[bestbits] ACTION: Brazil & Germany UN Pro-Privacy Resolution Needs Your Help

[Katitza Rodriguez]

Dear Best Bits coalition

Privacy International, Access, Center for Technology and Society.
Brazil), Center for Technology and Society at Fundacao Getulio Vargas,
Association for Progressive communications, Samuelson-Glushko Canadian
Internet & Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC), Center for Internet &
Society India and the Electronic Frontier Foundation seek your support
of a UN General Assembly resolution introduced by Germany and Brazil
last week and currently being debated in the General Assembly. The
draft resolution, "The right to privacy in the digital age"
(A/C.3/68/L.45), as drafted, presents a positive step toward
protecting communications privacy in light of mass surveillance
initiatives.

The draft resolution can be found here:

http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/C.3/68/L.45

We fear that the positive elements of this draft resolution can be
negatively altered. Your support is needed to push back against such
efforts and to defend the draft resolution as currently written.

Potential attempts to undermine the resolution may revolve around
minimizing the language of the resolution to reflect what is already
in high-level documents (notably the ICCPR). The strongest impetus for
these changes is coming from the United States, who are seeking to
amend this document to accommodate some of its current, highly
questionable, foreign intelligence mass surveillance practices. This,
in turn, may limit any positive interpretive force the document might
have. Specific potential concerns include:

• Attempts to remove language aimed affirming that an interference
with privacy occurs when data is collected or monitored, as opposed to
when already collected data is accessed and ‘abused’;
• Attempts to remove any attempt to address issues arising from
extra-territorial surveillance;
• Attempts to change references to ‘communications’ to indicate
‘interception of private communications’, a term which often protects
the content of communications, but not the metadata;
• Attempts to shift language focusing on ‘illegal violations’ to
‘unlawful/arbitrary surveillance’, with unlawful implying inconsistent
with domestic law;
• Attempts to replace references to privacy as an ‘individual human
right’ with the language of the ICCPR text itself (arbitrary/unlawful
interference with privacy) and to generally remove any inference that
privacy is a general human right protected in numerous international
instruments; and
• Attempts to minimize text linking the privacy right to broader
democratic values.

We note that a weak or meaningless resolution that merely affirms
language already in existing international instruments will do little
to advance the protection of privacy in light of recent revelations,
and may be viewed as a loss.

The draft resolution will be voted at the UN General Assembly in a
week and a half. We hope you can take action by urging your national
governments, especially, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to sign on
to the Resolution and to do so in its original written and unamended
format.

To facilitate this, we have drafted a letter of support that can form
the basis of such an outreach initiative. Feel free to amend,
translate and personalize it as you see fit, or send it as is to your
respective ministries of foreign affairs or United Nations Permanent
Mission urging them to support the resolution.

The letter is available here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/11PO741ECz_86p59_WjYliBqwYoPgn6-4fzRpLuxFUOg/edit

and attached to this email.

In a parallel track, we want to update you that we have over 290 NGOs
signatories to the Necessary and Proportionate Principles. We are now
opening the sign-ons to individual experts and to the general public.
We will be hopefully be doing a public launch of the
NecessaryandProportionate.org Action Center next week. We will keep
you posted. If you want to get more involved, please send me an email
to confirm your interest.


Kind Regards,

Joy Liddicoat. Association for Progressive Communications
Carly Nyst, Privacy International
Joana Varon, Center for Technology and Society CTS/FGV (Brazil)
Fabiola Carrion, Access
Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet & Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC)
Elonnai Hickok, Center for Internet & Society India
Katitza Rodriguez, Electronic Frontier Foundation
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