{"id":140819,"date":"2014-10-15T14:11:52","date_gmt":"2014-10-15T14:11:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=140819"},"modified":"2014-10-15T14:11:52","modified_gmt":"2014-10-15T14:11:52","slug":"un-report-finds-mass-surveillance-violates-international-treaties-privacy-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/un-report-finds-mass-surveillance-violates-international-treaties-privacy-rights\/","title":{"rendered":"UN Report Finds Mass Surveillance Violates International Treaties and Privacy Rights"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The United Nations\u2019 top official for counter-terrorism and human rights (known as the \u201cSpecial Rapporteur\u201d) issued <a href=\"https:\/\/firstlook.org\/theintercept\/document\/2014\/10\/15\/un-report-human-rights-terrorism\/\">a formal report<\/a> to the U.N. General Assembly today that condemns mass electronic surveillance as a clear violation of core privacy rights guaranteed by multiple\u00a0treaties and conventions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe hard truth is that the use of mass surveillance technology effectively does away with the right to privacy of communications on the Internet altogether,\u201d the report concluded.<\/p>\n<p>Central to the Rapporteur\u2019s findings is the distinction between \u201ctargeted surveillance\u201d \u2013 which \u201cdepend[s] upon the existence of prior suspicion of the targeted individual or organization\u201d \u2013 and \u201cmass surveillance,\u201d whereby\u00a0\u201cstates with high levels of Internet penetration can []\u00a0gain access to the telephone and e-mail content of an effectively unlimited number of users and maintain an overview of Internet activity associated with particular websites.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In a system of \u201cmass surveillance,\u201d the report explained, \u201call of this is possible without any prior suspicion related to a specific individual or organization. The communications of literally every Internet user are potentially open for inspection by intelligence and law enforcement agencies in the States concerned.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mass surveillance thus \u201camounts to\u00a0a systematic interference with the right to respect for the privacy of communications,\u201d it declared. As a result, \u201cit is incompatible with existing concepts of privacy for States to collect all communications or metadata all the time indiscriminately.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In concluding that\u00a0mass surveillance impinges core privacy rights, the report was primarily focused on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ohchr.org\/en\/professionalinterest\/pages\/ccpr.aspx\">the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights<\/a>, a treaty enacted by the General Assembly in 1966, to which all of the members of the \u201cFive Eyes\u201d alliance are signatories. The U.S.<a href=\"http:\/\/www1.umn.edu\/humanrts\/usdocs\/civilres.html\">ratified the treaty<\/a> in 1992, albeit with various reservations\u00a0that allowed for the continuation of the death penalty and which rendered its domestic law supreme. With the exception of the U.S.\u2019s Persian Gulf allies (Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar), virtually every major country has <a href=\"https:\/\/treaties.un.org\/Pages\/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&amp;mtdsg_no=IV-4&amp;chapter=4&amp;lang=en\">signed the treaty<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/firstlook.org\/theintercept\/2014\/10\/15\/un-investigator-report-condemns-mass-surveillance\/\" target=\"_blank\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The United Nations\u2019 top official for counter-terrorism and human rights (known as the \u201cSpecial Rapporteur\u201d) issued a formal report to the U.N. General Assembly today that condemns mass electronic surveillance as a clear violation of core privacy rights guaranteed by multiple\u00a0treaties and conventions. \u201cThe hard truth is that the use of mass surveillance technology effectively [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":140820,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,1614],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-140819","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-surveillance-big-brother"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}