“Big Brother” plans to tap phone lines to combat crime

In his novel 1984, George Orwell describes a state in which the government or “Big Brother” is constantly watching over society. And now in modern day Belize, the controversial issue of telephone tapping has surfaced again. On Wednesday Prime Minister Dean Barrow, at a press conference commented on the topic of increasing crime, saying that he has received a nine-point strategy from the Ministry of National Security to tackle the issue. The plan includes things such as improving patrols, establishment of a ballistics information system, disseminating the names of the ten most prolific and priority offenders to all formations, committing at-risk youths to the cadet corps… and intelligence gathering through intercepts… i.e. phone tapping. According to Barrow, Belize’s laws can facilitate that controversial move.

Prime Minister Dean Barrow
“I have had my own advice on this matter and I believe, based on that advice, that we can begin telephone intercepts under the current state of the law, but if it turns out—the only drawback is that I am not sure if the evidence gathered can help us to perhaps prevent crimes. I don’t know that if you need to put that evidence in court whether under the current law we can do that. We need to do a whole new bill to provide for that. I am determined, given all that’s happening, that we should—either under the current law or under the new law—use this tool of telecommunications intercepts to assist our intelligence gathering and I continue to say I am shocked because the murders at the start of the year in two cases appear to have involved fifteen year olds or sixteen year olds. I’ve said to my legal advisor, Mr. Ghandi and draftsman, fast track the drafting of the bill that I want to take to the House to allow us to have the family court make care orders for juveniles at risk in certain circumstances; not going to school, no parental supervision, to be able to house, to be able to place them at the national cadet corps.”

One aspect of the law which pertains to interception is the Telecommunications Act. Although that act states that consumers’ information should be kept confidential, Section 44(3) declares that the D.P.P. can ask a judge for an order authorizing an operator to intercept, withhold or disclose to the police, a telecommunications message. If the order is given, however, it must specify the place where the interception or withholding shall take place and it must be supported by an affidavit. Further down in Section 44(6) there is a wider provision for national security purposes which may facilitate the tapping; it says (quote) “If it appears to the Minister to be requisite or expedient to do so in the interest of national security or relations with the government of a country or territory outside Belize, he may, after consultation with the P.U.C., give to a public operator a direction requiring him (according to the circumstances of the case) to do, or not to do, a particular thing specified in the direction.”