United Nations report: US, UK surveillance programs violate international law
● A report released Wednesday by United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) Navi Pillay, entitled “The Right to Privacy in the Digital Age”, finds that surveillance practices carried out by the major powers, the United States and the United Kingdom, in particular, violate basic principles of international law and are destructive of democratic rights.
● The report singles out a number of government activities that conflict with international law, including bulk collection of communications metadata, unrestricted sharing of data between government agencies, reliance on secret rules and secret courts, dragnet surveillance of foreigners, and the use of surveillance to facilitate drone strikes. The report warns that new forms of data-sharing and surveillance-related interactions between governments and corporations pose immense dangers to people’s democratic rights.
The Register: UN to Five Eyes nations: Your mass surveillance is breaking the law || The report [PDF]