Spying Error — US Corrects Internet Monitoring Report Jamaica Welcomes US Correction Of Internet Monitoring Claims

JUNIOR Technology Minister Julian Robinson has wel­comed the clar­i­fi­ca­tion issued yes­ter­day by the US Embassy in Kingston of a State Department com­ment that the Jamaican Government could be mon­i­tor­ing local online conversations.

“I am hap­py that they have issued a clar­i­fi­ca­tion, because what the State Department was say­ing was dam­ag­ing to Jamaica’s inter­na­tion­al rep­u­ta­tion,” Robinson told the Jamaica Observer when con­tact­ed last night.

He was refer­ring to a cor­rec­tion of the state­ment includ­ed in the Internet Freedom sub­sec­tion of the 2014 Jamaica Country Report on Human Rights Practices issued by the US Department of State yesterday.

The report had stated:

“The (Jamaican) Government did not restrict or dis­rupt access to the Internet or cen­sor online con­tent. There were cred­i­ble reports, how­ev­er, that the Government mon­i­tored pri­vate online com­mu­ni­ca­tions with­out appro­pri­ate legal authority.”

Since its cir­cu­la­tion through the media, a large num­ber of Jamaicans have raised con­cerns about gov­ern­ment inter­fer­ence in pri­vate online com­mu­ni­ca­tions, and its tech­no­log­i­cal capa­bil­i­ty to do so.

In the absence of National Security Minister Peter Bunting, who has been away for the past week, Robinson, whose port­fo­lio includes cyber tech­nol­o­gy, has been com­ment­ing on the matter.

On Wednesday, he chal­lenged the US author­i­ties to pro­vide proof of the alle­ga­tions laid against the Jamaican Government. Yesterday, the US Embassy in Kingston respond­ed with a release say­ing that an inac­cu­ra­cy had been published.

The embassy said that the US Department of State has now cor­rect­ed the report and, as part of its process to devel­op these reports, the US Government want­ed “a robust exchange” between civ­il soci­ety, the press, and gov­ern­ment lead­ers on the issue.

“We wel­come feed­back on the report, with the objec­tive of main­tain­ing the most author­i­ta­tive, com­pre­hen­sive and fac­tu­al review of the glob­al state of human rights,” the embassy said.

“When there are inac­cu­ra­cies, the Department of State doc­u­ments these errors online and issues cor­rec­tions to ensure the integri­ty of the reports. The cor­rect­ed ver­sion of the report is (now) avail­able online,” the embassy added.
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