[governance] FORMAL CONSENSUS CALL - IGC endorsement: International civil society letter to Congress

Fri Jun 14 20:09:25 EDT 2013

> > http://bestbits.net/prism-congress/

[with IGC coordinator hat on]

FORMAL CONSENSUS CALL

We have had quite a few expressions of support for the “International
civil society letter to Congress” already, and no objections so far.

Please review the proposed statement text as included for reference
below.

If you agree with the proposed statement or are indifferent about it,
there is no need to take action about it at the current stage.

If however you disagree with IGC expressing support for this letter, it
is now the final opportunity to object if you wish to do so.

** Any objections should be posted by Monday June 17, 9am UTC. **

If no objections are received by that time, IGC endorsement of the
proposed letter will be deemed to have been decided by consensus.

NOTE on potential further steps in the decision-making process: If there
are any objections, we will then discuss how to proceed.

Greetings,
Norbert

-- text proposed for endorsement follows--------------------------------

Civil society letter to United States Congress on Internet and
telecommunications surveillance

Members of US Congress:

We write as a coalition of civil society organizations from around the
world to express our serious alarm regarding revelations of Internet
and telephone communications surveillance of US and non-US citizens by
the US government. We also wish to express our grave concern that US
authorities may have made the data resulting from those surveillance
activities available to other States, including the United Kingdom, the
Netherlands, Canada, Belgium, Australia and New Zealand.[1] Many
US-based Internet companies with global reach also seem to be
participating in these practices.[2]

The introduction of surveillance mechanisms at the heart of global
digital communications severely threatens human rights in the digital
age. These new forms of decentralized power reflect fundamental shifts
in the structure of information systems in modern societies.[3] Any step
in this direction needs to be scrutinized through ample, deep and
transparent debate. Interference with the human rights of citizens by
any government, their own or foreign, is unacceptable. The situation of
a citizen unable to communicate private thoughts without surveillance
by a foreign state not only violates the rights to privacy and human
dignity, but also threatens the fundamental rights to freedom of
thought, opinion and expression, and association that are at the center
of any democratic practice. Such actions are unacceptable and raise
serious concerns about extra-territorial breaches of human rights. The
inability of citizens to know if they are subject to foreign
surveillance, to challenge such surveillance, or to seek remedies is
even more alarming.[4]

The contradiction between the persistent affirmation of human rights
online by the US government and the recent allegations of what appears
to be mass surveillance of US and non-US citizens by that same
government is very disturbing and carries negative repercussions on the
global stage. A blatant and systematic disregard for the human rights
articulated in Articles 17 and 19 of the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which the United States is
signatory, as well as Articles 12 and 19 of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights is suggested. Bearing in mind that the US must engage
in a long overdue discussion about how to update and modernize its
policy to align with its own founding documents and principles, what
happens next in legislative and Executive Branch oversight in the US
will have huge and irreversible consequences for the promotion and
protection of the human rights of people around the world.

It is also notable that the United States government supported the
United Nations Human Rights Council Resolution 20/8, which “[a]ffirms
that the same rights that people have offline must also be protected
online, in particular freedom of expression …”[5] and, just a few days
ago, on June 10, the US was part of a core group of countries that
drafted a cross regional statement, which correctly emphasized “that
when addressing any security concerns on the Internet, this must be
done in a manner consistent with states’ obligations under
international human rights law and full respect for human rights must
be maintained.”[6] That was apparently not the case with the latest
practices of the US Government. Besides representing a major violation
of fundamental human rights of people worldwide, the incoherence
between practices and public statements by the US also undermines the
moral credibility of the country within the global community that
fights for human rights, as they apply to the Internet and fatally
impacts consumers’ trust in all American companies that provide
worldwide services.

On 10 June, 2013 many signatories to this letter joined together to
raise our concerns to the United Nations Human Rights Council.[7] We did
so against the background of the recent report of the UN Special
Rapporteur on the right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression, Mr. Frank
La Rue.[8] This report detailed worrying trends in state surveillance of
communications with serious implications for the exercise of the human
rights to privacy and to freedom of opinion and expression. We note
that US-based stakeholders have also written a letter to Congress to
express their concerns about the compliance of the current national
surveillance program with domestic law.[9]

We are also extremely disappointed that, in all the post ‘disclosures’
statements, US authorities have only insisted that there was no access
obtained to content related to US citizens, and just their
communication meta-data was collected. There has not been a word on the
issue of large-scale access to content related to non US citizens,
which constitute an almost certain human rights violation. The focusing
of the US authorities on the difference between treatment of US
citizens and non-citizens on an issue which essentially relates to
violation of human rights is very problematic. Human rights are
universal, and every government must refrain from violating them for
all people, and not merely for its citizens. We strongly advocate that
current and future legal provisions and practices take this fact into
due consideration.

We therefore urge the Obama administration and the United States
Congress to take immediate action to dismantle existing, and prevent
the creation of future, global Internet and telecommunications based
surveillance systems. We additionally urge the US Administration, the
FBI and the Attorney General to allow involved or affected companies to
publish statistics of past and future Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act (FISA) requests they have received or may receive.[10] We further
call on the US Congress to establish protections for government
whistleblowers in order to better ensure that the public is adequately
informed about abuses of power that violate the fundamental human
rights of the citizens of all countries, US and other.[11] We also join
Humans Rights Watch in urging the creation of an independent panel with
subpoena power and all necessary security clearances to examine current
practices and to make recommendations to ensure appropriate protections
for the rights to privacy, free expression, and association. The
results of this panel should be broadly published.

[1] http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d0873f38-d1c5-11e2-9336-00144feab7de.html,
https://www.bof.nl/2013/06/11/bits-of-freedom-dutch-spooks-must-stop-use-of-prism/
and http://www.standaard.be/cnt/DMF20130610_063.

[2] Including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype,
YouTube, and Apple:
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

[3] http://www.state.gov/statecraft/overview/

[4] (A/HRC/23/40)

[5] http://ap.ohchr.org/documents/dpage_e.aspx?si=A/HRC/RES/20/8

[6] http://geneva.usmission.gov/2013/06/10/internet-freedom-5/

[7] http://bestbits.net/prism-nsa

[8] (A/HRC/23/40)

[9] Asking the U.S. government to allow Google to publish more national
security request data
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/asking-us-government-to-allow-google-to.html

[10] https://www.stopwatching.us/

[11] The just-released Global Principles on National Security and
Freedom of Information (the Tshwane Principles) which address the topic
of Whistleblowing and National Security provide relevant guidance in
this regard:
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.

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