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

Fri Jun 14 23:37:55 EDT 2013

Mr. Norbert:
I support this letter, it is important that everyone know.
thanks
José F. Callo Romero
CEO ciencitec.com

Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch> escribió:

>> > 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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