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

[Imran Ahmed Shah]

Dear Norbert, 
Should we also address the same concern with UN General Assembly?
B/R
Imran



>________________________________
> From: Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch>
>To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org 
>Sent: Saturday, 15 June 2013, 5:09
>Subject: [governance] FORMAL CONSENSUS CALL - IGC endorsement: International civil society letter to Congress
> 
>
>> > 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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