Although about half of the 447 respondents to last week’s caycompass.com online poll at least generally support the government’s ability to intercept telecommunications of the public as a way of fighting crime, almost as many people oppose the idea.
In fact, the largest segment of respondents – 157 people or 35.1 per cent – said they don’t support government doing this at all.
“This is an invasion of my privacy,” said one person.
“Read George Orwell’s ‘1984’,” said someone else.
Most of the opposition, however, came from those who didn’t like the ability lying solely with the governor.
“I think like most countries, issues like those should be presented to a judge, but Cayman is becoming more and more a police state daily,” said one person.
“I would absolutely support it if it were authorized by a judge, but I can’t support it at present,” said someone else.
“It needs oversight by the judges,” said another respondent.
The second largest segment of voters – 128 people or 28.7 per cent – said they generally supported the interception of communications to fight crime, and 98 people – 21.9 per cent – said they absolutely supported it.
“I’m not a crook, so I really don’t think anyone would listen in on my dull telephone conversations,” said one person.
“But, there needs to be controls in place to make sure this isn’t abused.”
“While I support all legal intelligence gathering efforts as a way to fight crime, the approval should not lie solely with the governor,” said someone else.
“It should be granted via the judiciary.”
“Something has to be done about crime and conventional police tactics aren’t working at all,” commented another respondent.
“Innocent people are hurt by crime, so do what you gotta do RCIPS,” said someone else.
“They are not going to be listening in on conversations of people that are not breaking the law,” said another person.
Another 47 people – 10.5 per cent – said they didn’t support telecommunications interception much and 17 people – 3.8 per cent – respondent ‘I don’t know’ to the question.
“Who defines crime? Who decides when and whose communications to intercept. Sounds like a slippery slope to me,” said one person.
“This ability should come only after government has proven a reliable process with proven guarantees for privacy and oversight,” said another person.
Next week’s poll question
When do you think an elected representative should step down if implicated in a crime that could lead to imprisonment?
As soon as there’s a rumour
When an investigation starts
When he or she is charged
When he or she is convicted
When he or she actually goes to prison
To participate in this poll, please visit www.caycompass.com
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From the start with seeing CCTV camaras being installed everywhere, I predicted that not only will we have a making of a micro-managed police state on the arise to fight crime, but we will be introducing the foundation for a controlled british colonial system where we will have not only criminals being spied on, but civilians! Apparently, only a few of us, was taken for granted and branded alarmist for making such claims. Now we are seeing more dots connected, and an image showing the Governor and Commissioner behind these gadgets and devices. No politician openly opposed it. I tell you, me and many others who did opposed it, and saw the dangers, were regard as people who wanted more crime on the island, and didn’t mean the island well. Finally, in August Alden Mclauglin muttered something about it. But that’s all I am hearing.
People, wake up, your democracy and freedom as citizens, is in jeopardy. The issue of crime is being used as a red herring, to control more than criminals, but people like you and me who have greviances against the government.
The British and local authorities (read that as the Governor, his Commissioner of Police and the locally-elected Cayman Islands, McKeeva Bush-led UDP party Government) cannot or will not do what is necessary to stem the tide of street crime being committed against law-abiding folks in Cayman.
They cannot arrest and secure convictions for the most blatant of horrendous murders being openly committed…
They cannot or will not even have the decency to address the population on the issue of safety and security but…
They are willing, able and capable of setting systems in place to spy on the communications of this same law-abiding population which they are allowing the criminal element to threaten and terrorise with impunity.
I’m now having real questions about who actually is behind this crime wave in Cayman and the reasons behind it, to be totally honest.