<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:tahoma, new york, times, serif;font-size:10pt"><div><span>Dear Norbert, </span></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 13px; font-family: tahoma, 'new york', times, serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span>Should we also address the same concern with </span><span style="color: rgb(69, 69, 69); font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">UN General Assembly?</span></div><div style="color: rgb(69, 69, 69); font-size: 11px; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span style="color: rgb(69, 69, 69); font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">B/R</span></div><div style="color: rgb(69, 69, 69); font-size: 11px; font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span style="color: rgb(69, 69, 69);
font-family: verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">Imran</span></div><div><br><blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; margin-top: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"> <div style="font-family: tahoma, 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 10pt;"> <div style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <div dir="ltr"> <hr size="1"> <font size="2" face="Arial"> <b><span style="font-weight:bold;">From:</span></b> Norbert Bollow <nb@bollow.ch><br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> governance@lists.igcaucus.org <br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Saturday, 15 June 2013, 5:09<br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> [governance] FORMAL CONSENSUS CALL - IGC endorsement: International
civil society letter to Congress<br> </font> </div> <div class="y_msg_container"><br>> > <a href="http://bestbits.net/prism-congress/" target="_blank">http://bestbits.net/prism-congress/</a><br><br>[with IGC coordinator hat on]<br><br>FORMAL CONSENSUS CALL<br><br>We have had quite a few expressions of support for the “International<br>civil society letter to Congress” already, and no objections so far.<br><br>Please review the proposed statement text as included for reference<br>below.<br><br>If you agree with the proposed statement or are indifferent about it,<br>there is no need to take action about it at the current stage.<br><br>If however you disagree with IGC expressing support for this letter, it<br>is now the final opportunity to object if you wish to do so.<br><br>** Any objections should be posted by Monday June 17, 9am UTC. **<br><br>If no objections are received by that time, IGC endorsement of the<br>proposed letter will be deemed
to have been decided by consensus.<br><br>NOTE on potential further steps in the decision-making process: If there<br>are any objections, we will then discuss how to proceed.<br><br>Greetings,<br>Norbert<br><br>-- text proposed for endorsement follows--------------------------------<br><br>Civil society letter to United States Congress on Internet and<br>telecommunications surveillance<br><br>Members of US Congress:<br><br>We write as a coalition of civil society organizations from around the<br>world to express our serious alarm regarding revelations of Internet<br>and telephone communications surveillance of US and non-US citizens by<br>the US government. We also wish to express our grave concern that US<br>authorities may have made the data resulting from those surveillance<br>activities available to other States, including the United Kingdom, the<br>Netherlands, Canada, Belgium, Australia and New Zealand.[1] Many<br>US-based Internet companies with
global reach also seem to be<br>participating in these practices.[2]<br><br>The introduction of surveillance mechanisms at the heart of global<br>digital communications severely threatens human rights in the digital<br>age. These new forms of decentralized power reflect fundamental shifts<br>in the structure of information systems in modern societies.[3] Any step<br>in this direction needs to be scrutinized through ample, deep and<br>transparent debate. Interference with the human rights of citizens by<br>any government, their own or foreign, is unacceptable. The situation of<br>a citizen unable to communicate private thoughts without surveillance<br>by a foreign state not only violates the rights to privacy and human<br>dignity, but also threatens the fundamental rights to freedom of<br>thought, opinion and expression, and association that are at the center<br>of any democratic practice. Such actions are unacceptable and raise<br>serious concerns about
extra-territorial breaches of human rights. The<br>inability of citizens to know if they are subject to foreign<br>surveillance, to challenge such surveillance, or to seek remedies is<br>even more alarming.[4]<br><br>The contradiction between the persistent affirmation of human rights<br>online by the US government and the recent allegations of what appears<br>to be mass surveillance of US and non-US citizens by that same<br>government is very disturbing and carries negative repercussions on the<br>global stage. A blatant and systematic disregard for the human rights<br>articulated in Articles 17 and 19 of the International Covenant on<br>Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which the United States is<br>signatory, as well as Articles 12 and 19 of the Universal Declaration<br>of Human Rights is suggested. Bearing in mind that the US must engage<br>in a long overdue discussion about how to update and modernize its<br>policy to align with its own
founding documents and principles, what<br>happens next in legislative and Executive Branch oversight in the US<br>will have huge and irreversible consequences for the promotion and<br>protection of the human rights of people around the world.<br><br>It is also notable that the United States government supported the<br>United Nations Human Rights Council Resolution 20/8, which “[a]ffirms<br>that the same rights that people have offline must also be protected<br>online, in particular freedom of expression …”[5] and, just a few days<br>ago, on June 10, the US was part of a core group of countries that<br>drafted a cross regional statement, which correctly emphasized “that<br>when addressing any security concerns on the Internet, this must be<br>done in a manner consistent with states’ obligations under<br>international human rights law and full respect for human rights must<br>be maintained.”[6] That was apparently not the case with the
latest<br>practices of the US Government. Besides representing a major violation<br>of fundamental human rights of people worldwide, the incoherence<br>between practices and public statements by the US also undermines the<br>moral credibility of the country within the global community that<br>fights for human rights, as they apply to the Internet and fatally<br>impacts consumers’ trust in all American companies that provide<br>worldwide services.<br><br>On 10 June, 2013 many signatories to this letter joined together to<br>raise our concerns to the United Nations Human Rights Council.[7] We did<br>so against the background of the recent report of the UN Special<br>Rapporteur on the right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression, Mr. Frank<br>La Rue.[8] This report detailed worrying trends in state surveillance of<br>communications with serious implications for the exercise of the human<br>rights to privacy and to freedom of opinion and expression. We
note<br>that US-based stakeholders have also written a letter to Congress to<br>express their concerns about the compliance of the current national<br>surveillance program with domestic law.[9]<br><br>We are also extremely disappointed that, in all the post ‘disclosures’<br>statements, US authorities have only insisted that there was no access<br>obtained to content related to US citizens, and just their<br>communication meta-data was collected. There has not been a word on the<br>issue of large-scale access to content related to non US citizens,<br>which constitute an almost certain human rights violation. The focusing<br>of the US authorities on the difference between treatment of US<br>citizens and non-citizens on an issue which essentially relates to<br>violation of human rights is very problematic. Human rights are<br>universal, and every government must refrain from violating them for<br>all people, and not merely for its citizens. We strongly
advocate that<br>current and future legal provisions and practices take this fact into<br>due consideration.<br><br>We therefore urge the Obama administration and the United States<br>Congress to take immediate action to dismantle existing, and prevent<br>the creation of future, global Internet and telecommunications based<br>surveillance systems. We additionally urge the US Administration, the<br>FBI and the Attorney General to allow involved or affected companies to<br>publish statistics of past and future Foreign Intelligence Surveillance<br>Act (FISA) requests they have received or may receive.[10] We further<br>call on the US Congress to establish protections for government<br>whistleblowers in order to better ensure that the public is adequately<br>informed about abuses of power that violate the fundamental human<br>rights of the citizens of all countries, US and other.[11] We also join<br>Humans Rights Watch in urging the creation of an
independent panel with<br>subpoena power and all necessary security clearances to examine current<br>practices and to make recommendations to ensure appropriate protections<br>for the rights to privacy, free expression, and association. The<br>results of this panel should be broadly published.<br><br>[1] http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d0873f38-d1c5-11e2-9336-00144feab7de.html,<br><a href="https://www.bof.nl/2013/06/11/bits-of-freedom-dutch-spooks-must-stop-use-of-prism/" target="_blank">https://www.bof.nl/2013/06/11/bits-of-freedom-dutch-spooks-must-stop-use-of-prism/</a><br>and http://www.standaard.be/cnt/DMF20130610_063.<br><br>[2] Including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype,<br>YouTube, and Apple:<br><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence-mining-data-from-nine-us-internet-companies-in-broad-secret-program/2013/06/06/3a0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html"
target="_blank">http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence-mining-data-from-nine-us-internet-companies-in-broad-secret-program/2013/06/06/3a0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html</a><br><br>[3] <a href="http://www.state.gov/statecraft/overview/" target="_blank">http://www.state.gov/statecraft/overview/</a><br><br>[4] (A/HRC/23/40)<br><br>[5] <a href="http://ap.ohchr.org/documents/dpage_e.aspx?si=A/HRC/RES/20/8" target="_blank">http://ap.ohchr.org/documents/dpage_e.aspx?si=A/HRC/RES/20/8</a><br><br>[6] <a href="http://geneva.usmission.gov/2013/06/10/internet-freedom-5/" target="_blank">http://geneva.usmission.gov/2013/06/10/internet-freedom-5/</a><br><br>[7] <a href="http://bestbits.net/prism-nsa" target="_blank">http://bestbits.net/prism-nsa</a><br><br>[8] (A/HRC/23/40)<br><br>[9] Asking the U.S. government to allow Google to publish more national<br>security request data<br><a
href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/asking-us-government-to-allow-google-to.html" target="_blank">http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/asking-us-government-to-allow-google-to.html</a><br><br>[10] <a href="https://www.stopwatching.us/" target="_blank">https://www.stopwatching.us/</a><br><br>[11] The just-released Global Principles on National Security and<br>Freedom of Information (the Tshwane Principles) which address the topic<br>of Whistleblowing and National Security provide relevant guidance in<br>this regard:<br>http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/sites/default/files/Global%20Principles%20on%20National%20Security%20and%20the%20Right%20to%20Information%20%28Tshwane%20Principles%29%20-%20June%202013.pdf.<br><br>____________________________________________________________<br>You received this message as a subscriber on the list:<br> <a ymailto="mailto:governance@lists.igcaucus.org"
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