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| San Pedro Daily |  |
Tuesday, November 1, 2011 Stop the Clock! |
| Front Page | Weather | foto of the day | Regional News | Classified Ads |
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ISLAND
SUPERMARKET
"Best
Prices - Best Quality - Best Service"Phone: 501-226-2972 or 501-226-2973 FREE
DELIVERY
IN
TOWN
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San
Pedranos
Protest
Town Clock
The controversy over the clock
tower in downtown San Pedro continues
to rage. Today at noon, a protest was held to demand that Mayor Elsa
Paz abort the project immediately.
The San Pedro Branch of the
Belize Tourism Industry Association has
also lent its voice to the howls of protest. And while we can see that
a fair number of residents really don't want the clock, Mayor Paz - who
is not seeking re-election - is not fazed.
She told a local radio show on
San Pedro today that the majority of
people protesting are not even registered voters, and for the protest
to move her, it would have to record 1,500 registered voters. Of course
that didn't happen…but still, the controversy continues.
CH7 Man
Missing,
Family
Fears Worst
Tonight the family of Ervil
McCauley known as Pecans is gravely concerned about his whereabouts.
The 23 year old San Pedro Resident was last seen on October
14th. -
that's over two weeks ago - going fishing with a group of friends
heading to the Bacalar Chico Marine Reserve.
But though he never returned, he wasn't reported missing until Thursday, October 27th, to San Pedro Police. The family complains that no official search has been done and the island is rife with rumours that McCauley was killed while going on a drug mission. There are reports that he had come up with a washed up shipment of cocaine - and may have been killed while trying to sell it. That is just a report that's been going around the island - but it is one that has been communicated to his family. They told us they just want closure and for police to assist them in finding him, or - as the worst case may be - his remains which are rumoured to be on the north end of Ambergris Caye. Again, those are rumours but at this point - in the absence of any official information, it's all the family has to go on. CH7 Students to benefit
from e-library service Students all across
Belize now have free access to more than 20,000 online publications,
because the Government of Belize has added EBSCO Publishing’s
extensive
e-library program to the list of educational resources available to
students.
Minister of Education Hon. Patrick Faber and Chief Librarian for the Belize National Library Service, Joy Ysaguirre, announced the program’s advent last Thursday, October 24. The program will grant students of all academic levels access to a database comprised of thousands of full text publications including journals, magazines, newspapers and more. At the launch, EBSCO representative Eric Block explained that the bibliographic online library covers all areas of academic study and is employed by a wide spectrum of professionals, including universities, companies and even government ministries around the world. Minister Faber emphasized that the service is free to everyone; all they need is Internet access and they’ll be able to access the database, even in the comfort of their home. Chief Librarian Joy Ysaguirre explained that a potential subscriber would only need to contact the library service to obtain the password to access to the service. Officials of the National Library Service have also informed The Reporter that training, geared towards acquainting students with the program, had commenced prior to the launch. EBSCO Publishing is a subsidiary of the EBSCO Industries. Its primary function is to provide online databases to libraries around the world, a service that it provides through its proprietary software EBSCO host. Reporter GOB’s eavesdropping;
Legal or illegal? The interception of
phone calls and texts have been but speculative wonderings in the past
but The Reporter has
been reliably informed that eavesdropping spyware is now a reality.
Prepaid cell phone users were informed several weeks ago that they would need to be registered with their service provider - Belize Telemedia Limited or Smart Speednet. What they were not told is that all calls, voice mails and text messages would be intercepted and stored for a period of two years. All this is a directive of the government, through the Ministry of Communication. According to our sources who wished to remain anonymous, voice calls would be recorded electronically, and the Police will have the task of managing the database. The undertaking is massive, as special equipment and software is already in place to facilitate the project. The Reporter was unable to verify exactly when the Government of Belize hired the Israeli company Neptune Intelligence Computer Engineering (NICE) to provide the interception network but did verify that the company was founded in 1987 by seven Israeli ex-army officers. For several months now, government officials have been holding a series of confidential meetings with technical experts from the telephone companies. In 2005, the Ministry of Home Affairs and Public Utilities under the PUP administration wanted to do the same thing - register all prepaid cellular phones and record calls. But BTL refused to go along with the plan, and the project was abandoned. The Reporter obtained a copy of BTL’s 2005 response to the idea of registering prepaid cell phones, in which the company told the government that it would be an illegal undertaking. “... the memorandum appears to endorse the view that the name and address of an individual with a given telephone number will be accessible by law enforcement authorities as a routine matter. “The Belize Telecommunication Act 2002 suggests otherwise, and BTL draws Government’s attention, in particular, to Section 44 (4) of the Act which states that any personal information of a subscriber shall be confidential and shall not be disseminated or used without the subscriber’s consent or a court order under this Act or any other law.” The Act has not changed since then. Minister of Public Utilities, Broadcasting and Information, Hon. Elvin Penner, denied giving the directive to intercept and store telephone communications when The Reporter spoke with him Thursday afternoon. Penner claimed the initiative to register cell phones came from the Ministry of Police and Public Safety in order to fight crime. Even though Penner denied that government is moving in the direction of telephone interception and storage, he pointed out, “If the phone call is not recorded, it won’t help the police.” Penner also disclosed that the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) presently has the capability for interception of telephone conversations. But he said that he does not know if this is being done. According to Penner, the PUC has invested more than a million dollars in a piece of equipment that is to be used to track television and radio signals. When asked why the government is using a section of the Telecommunications Act to justify mandatory registration of prepaid cell phones, Penner said that he had not read the law, because he is not a legal minded person. Which begs several questions. Can the registration of all prepaid cellular phones and the storage of all forms of telephone communication deter crime in a significant way? Would the use of the Telecommunication Act of 2002 not render the storage of such information an illegal act? And how would evidence that has been illegally gathered assist the courts in securing convictions? What happens to the recorded information after the two-year period? And most importantly, who will monitor the process to ensure that people’s privacy will not be violated at whim? Reporter NOTICES
Belize
Electricity Limited advises its customers in San Pedro Town that the
supply of electricity will be temporarily interrupted from 8:00 a.m.
to 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, November 5, 2011.
Areas to be affected: the Northern portion of San Pedro Town which includes the entire area North of Boca del Rio.
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© SAN PEDRO DAILY, PO Box 45, San Pedro Town, Belize. Inquiries to Editor@SanPedroDaily.Com |
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