Private security guards to play greater role in monitoring adherence to COVID-19 protocols...

Minister of National Security Dr Horace Chang says private security guards will be called upon to play a greater role in monitoring the adherence to COVID-19 protocols at private establishments.

"Security guards will be called on to ensure that protocols are maintained at the private institutions. We will be looking in the ministry [of national security]to see how we can expand that role because we don't have enough officers...to be everywhere monitoring who is wearing masks, and maintaining social distance," Dr Chang argued.

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Supporters of the Jamaica Labour Party in Clark’s Town, Trelawny, disregard the wearing of masks and the observance of six-foot distancing rules as they turned out to see Prime Minister Andrew Holness, who wrapped up his four-day tour of western Jamaica on Monday. Both JLP and People’s National Party officials have expressed concern about their ability to rein in exuberant supporters during political campaigning.

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..."I am concerned that a number of people are not strictly observing the home quarantine orders and I have asked the JCF to exercise greater vigilance and charge persons who are found to be in breach. I have been informed that 50 cases of breaches are now under investigations and nearing investigations and we can expect the first set of charges within a couple of days," Holness said. Some 20,126 persons have been issued with quarantine orders and should be at home isolated.

"We are seeing the pictures on Facebook and Instagram. So unless you can prove to us that those pictures were taken two years or three years ago, they become very good evidence for prosecution," Holness said.

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More than 2,000 persons will be engaged in communities across the island to monitor the operations of water attractions, amusement parks, day cares and small outdoor events during the two-week conditional reopening period for these activities from July 21 to 31.

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Prime Minister Andrew Holness has lambasted persons who he described as holding "the privileged position of opinion leaders and commentators", whose utterances he said have created the portrayal that Jamaica is on the brink of a collapse.

Further, Holness argued passionately and sometimes fiercely, that those privileged persons in local media have continuously highlighted the negatives in Jamaica, leading to a culture of anti-government and anti-co-operation.

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Prime Minister Andrew Holness took a “Trump-like” swipe at the Jamaican traditional media Sunday night as he urged hundreds of Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) supporters to look to social media for accurate news...

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The government has made an about-turn and will in fact allow journalists to move about unimpeded during the lockdown that is now in place in St Catherine.

The seven-day lockdown, which began on Wednesday as part of efforts to contain a COVID-19 outbreak in the parish, meant only workers who are part of the essential service are being allowed to leave their homes for work. Media workers were previously classified as such and were allowed to move about freely, in the course of their work, during the nightly curfews that are still in effect.

However, Prime Minister Andrew Holness, in a statement in the House of Representatives on Wednesday night, said journalists who live in St Catherine would only be allowed to leave home on the Wednesday and Saturday when residents are allowed time out of their homes to shop. He said journalists were also required to stay at home over the next five days.

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Dictatorship, form of government in which one person or a small group possesses absolute power without effective constitutional limitations. The term dictatorship comes from the Latin title dictator, which in the Roman Republic designated a temporary magistrate who was granted extraordinary powers in order to deal with state crises...

...During times of domestic or foreign crisis, even most constitutional governments have conferred emergency powers on the chief executive, and in some notable cases this provided the opportunity for duly elected leaders to overthrow democracy and rule dictatorially thereafter. The proclamation of emergency rule, for example, was the beginning of the dictatorships of Hitler in Germany, Benito Mussolini in Italy, Kemal Atatürk in Turkey, Józef Piłsudṣki in Poland, and António de Oliveira Salazar in Portugal. In other democracies, however, constitutional arrangements have survived quite lengthy periods of crisis, as in Great Britain and the United States during World War II, in which the use of extraordinary powers by the executive came to a halt with the end of the wartime emergency.

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...Modern dictators usually come to power during states of emergency, too. Many historians consider Napoleon Bonaparte to be the first modern dictator. Napoleon was a general during the French Revolution, a period of huge social and political upheaval in the country. Beginning in 1789, France evolved from a monarchy to a republic, and then to an empire. In the midst of executions, coups and confusion, Napoleon became a consul under a new provisional government

....Napoleon controlled every facet of government and had a network of spies. He also controlled the press, ensuring that his propaganda machine continued. But his reign began to falter when his invasion of Russia was a failure. A coalition of European forces, including armies from Great Britain, Prussia, Spain and Portugal, surrounded France.

Most dictators have several characteristics in common. They usually rule autocracies, governments with a single self-appointed leader and no governing body to check his power. Often, dictators have totalitarian regimes, keeping their power through control of the mass media. Totalitarian dictators also use secret police and spy on the citizens of their state as well as restrict or completely remove their personal freedoms.

...As with ancient Roman dictators and the more recent example of Napoleon Bonaparte, it's often the case that a state of emergency or a coup d'etat results in a dictator coming to power. However, there have been dictators who got there legally. Adolf Hitler, for example, was appointed chancellor, or head of government, by President Paul von Hindenburg in 1933. After Hindenburg died, Hitler made himself Führer (a combination of president and chancellor).

In addition to being political leaders, dictators often hold the highest military office in their state as well...

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The Stasi, East Germany’s state security service, may have been one of the most pervasive secret police agencies that ever existed. It was infamous for its capacity to monitor individuals and control information flows. By 1989, it had almost 100,000 regular employees and, according to some accounts, between 500,000 and two million informants in a country with a population of about 16 million. Its sheer manpower and resources allowed it to permeate society and keep tabs on virtually every aspect of the lives of East German citizens. Thousands of agents worked to tap telephones, infiltrate underground political movements, and report on personal and familial relationships. Officers were even positioned at post offices to open letters and packages entering from or heading to noncommunist countries. For decades, the Stasi was a model for how a highly capable authoritarian regime could use repression to maintain control.

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....The new charter explicitly guarantees the right of everyone [13(3)(j)] to: "(i) protection from search of the person and property; (ii) respect for and protection of ... privacy of the home; and (iii) protection of privacy of ... communication".

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...“A truly safe country is when the citizen is the warden of the peace meaning that the citizen wake up every morning and they look around their community and they say, ‘you see that little one over there -that one is the troublemaker,” said Prime Minister Holness. ” When all the citizens hold hands around that troublemaker and work with the police to share information on that troublemaker everyone is safer because of that.”

The Prime Minister says while this is needed, citizens are no longer taking on this role which leads to a lack of shared effort to stop criminal undertaking.

“What has broken down in our country is that we are no longer wardens of the peace in our community. We don’t hold hands and surround the troublemaker,” he pointed out. ” We cower behind our zinc fences and in our homes and we see them walk down the street with their firearms. We see them abuse people in the communities. We see them go to families and say I want your daughter. We see them try to control turfs so they can sell drugs.”

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THE House of Representatives yesterday approved changes to the Interception of Communications Act, which will allow wider usage of its provisions to electronically monitor criminals, including gangsters and lottery scammers.

The amendments, which were approved with support from both the Government and the Opposition, will reportedly boost the police's ability to monitor communications by criminal suspects and provide evidence for their apprehension, as well as for information on their criminal gains.

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Parliament last night approved an order tabled by National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang to amend The Interception of Communications Act, giving authorisation to a cadre of designated high-ranking officers of the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) and the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) to access real-time information in critical situations.

...Under the order, those now authorised to access real-time information are the chief of staff of the JDF, head of the Military Intelligence Unit of the JDF, the commissioner of police, the assistant commissioner in charge of the Narcotics Unit of the JCF, the assistant commissioner in charge of the National Intelligence Bureau of the JCF, and the director general of the Major Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Agency...

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With a number of their businesses being hit in multimillion-dollar heists in recent years, sometimes with deadly outcomes, members of the Chinese community in Montego Bay, St James, have turned to technology, including facial-recognition software, to boost surveillance.

...“We have that technology in place ... . It’s face-recognition technology,” explained a spokesman, who added that they were pumping resources into acquiring more cameras.

“Even if you have on a mask, the system can still 85 per cent match the face,” he added...

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..While not as open as the Chinese in discussing the cameras being used in Montego Bay, a police source did admit that the ones to which the police have access have been proving to be quite effective crime-fighting tools.

“What I can tell you is that these cameras have the potential to be a game-changer as it relates to properly policing Montego Bay,” the cop told The Gleaner. “The cameras we have access to have assisted us in making a number of arrests. There have been cases where men were spotted on the cameras with a bulge in their waist, and when we accosted them, it turned out that they had illegal firearms in their possession.”

...The Gleaner was unsuccessful in getting feedback from the JamaicaEye coordinators as questions submitted were not answered at press time. However, the security expert thinks it would be a good idea to have JamaicaEye work with the Chinese in tackling a mutual problem.

“If [the Chinese] are willing to invest in their own security, I see nothing wrong in forging an alliance with them, once it does not compromise our wider security apparatus,” said the expert. “All I can see is benefits on both sides.”

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Andrew Michael Holness, a five-term elected member of Parliament, was a short while ago appointed prime minister of Jamaica at King’s House in St Andrew.
He was sworn in by Governor-general Sir Patrick Allen.

Holness, having taken the oath of allegiance and oath of office, also signed the instrument of appointment as prime minister, much to the delight of those gathered to witness his appointment...

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NINE Jamaican citizens have served as prime minister from 1962 to now... Andrew Holness, 23 October 2011 to January 5, 2012 -- only briefly tasted the much-coveted top prize of local party politics.

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