindly prised open for our benefit. Because if the MITTS chairman is correct in his claim... and I’d still like to know with what authority he can make such a bald assertion... then what one earth are we to make of the ruling delivered in parliament last week by the Honourable Speaker of House, His Hairlessness Dr Louis Galea?
Admire, for instance, the following excerpt: “In the case currently before the House, there are matters that the police are still investigating according to law... The Chair... deems it premature to suspend the activities of today’s sitting to discuss matters that require reliable information, which can emerge more clearly from the conclusions of the police investigation.”

Excuse me, but now I’m confused. Is there an ongoing police investigation, or isn’t there?
If (as Claudio suggests) there isn’t... well, then there is absolutely no reason under the sun why Louis Galea, as speaker of the House of Representatives, should have turned down the Opposition leader’s request to debate the matter with urgency... especially when you consider that Dr Galea himself described the allegations as “definite and of public importance.”
If, on the other hand, there IS a police investigation into the hacking allegations... then:
a) Claudio Grech is clearly talking out of his backside, which in turn is not a terribly smart thing for the Smart City CEO to be doing, and;
b) Police Commissioner John Rizzo had absolutely no business to “advise” the IT minister – by email, if you please – not to comment on the issue at all, as any comment would “prejudice” ongoing police investigations.
What, I wonder, would have happened if President Nixon simply turned around and said: “Sorry folks, but I can’t comment about the Watergate affair because the head of the FBI told me that anything I say can and will influence the outcome of the ongoing police investigations... which by the way aren’t actually ongoing at all...”?

Pack of lies, indeed.