This is not the first time the SSA has had a problem or been a problem. But the threat of systemic collapse has also put immense pressure on the court system, as the necessity of legal accountability has heightened. Indeed, this SSA leak fiasco demonstrates unequivocally that when State intelligence apparatuses are breached, every sector – from political leadership to media oversight shares in the failure. This underscores the urgent need in T&T for non- partisan institutional reform and rigorous legal oversight over the SSA. And governments everywhere find it extremely difficult to rise above narrow partisan interest as they assert power and seek to retain it.