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Initially of June 2013, numerous paperwork detailing surveillance by intelligence businesses such because the US’s NSA and UK’s GCHQ began to be revealed, primarily based on data equipped by NSA whistle blower, Edward Snowden.
These leaks revealed an enormous surveillance program that included interception of electronic mail and different Web communications and telephone name tapping. A few of it seems unlawful, whereas different revelations present the US spying on pleasant nations throughout numerous worldwide summits.
Unsurprisingly, there was quite a lot of furor. Whereas some international locations are little question utilizing this to win some diplomatic factors, there was elevated tensions between the US and different areas around the globe.
A lot of the US surveillance packages got here from the aftermath of the 9-11 terrorist attacks on the US in 2001. Considerations a couple of crackdown on civil rights within the wake of the so-called struggle on terror
have been expressed for a very long time, and these revelations appear to be confirming a few of these fears.
Given the widespread assortment of data, apparently from central servers of main Web corporations and from different core servers that kind a part of the Web spine, actions of thousands and thousands (if not billions) of residents have been caught up in a dragnet model surveillance downside known as PRISM, even when the communication has nothing to do with terrorism.
What impacts would such secretive mass surveillance have on democracy?
On this web page:
- Secrecy; US Congress unaware of mass NSA surveillance program
- If you’ve got nothing to hide…
- Access to vasts amount of user data from Internet Giants
- Internet Governance
- Americans and citizens of other countries
- Spying on friendly countries and international institutions
- US mainstream media focus on Edward Snowden
- Privatization of surveillance means even less accountability?
- More information
Secrecy; US Congress unaware of mass NSA surveillance program
One of many main considerations within the US has been how members of the US Congress themselves weren’t conscious at how huge the actions had been. Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist that revealed the paperwork from Edward Snowden wrote a follow-up article per week after the preliminary revelations. He famous Democratic Consultant Loretta Sanchez’s feedback mentioned after Congress was given a categorized briefing by NSA officers on the company’s beforehand secret surveillance actions that what was revealed was simply the tip of the iceberg
and that it’s broader than most individuals even understand
. She added that almost all of them in that session had been astounded to study a few of this.
Greenwald continued to replicate on the gravity of what she mentioned:
… as a member of Congress, she had no concept how invasive and huge the NSA’s surveillance actions are. Sen. Jon Tester, who’s a member of the Homeland Safety Committee, mentioned the identical factor, …
fairly frankly, it helps individuals like me grow to be conscious of a scenario that I wasn’t conscious of earlier than as a result of I don’t sit on that Intelligence Committee.How can anybody assume that it’s remotely wholesome in a democracy to have the NSA constructing an enormous spying equipment about which even members of Congress, together with Senators on the Homeland Safety Committee, are completely ignorant and discover
astoundingafter they study of them? How can anybody declare with a straight face that there’s strong oversight when even members of the Senate Intelligence Committee are so constrained of their potential to behave that they’re decreased to issuing imprecise, impotent warnings to the general public about what they name radicalsecret legislationenabling home spying that maystunPeople to find out about it, however are barred to reveal what it’s they’re so alarmed by? … What sort of individual would assume that it could be preferable to stay at midnight — completely ignorant — about them?
On Prism, partisanship and propaganda
, The Guardian, June 14, 2013
And even the original author of the controversial Patriot Act, has argued that the current metadata collection is unbounded in scope
. He added that the overwhelming majority of data collected don’t have anything to do with investigating terrorism, and requested, How can each name that each American makes or receives be related to a particular investigation?
Greenwald additionally makes an attention-grabbing remark about partisanship and describes how in 2006 the Democrats had been very clearly against this sort of secret surveillance that Republicans had spear-headed within the aftermatch of the September 11 terrorist assaults. And he contrasts that with how defensive Democrats have been this time spherical. He additionally factors to this attention-grabbing YouTube video that summarizes this (although learn the article, too!)
When you’ve acquired nothing to cover…
Defenders of those packages have typically argued that when you have nothing to cover then you shouldn’t fear about this invasion of privateness.
Cory Doctorow, writing in The Guardian, responded as to why it’s best to care:
We’re unhealthy at privateness as a result of the implications of privateness disclosures are separated by quite a lot of time and house from the disclosures themselves … it occurs so far-off from the disclosure that we are able to’t study from it.
You need to care about privateness as a result of privateness isn’t secrecy. I do know what you do in the bathroom, however that doesn’t imply you don’t wish to shut the door if you go within the stall.
You need to care about privateness as a result of if the information says you’ve accomplished one thing incorrect, then the individual studying the information will interpret all the pieces else you do by that gentle.
…
You need to care about surveillance as a result of you recognize individuals who might be compromised by disclosure: people who find themselves homosexual and within the closet; individuals with terminal diseases; people who find themselves associated to somebody notorious for some terrible crime. These persons are your pals, your neighbors, possibly your youngsters: they deserve a life that’s as free from trouble as you’re together with your fortunate, skeleton-free closet.
You need to care about surveillance as a result of as soon as the system for surveillance is constructed into the networks and the telephones, unhealthy guys (or soiled cops) can use it to assault you.
…
As for Hague: if the harmless don’t have anything to worry from disclosure, then why did his personal authorities demand an unprecedented system of secret courts wherein proof of UK intelligence complicity in unlawful kidnapping and torture might be heard? Privateness, it seems, is completely important for the highly effective and utterly nugatory for the remainder of us.
And, John Naughton, writing in The Observer, provides:
Residents who had accomplished nothing incorrect, declared Uncle Hague, had nothing to worry from complete surveillance.
Oh yeah? As Stephen Fry noticed in an exasperated tweet:
William Hague’s view appears to bewe are able to cover a digital camera & bug in your room & in case you’ve acquired nothing to cover, what’s the fear?Hell’s tooth!Hell’s tooth certainly. I can consider 1000’s of people that don’t have anything to cover, however who would have good causes to fret about intrusive surveillance. Journalists looking for to guard their sources, for instance; NHS whistleblowers; individuals looking for on-line assist for private psychological torments; frightened youngsters looking for recommendation on contraception or abortion; estranged wives of abusive husbands; asylum seekers and dissident refugees; and so forth.
In a means, Hague’s smug, patronising tone was the least troubling facet of the NSA/GCHQ story. Extra worrying was the unexplained contradiction between claims within the Prism PowerPoint slides that the NSA routinely collects information from Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, PalTalk, YouTube, Skype, AOL and Apple, and the businesses’ frantic denials that this was the case.
The opposite factor Hague overlooks is how the UK’s GCHQ used very deceptive means to intercept communications during important G20 summits to know the non-public positions of different governments, together with regimes pleasant with the UK. This included organising faux Web cafes, putting in adware resembling keyloggers, and intercepting emails.
It has typically been thought that every one governments want to (or do) carry out some type of spying and espionage throughout worldwide conferences, and it’s typically within the nationwide curiosity to take action (or at the very least might be argued that means).
As well as, because the journal Overseas Coverage revealed, the US spied by itself residents way back to the Vietnam struggle, together with spying on two of its own sitting senior senators and prominent figures such as Martin Luther King, boxer Muhammad Ali, and others. This wasn’t with congressional oversight, however on the White Home’s behest; an abuse of energy, because the journal additionally famous.
Nevertheless it has been not often potential to show such suspicions, till now. One other necessary instance was the US and UK’s efforts to justify the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the varied UN conferences about Iraq-related resolutions, the place the US and UK had been considered spying on mates and others.
Lastly, the when you have nothing to cover
argument misses a basic level; having such vasts quantity of knowledge, probably unnecessarily when collected through a dragnet model system, is awaiting abuse. The NSA and others presently declare they aren’t abusing their roles (however we’ve already heard them mislead Congress, so they’re already going through public belief points which is difficult for a secretive group anyway), however with all this information, it’s the potential to abuse it (internally, or by hacks, and many others) that’s the privateness concern right here. Secrecy (particularly in a democracy) by-passes checks and balances. Within the case of the US, who strongly declare there’s authorized and judicial oversight in these items, it’s nonetheless accomplished in secrecy; it isn’t clear how a lot private information of odd residents (of the US and remainder of the world) is caught on this.
Entry to vasts quantity of person information from Web Giants
One other facet of the US/NSA spying story was the involvement of Web giants resembling Apple, Fb, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter.
It was claimed that the NSA had some sort of backdoor or direct access to the vasts quantity of knowledge these corporations have on their customers, which the Web titans vigorously denied. In some methods, these denials seem like spin as corporations have to comply with legal surveillance requests and the knowledge could not technically be shared through backdoors.
Then again, corporations usually are not legally allowed to acknowledge sure sorts of intelligence requests so legally there might be vasts quantities of knowledge sharing however the secrecy surrounding it means it isn’t clear how a lot privateness invasion is reputable or not.
However on the very least it emerged there have been presumably 1000’s of requests for just about all information for numerous customers they’d goal. And that the NSA had been in a position to seize an unlimited quantity of Web information.
Edward Snowden instructed the Hong Kong-based South China Put up that there had been more than 61,000 hacking operations globally, with a whole bunch of targets in Hong Kong and on the [Chinese] mainland. We hack community backbones–like big Web routers, mainly–that give us entry to the communications of a whole bunch of 1000’s of computer systems with out having to hack each single one,
Snowden added.
And a few corporations are solely too prepared to promote to the US authorities to assist these actions. For instance, Inter Press Service notes a Californian company offering US government agencies software to intercept signals on undersea cables that can be utilized to investigate all kinds of well-liked Web companies, resembling Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Fb, Twitter, and many others.
Web Governance
It’s attention-grabbing to notice that just a few months earlier the US was resisting what appeared like worldwide efforts to place the stewardship of the Web within the palms of the United Nations fairly than being a decentralized system (although with the US having ultimate say over the modifications to sure points of the core, or root, Web servers).
On the time, a lot of the know-how neighborhood and others argued that the US is an effective defender of the Web (and helped create it within the first place), and that placing it into the palms of the UN was actually the agenda of countries like Russia, China and others with questionable data on human rights. Examples resembling surveillance and censorship got as causes to not belief different governments. And boards and blogs had been full of the same old over-simplistic UN-bashing that the US is usually identified for.
The US, by comparability, (most likely rightly) argued that the present decentralized system works nicely. Web giants resembling Google also weighed in along similar lines, as did numerous Web freedom activist organizations and people.
Sadly, even with the present system, governments sadly can sensor massive parts of the Web in the event that they wish to. However because the latest spying episode has revealed as nicely, that is maybe another excuse for the US not eager to relinquish management of such a globally priceless useful resource. Having the ability to faucet into a number of the core Web servers, a lot of that are primarily based within the US or US-friendly nations, provides it a bonus of different international locations and entities.
In different phrases, if even inside the present system international locations like China and Russia can censor and monitor the Web why do they care about wanting extra management? Larry Geller provides an instance:
Little question wrongdoers utterly perceive that they mustn’t plot their actions utilizing Gmail. They know that if their cell telephones are powered on, somebody within the US is aware of the place they’re. So that they keep away from utilizing the programs that the NSA is monitoring. These whose information does get recorded and analyzed are overwhelmingly odd residents—of this and different international locations. The NSA computer systems are full of odd individuals’s information, together with particulars of their love-lives, their monetary transactions, and which films they’ve ordered tickets to see.
The latest leaks by Edward Snowden could revive strain to maneuver to extra native management of knowledge flows to forestall US spying. Do different international locations care whether or not we document their citizen’s non-public information? Maybe not a lot. However Putin could care that his personal telephone calls are on file someplace in Utah.
People and residents of different international locations
A number of the scandal within the US has been that the surveillance by NSA has included American residents. Misplaced in that concern is the privateness of non-US residents. It virtually seems that mainstream US media usually are not too anxious about that. However residents around the globe are rightly out-raged.
It isn’t just like the US-based companies (resembling these from Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple, Fb, and others) are simply replaceable. Not solely do individuals around the globe depend on these companies, however these corporations depend on individuals around the globe utilizing their companies too.
Being international companies, the concept of nation states and citizen rights have not likely developed rapidly sufficient to cater for the modifications being caused by the Web. (It has equally been argued that the way in which companies are pushing for a neoliberal form of globalization, nation states are struggling to deal with that, too, so there’s maybe an actual difficulty of democracy and other people’s rights in a brand new world that’s basically at stake.)
Spying on pleasant international locations and worldwide establishments
I believe the primary factor I wish to emphasize is I don’t have an curiosity and the individuals on the NSA don’t have an curiosity in doing something apart from ensuring that … we are able to forestall a terrorist assault… We should not have an curiosity in doing something apart from that. And we’ve tried to arrange a system … to be sure that these packages usually are not abused.
Breaking UN protocol at a Common Meeting assembly of all members states Brazil strongly criticized the US for illegally infiltrating its communications network, intercepting phone calls, and breaking into the Brazilian Mission to the United Nations. President Dilma Rousseff dismissed the US argument that such actions had been to counter terrorism. As a substitute, she argued, company data — typically of excessive financial and even strategic worth — was on the heart of espionage actions.
Experiences additionally surfaced of the US spying on the United Nations and various European countries, together with the workplace of the European Union on the UN. The US had managed to crack the UN’s inner video teleconferencing system, as a part of its surveillance of the world physique.
Main know-how web page, Ars Technica, additionally provides that the NSA also runs a bugging program in more than 80 embassies and consulates around the world, underneath a program known as the Particular Assortment Service
, an intensive
program that has little or nothing to do with fending off terrorists,
in response to Der Spiegel.
US mainstream media deal with Edward Snowden
When Edward Snowden made his revelations he hoped the main focus could be on the problems, not on him or his plight. However as many have identified for a few years, the US mainstream media is rarely able to do reporting of serious issues; sensationalism and specializing in people are simpler to do in comparison with tackling core points which might maintain energy to account (be it authorities, company or in any other case).
In a Q&A session with The Guardian, he famous that Sadly, the mainstream media now appears much more involved in what I mentioned once I was 17 or what my girlfriend seems to be like fairly than, say, the most important program of suspicionless surveillance in human historical past.
Within the US, a lot of the main focus had grow to be about whether or not he was a traitor or not; he felt there was no likelihood of a good trial within the US as a result of the US had brazenly accused and judged him of treason. In response to questions on whether or not he was a traitor he added
US officers say this each time there’s a public dialogue that might restrict their authority. US officers additionally present deceptive or straight false assertions in regards to the worth of those packages, as they did only in the near past with the Zazi case, which court docket paperwork clearly present was not unveiled by PRISM.
Journalists ought to ask a particular query: since these packages started operation shortly after September eleventh, what number of terrorist assaults had been prevented SOLELY by data derived from this suspicionless surveillance that might not be gained through some other supply? Then ask what number of particular person communications had been ingested to attain that, and ask your self if it was value it. Bathtub falls and law enforcement officials kill extra People than terrorism, but we have been requested to sacrifice our most sacred rights for worry of falling sufferer to it.
It’s necessary to keep in mind I’m being known as a traitor by males like former vp Dick Cheney. This can be a man who gave us the warrantless wiretapping scheme as a sort of atrocity warm-up on the way in which to deceitfully engineering a battle that has killed over 4,400 and maimed almost 32,000 People, in addition to leaving over 100,000 Iraqis lifeless. Being known as a traitor by Dick Cheney is the best honor you can provide an American.
When requested how the therapy of different whistleblowers influenced him, he had a profound problem for President Obama:
Binney, Drake, Kiriakou, and Manning are all examples of how overly-harsh responses to public-interest whistle-blowing solely escalate the size, scope, and talent concerned in future disclosures. Residents with a conscience usually are not going to disregard wrong-doing just because they’ll be destroyed for it: the conscience forbids it. As a substitute, these draconian responses merely construct higher whistleblowers. If the Obama administration responds with an excellent harsher hand towards me, they are often assured that they’ll quickly discover themselves going through an equally harsh public response.
This disclosure gives Obama a possibility to enchantment for a return to sanity, constitutional coverage, and the rule of legislation fairly than males. He nonetheless has loads of time to go down in historical past because the President who appeared into the abyss and stepped again, fairly than leaping ahead into it. I’d advise he personally name for a particular committee to evaluation these interception packages, repudiate the harmful
State Secrets and techniquesprivilege, and, upon making ready to depart workplace, start a convention for all Presidents forthwith to reveal their respect for the legislation by appointing a particular investigator to evaluation the insurance policies of their years in workplace for any wrongdoing. There might be no religion in authorities if our highest workplaces are excused from scrutiny — they need to be setting the instance of transparency.
Privatization of surveillance means even much less accountability?
Chris Pyle, a former army teacher uncovered the CIA and Military’s monitoring of thousands and thousands of People engaged in lawful political exercise within the Nineteen Seventies. His revelations in the end resulting in a collection of legal guidelines aimed toward curbing authorities abuses.
He was not too long ago interviewed by the wonderful Democracy Now! in regards to the latest NSA revelations and echoed considerations raised by others; about lack of know-how and oversight by Congress and that the secrecy is uncontrolled.
However he additionally provides that privatization of surveillance (70% p.c of the intelligence funds of the USA right this moment goes to personal contractors, Democracy Now! notes) is leading to an absence of accountability and importantly a means for governments to shirk their authorized obligations; the Fourth Modification of the Structure, which protects us from unreasonable searches and seizures, solely binds the federal government, doesn’t bind companies. That’s a significant issue,
he notes.
Extra data
This web page will most likely not be capable to sustain with new revelations as they’re revealed. Nonetheless, there are a selection of web sites which can be value following on this difficulty. As well as, the IPS information feed that this website carries can even cowl this.
Different websites
Listed here are a variety of websites which have additional data and might cowl this story because it occurs far faster than this web page can:
Information tales from IPS
Under is an inventory of tales from Inter Press Service associated to this difficulty.
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Big Brother is Watching You– as Electronic Surveillance Dominates Lives
– Inter Press Service
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 22 (IPS) – The British novelist George Orwell’s “1984” characterised a dystopian society the place individuals had been restricted from impartial thought and had been victims of fixed surveillance.
Revealed in 1949, it was a prophecy of the longer term with the underlying theme: “Huge Brother is Watching You”
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IAEA strikes deal with Iran on monitoring of nuclear programme
– UN Information
The UN atomic watchdog reached an settlement with Iran on Sunday permitting the Company entry to surveillance cameras inside its atomic amenities.
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Spyware: Rights experts push for surveillance technology moratorium
– UN Information
A bunch of UN-appointed specialists on Thursday known as for a moratorium on the sale of surveillance know-how, warning towards the hazard of permitting the sector to function as “a human rights-free zone.”
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Pegasus: Human rights-compliant laws needed to regulate spyware
– UN Information
The UN human rights chief on Monday mentioned the obvious widespread use of Pegasus spy software program to illegally undermine the rights of these underneath surveillance, together with journalists and politicians, was “extraordinarily alarming” and confirmed “a number of the worst fears” surrounding the potential misuse of such know-how.
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Q&A: If China had a Free Press COVID-19 Pandemic ‘May not Have been so Severe’
– Inter Press Service
BRATISLAVA, Could 26 (IPS) – China is without doubt one of the worst locations on this planet for media freedom, in response to the worldwide media watchdog Reporters With out Borders (RSF) which ranked the nation 177 out of 180 in its newest World Press Freedom Index. Within the report, the group warned that Beijing is taking “web censorship, surveillance and propaganda to unprecedented stage,” and had “taken benefit of the Covid-19 pandemic to reinforce its management over on-line data much more”. China can also be the world’s largest jailers of journalists with greater than 120 journalists and what the group calls “defenders of press freedom” presently detained.
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What Journalists Should Know About Coronavirus Cellphone Tracking
– Inter Press Service
NEW YORK, Apr 08 (IPS) – Governments all around the world have been contemplating cellphone surveillance to assist observe and comprise the unfold of the coronavirus.
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How Nigeria’s Police used Telecom Surveillance to Lure & Arrest Journalists
– Inter Press Service
NEW YORK, Feb 19 (IPS) – As reporters for Nigeria’s Premium Occasions newspaper, Samuel Ogundipe and Azeezat Adedigba instructed CPJ they spoke typically over the telephone. They’d no concept that their common conversations about work and their private lives had been making a document of their friendship.
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Campaign Targets UNESCO’s Tie-up with ‘Saudi Spies’
– Inter Press Service
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 14 (IPS) – The United Nations faces renewed criticism over its partnership with Saudi Arabia’s Misk Basis amid revelations that the charity is headed by the mastermind of a latest Twitter spying operation.
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Why the Prosecution of Julian Assange is Troubling for Press Freedom
– Inter Press Service
NEW YORK, Apr 16 (IPS) – Alex Ellerbeck* is North America Program Coordinator on the Committee to Shield Journalists & Avi Asher-Schapiro* is North America Analysis Affiliate
After a seven-year standoff on the Ecuadorean embassy in London, British police final week arrested WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange–a improvement press freedom advocates had lengthy feared.
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Q&A: How Will the Global Compact for Migration Aid the Work of Civil Society
– Inter Press Service
MARRAKECH, Morocco, Dec 12 (IPS) – IPS correspondent Steven Nsamaza interviews CLAUDIA INTERIANO from Fundación para la Justicia y el Estado Democratico de Derecho.
Claudia Interiano from Fundación para la Justicia y el Estado Democratico de Derecho, a Latin American organisation that works to entry justice for individuals killed or lacking throughout transit by Mexico to the USA, spoke to IPS in regards to the foreseeable way forward for migration in a world after the top of the International Compact for Protected, Orderly and Common Migration (GCM) convention.
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Why Release of Two Journalists in Ethiopia Does not Signal End to Press Crackdown
– Inter Press Service
NEW YORK, Jan 26 (IPS) – On January 10, radio journalists Darsema Sori and Khalid Mohammed had been launched from jail after serving prolonged sentences associated to their work on the Ethiopian faith-based station Radio Bilal. Regardless of their launch and Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn’s promise earlier this month to free political prisoners, Ethiopia’s use of imprisonment, harassment, and surveillance signifies that the nation continues to be a hostile surroundings for journalists.
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Turkish Surveillance Invades Social Media Privacy
– Inter Press Service
Nov 20 (IPS) – “The current authorities has taken measures that transcend something the earlier army juntas did”, in response to authorized knowledgeable Sercan Aran of the commerce union confederation KESK. The military has beforehand registered private information and the non-public political views of suspected dissidents, however at all times underneath secrecy.
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Southern Africa’s Marshall Plan to Stop Voracious Crop Worm
– Inter Press Service
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Jul 18 (IPS) – Southern African international locations have agreed on a multi-pronged plan to extend surveillance and analysis to comprise the autumn military worm, which has minimize forecast regional maize harvests by as much as ten p.c, in response to a senior U.N. Meals and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) official.
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Tax Evasion Lessons From Panama
– Inter Press Service
KUALA LAMPUR, Feb 21 (IPS) – In contrast to Wikileaks and different exposes, the Panama revelations had been fastidiously managed, if not edited, fairly selective, and therefore focused, at the very least initially. Most observers attribute this to the political agendas of its fundamental sponsors. Nonetheless, the revelations have highlighted some issues related to illicit monetary flows, in addition to tax evasion and avoidance, together with the position of enabling governments, laws, authorized and accounting corporations in addition to shell corporations.
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Threats to Freedom of Expression in the Social Networks
– Inter Press Service
ZAPOPAN, Mexico, Dec 27 (IPS) – E-mail surveillance, blocking of internet sites with content material that’s awkward for governments, or the interruption of companies resembling WhatsApp are signs of the risk to freedom of expression on-line, in response to Latin American activists.
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Australian Activists, Dissenters and Whistleblowers Feeling the Heat
– Inter Press Service
MELBOURNE, Nov 24 (IPS) – For Australian activist Samantha Castro, it was her affiliation with the non-profit publishing organisation Wikileaks that introduced her to the eye of the Australian Federal Police (AFP).
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Opinion: Panama, Secrecy and Tax Havens
– Inter Press Service
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Apr 22 (IPS) – In contrast to Wikileaks’ exposes, the latest Panama revelations had been fairly selective, focused, edited and thoroughly managed. Most observers attribute this to the political agendas of its primarily American funders. Nonetheless, the revelations have highlighted some issues related to illicit monetary flows, in addition to tax evasion and avoidance, together with the position of enabling governments, laws, authorized and accounting corporations in addition to shell corporations.
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Opinion: Why Are Threats to Civil Society Growing Around the World?
– Inter Press Service
JOHANNESBURG, Jun 10 (IPS) – Whistle-blowers like Edward Snowden and Julian Assange are hounded – not by autocratic however by democratic governments – for revealing the reality about grave human rights violations. Nobel peace prize winner, author and political activist Liu Xiaobo is presently languishing in a Chinese language jail whereas the killing of Egyptian protestor, poet and mom Shaimaa al-Sabbaghapparently by a masked policeman, in January this 12 months continues to hang-out us.
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Press Freedom Groups Denounce NSA Spying on AJ Bureau Chief
– Inter Press Service
NEW YORK, Could 12 (IPS) – Ahmad Muaffaq Zaidan does not deny that he is had contact with terrorist teams. Actually, it could have been fairly troublesome to do his job in any other case.
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The Definition of ‘Rape’ Cannot Change with a Marriage Certificate
– Inter Press Service
NEW DELHI, Could 12 (IPS) – “I used to be brutally raped thrice by my husband. He stored me underneath surveillance in his Dubai home whereas I suffered from extreme malnutrition and melancholy. Once I tried to flee from this hellhole, he confiscated my passport, disadvantaged me of cash and beat me up,” recollects Anna Marie Lopes, 28, a rape survivor who after six years of torture, lastly managed to board a flight to New Delhi from the United Arab Emirates in 2012.
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Battling Terrorism Shouldn’t Justify Torture, Spying or Hangings, Says U.N. Rights Chief
– Inter Press Service
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 05 (IPS) – The United Nations, which is the authorized guardian of scores of human rights treaties banning torture, illegal imprisonment, degrading therapy of prisoners of struggle and enforced disappearances, is troubled that an growing variety of international locations are justifying violations of U.N. conventions on grounds of combating terrorism in battle zones.
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Cameroon Wants the World to Wake Up to the Smell of its Coffee
– Inter Press Service
KOUOPTOMO, Cameroon, Aug 05 (IPS) – Issah Mounde Nsangou combs his 6.5-hectare Kouoptomo espresso plantation in Cameroon’s West Area, pulling up undesirable weeds and clipping off parasitic vegetation. For the 50-year-old farmer, the well being of his espresso vegetation are of prime significance.
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Mexico – Both Victim and Victimiser in Cyberespionage
– Inter Press Service
MEXICO CITY, Jun 01 (IPS) – An absence of controls, regulation and transparency marks the monitoring and surveillance of digital communication in Mexico, one 12 months after the revelations of cyberespionage shook the world.
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Taiwanese Saved a Little From Wiretapping
– Inter Press Service
TAIPEI, Mar 03 (IPS) – Taiwan’s nationwide legislature has taken a small however necessary step to curb rampant authorities surveillance of residents and politicians by revisions of the Communication Safety and Surveillance Act and the felony code.
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Obama Curbs Spying on Foreign Nationals Overseas
– Inter Press Service
WASHINGTON, Jan 17 (IPS) – In a extremely anticipated speech on Friday, President Barack Obama launched a collection of reforms that can place new limits and safeguards on U.S. intelligence gathering, together with extra protections for overseas nationals abroad.
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U.S. Snooping Makes It a Neighbourhood Pariah
– Inter Press Service
WASHINGTON, Oct 29 (IPS) – As the primary formal probe by a world rights physique into allegations of U.S. mass surveillance started right here Monday, privateness advocates from all through the Americas accused Washington of violating worldwide covenants and endangering civil society.
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U.N. Will Censure Illegal Spying, But Not U.S.
– Inter Press Service
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 28 (IPS) – When the 193-member Common Meeting adopts a decision subsequent month censuring the unlawful digital surveillance of governments and world leaders by the U.S. Nationwide Safety Company (NSA), the U.N.’s highest policy-making physique will spare the USA from public condemnation regardless of its culpability in widespread wiretapping.
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U.S. Spying Worldwide May Come Under U.N. Scrutiny
– Inter Press Service
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 25 (IPS) – When Clare Brief, Britain’s former minister for worldwide improvement, revealed that British intelligence brokers had spied on former U.N. Secretary-Common Kofi Annan by bugging his workplace simply earlier than the disastrous U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the U.N. chief was livid that his discussions with world leaders had been compromised.
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Cybercrime Treaty Could Be Used to Go After Cyberespionage
– Inter Press Service
MEXICO CITY, Oct 03 (IPS) – Governments of nations that interact in large-scale digital espionage, like the USA, and corporations that develop spying software program may theoretically face authorized motion for violating the Conference on Cybercrime.
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Breaking U.N. Protocol, Brazil Lambastes U.S. Spying
– Inter Press Service
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 24 (IPS) – Throwing diplomatic protocol to the winds, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff launched a blistering assault on the USA for illegally infiltrating its communications community, surreptitiously intercepting telephone calls, and breaking into the Brazilian Mission to the United Nations.
Picture credit: CCTV Surveillance Digital camera
, courtesy of Zapyon.
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