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U.N. Realizes Internet Surveillance Chills Free Speech
An anonymous reader writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports that the United Nations has finally come to the realization that there is a direct relationship between government surveillance online and citizens' freedom of expression. The report (PDF) says, 'The right to privacy is often understood as an essential requirement for the realization of the right to freedom of expression. Undue interference with individuals' privacy can both directly and indirectly limit the free development and exchange of ideas. An infringement upon one right can be both the cause and consequence of an infringement upon the other.' The EFF adds, 'La Rue's landmark report could not come at a better time. The explosion of online expression we've seen in the past decade is now being followed by an explosion of communications surveillance. For many, the Internet and mobile telephony are no longer platforms where private communication is shielded from governments knowing when, where, and with whom a communication has occurred.'"
Claiming to shave ya,
They decapitate.
Liberty will save ya,
When wonks defenestrate.
Burma Shave
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
So they realized it, but the problem is that pretty much all the people in power want it that way, so nothing will change, no matter how many sternly worded letters and resolutions get introduced.
Frank La Ru is Captain Obvious.
.. that UN can`t really do anything unless countries support it. Countries where governments are more and more interested in speech restriction so they can keep the shiny power!
This combination doesn`t exist: ETIs that know about humanity and want to see us dead. Otherwise we wouldn't exist.
It doesn't matter how much or who monitors you.
What matters is what actions are taken from the monitoring - if any.
Given that monitoring is impossible to prevent or really limit, all efforts should be made in shaming those taking bad ACTIONS based upon collected data.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
A first post means more than a sternly worded letter. At least the first post gets read and replied to.
all efforts should be made in shaming those taking bad ACTIONS based upon collected data.
To heck with *shaming* people who take bad actions with collected data need to be *punished*. And pretty severely at that.
Hmm, the humour and sarcasm seem to have been be lost on you.
"Information is power." This is not strictly true, but information multiplies actions` effectiveness. The more information someone has about anyone makes easier to manipulate the victim without anyone`s knowledge. Always keep that in mind.
This combination doesn`t exist: ETIs that know about humanity and want to see us dead. Otherwise we wouldn't exist.
Is the world's third oldest profession.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Based on my own observations the surveillance started on the Internet when commerce and financial transactions became more mainstream. Kids will never know how liberating and free the Internet was when you could surf anonymously without being tracked.
Bruce Schneier points out one of the ways in this essay.
...allows Iran to head a human rights committee, condemns Israel over true human-rights abusers deserves to be ignored.
Even if they state something that is true from time to time, the UN is garbage.
and the U.N. un-nazied the world - forever.
UN decides to fund more Internet surveillance.
That's the point. It's a soap box for all of world's dictatorships. It's not in any sense a democracy by design or by mandate. It's designed to reduce necessity for war. And dictatorships, as they must by definition, try to use any political tool to suppress opposition.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
t sherlock
"Information is power." This is not strictly true, but information multiplies actions` effectiveness
That's exactly right, but since we cannot stop the information gathering all we can work on is the other end of the lever, and to make there be some serious repercussions to others using that information as a multiplier.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"We must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than only freedom can make security more secure." -- Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies
"To me, social media is the worst menace to society." -- Recep Tayyip Erdoan, Prime Minister of Turkey
. . . what interesting times we live in . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
It doesn't matter how much or who monitors you. What matters is what actions are taken from the monitoring - if any.
What matters is what actions could be taken from the monitoring, because eventually some government somewhere will try to step over the line and take those actions.
What matters is what actions could be taken from the monitoring, because eventually some government somewhere will try to step over the line and take those actions.
Absolutely they will.
And just as absolutely you will not be able to prevent the monitoring.
So you have to figure out what do to based on the absolute and unalterable fact the information will be collected.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
blah blah blah blah on a computer, or blah blah blah on a computer network .
There is a direct relationship to government surveillance and citizens freedom of expression. The internet part is only one small piece of the action from either party.
lol what idiots modded this up?
ALL odds become 100% given enough time.
People with unchecked power almost always abuse it; history has taught us that. So yes, it is extremely foolish not to be wary of the government, and it is even more foolish to let it spy on the people.
since we cannot stop the information gathering all we can work on is the other end of the lever, and to make there be some serious repercussions to others using that information as a multiplier
Good luck with that. Our bread-and-circus country has long since passed the point of people being able to hold onto this end of the lever.
Slashdot.. I am disappointed. Reading these comments is like reading comments on LiveLeak. I think I will stick to ycombinator.
Kids.
lol. Of course they realize it, that is the point. The point is to control "the message" and the people.
When ever more communication is centralized on ever fewer services, it becomes ever easier to monitor and censor.
The more diverse it is, and the more encrypted, the better. We've gone the opposite way: less diverse, and less encrypted. The public seems to prefer it that way for some reason.
Private or public, the effect works. It can be done right in front of everyone and nobody dare speak out, or perhaps they don't see the big picture until its too late.
You don't like a politicians, you dig through their lives, find something on them or their family and leak it. The opposition party make political capital of the leak for their own gain. The press has a story to exaggerate, and the effect has worked. The politician is out of power, and the friendly politician is in power.
The recent SWIFT data leaks showed that, selective leaking, a fake angry mob to stir stuff up, and the opposition to your data grab magically disappears. Key ministers are removed in scandals, the ones opposing the US view.
I think the leak of SWIFT data came from the USA, I think its timed to coincide with the switch from SWIFT to SEPA, the European transfer system that will replace SWIFT, and I can see no country who got the leak is investigating the source as bank data theft, so its clear it was a known friendly black channel, i.e. US diplomatic leak, since these were US centric countries.
I suspect the US wants the European SEPA bank data, and wants to remove any political opposition to them getting it. So now nobody is asking why SWIFT data given to the US under strict secrecy with strict privacy rules now seems to be selectively leaked to the press, and handed on bulk to friendly governments. The agenda is 'watching money flows for suspicious ones', with the US being the watcher.
I could be seeing an agenda that isn't there and that bank data just magic'd its way onto their computers, but I doubt it.
I'm guessing that later in the year they'll be an agenda on money laundering that hands all European SEPA data to the US, with some 'privacy' protection [yeh like SWIFT had?] and the US gets to see who gets paid what for what, who bought what from whom, who donated how much to which party..... all the gruesome details of peoples lives.
And effectively we won't be a democracy anymore, because whoever has that data can always fabricate a scandal or find a lever to control who we elect.
And effectively we won't have free speech, because who knows what they can dig up.
The US is the only country I know of with complete "freedom of speech" and over the last couple of years we have seen that even here it is suppresed to cheers (talking about people here cheering the IRS suppressing conservatives). I don't see any way of punishing other than the people outright fighting those in charge, and using the ballot box no longer works because they made sure to suppress support of opposition.
Unless by "punishment" you mean promoted or hired by Apple to top level positions.
So, let me know how that works out for you.
Actions like this? Or like this? There are a lot of kinds of monitoring, some more intrusive than others, but the abuse of it is always ready to happen.
...only because it is too late to do anything that is effective in countering said surveillance.
Remember, with the closing of all frontiers of habitable land on this planet, effective social, political, economic, and/or| cultural change has been defined as terrorism EXCEPT the war on the Judaism, Christianity, non-crony capitalism, honest hard work, and penis control.
What is a politically correct terrorist? A freedom fighter. What is a politcally incorrect freedom fighter? A terrorist.
What you have had before was fun interesting and a start to show what kids can do if given freedom and with that freedom they WILL rise up....When you persecuted , infiltrated and incarcertated those kids ....you bring us into the light....we are not the script kiddies. We are not the dumb bearded kids living in basements and with moms....no we are YOU....look around , all walks of life , all brackets of age and wealth and of every religion or non religion ....( well except scientology but cults dont count )
We are as a associative group are of like mind and seek the freedom of all nations peoples ot live without fear of a police officer or army officer to harm them when they speak there mind....SOME speech , mostly that of hate should not be tolerated however for it is that which gives rise to the very people that have taken our civil rights and liberties. They like scientology or hitler used hate to bring you form being a individual into a hive mind so they could act for you often in ways you would abhore given more time to make your reasoning.
THE USA for all its wealth and pwer has one main problem....it has now a rank of 31 for avg math skills.its reading isn't far off. Who needs ot read or count when you have actors and musicans and army men with automatic rifles? WELL there comesa time on earth when all this violence will be seen for what it is....just old school riuch people trying to keep there status above you all like gods or kings. The USA will ahve at obama;s end of term 21 trillion in debts.
china will be getting close to passing it...have you seen the skies of its capital during the day....now think of L.A. during nixons time when enviromental movements began...
what has changed.....are you better off? ....if by the odd chance some alien space craft came here and suveyed this world what would you htink if you were them?
is there peacfe on earth.....ask your sleves this
NO really. of all the cultures on earth we hackers get this the most. WE know that race , religion and wealth mean nothing to us....we are all equal....
you cannot fight this....nor our curiosity to learn and know more.
YOUR laws of copyright and patents are going to destroy us one day....and i will cry...
Damn! No moderator points today!!!
People WILL abuse power. Bank on it. Must I invoke the most empirically provable and thus most controversial religious dogma (i.e. personal depravity)?
The Fucking Psychopath® is back!
To save succeeding generations from the scourge of war (that concludes with liberty vanquishing tyranny like the Second World War).
well, the core issue I believe is that your words could be misinterpreted as hostile when they are not. beside that, it's mostly about people who are in fact infringing some laws which, if it wasn't for the internet, would more than likely not be known.
U.N. Realizes Fire On body Chills People catching on fire
"A 'person' is smart. 'People' are dumb, panicky animals and you know that."
For UN bureaucrats, suppressing dissent and feedback is a feature, not a bug.
The US is the only country I know of with complete "freedom of speech" and over the last couple of years we have seen that even here it is suppresed to cheers (talking about people here cheering the IRS suppressing conservatives). I don't see any way of punishing other than the people outright fighting those in charge, and using the ballot box no longer works because they made sure to suppress support of opposition.
Unless by "punishment" you mean promoted or hired by Apple to top level positions.
So, let me know how that works out for you.
Don't forget the big push for campaign finance laws that put the government in the business of deciding what is and is not political speech in the first place.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
It doesn't matter how much or who monitors you. What matters is what actions are taken from the monitoring - if any.
What matters is what actions could be taken from the monitoring, because eventually some government somewhere will try to step over the line and take those actions.
The actions that they could take also matter because behavior is affected anyway just by knowing about the monitoring. The implied threat is always there.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
There is a reason why we need study : to make sure common sense is not wrong. Sure when Physicist/doctor/biologist/ecnomist/bureaucrate verify common sense is correct, people suddenly says "yeah useless people we knew that all along", but the problem folk is when common sense is wrong. If nobody verify it then we are going in dead ends. Look : ulcer common sense was that it was not bacteria. And now ? Or in economy bureaucraty sociology : there are paradox which were verified. Common sense was that you could ask people and they would tell you what they need , or what they prefer. Well it turns out that there is a social display aspect : instead of saying 100% what they prefer when asked, instead people answered what they thought would make them look better. And there are many common sense which are wrong like that.
Which is WHY we need everybody from economist to biologist to bureaucrate to verify common sense being right or wrong at least once before we accept it.
Meanwhile, back at the UN, Captain Obvious finally makes an appearance! He has a lot of work to catch up on! First, he needs to stop by the security council and tell them Mahmoud Ahmadinead and Kim Jong Il seem to be big jerks! He might also say something about Syria, but I'm not certain what! He might also swing by the Japanese and tell them that killing whales for food is bad! Thank you, Captain Obvious! After that, he'll make a speech and mention that monitoring the internet seems to chill free speech! His work done, he returns to the Justice League, where everyone thanks him!
Eeh. I feel like I could have done better, but I want to get to sleep sometime tonight.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
No. In a perfect world you'd be right, but it doesn't work out that way.
Lets say hypothetically I'm a police officer and I randomly tap Joe's phone without a warrant and find out he's a drug dealer. Sure I'm not allowed to act on that, but now that I know that, I can go and try to get the evidence through some other means. I'm sure you can poke holes in the metaphor but you get the point. You can't just say "yeah feel free to monitor everything, just don't act on it or I'll shame you!"
heh, I read it as *slaming*...like WWe style, UN reps in the ring being slammed everytime they mess up...
past my bedtime obviously
The UN recognizes that surveillance chills speech and thought, but they pass an arms treaty that chills freedom to protect oneself.
The UN is absolutely not a government. The UN was established as a way of resolving disputes without wars. The UN is a set of agreements between governments on how to resolve disputes. Soldiers working for the UN are provided by member governments, and act in the voted interest of all of the government members of the UN. Aid from the UN is provided by the member governments and distributed by the voted interests of the member governments.
In concept, the UN is a good thing. In practice however, larger governments are able to abuse the platform as an excuse to do bad things just like they abuse their own powers in their home governments.
Today, we must be very cautious of the UN. Sovereign nations must remain sovereign for the UN to work, yet there is a tremendous amount of rhetoric attempting to convince people that all countries are subjects of the UN. We have seen the UN used as a shield for certain member governments to destroy sovereign governments.
To my last paragraph, you should remember that you only hear what your governments want you to hear in regards to Libya, Syria, Egypt, etc... There is another side of the story (at least one, but often more) that you don't hear. The established media, even in countries like the US, rarely presents reality. Thankfully the Internet allows you to search for information which breaks the illusion, and anyone trying to get out of the cave still can.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Agent provocateurs do exist, though people tend to not want to see them. We have public information today which was recently unclassified, showing how the FBI and CIA planted agents in MLK's and KKK's camps not just "watching" them but causing trouble including murder. While the next two examples are not admitted provocations, their nature is clear. 1) The riots in Oakland's OWS camp had arrests of over 100 people, in which over 80% were not even from CA but bussed in by "someone". 2) We have drug users in NYC's OWS movement being given drugs by police officers and being dropped off at the camps. A very recent example is Adam Kokesh's arrest in Philly (search youtube for the video showing the cops trying to plant drugs on him).
If low level agent provocateurs exist, why would anyone in their right mind claim that they don't exist at different/higher levels? Outside of saving themselves from cognitive dissonance, there is no reason.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
“The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible -- and achieve it, generation after generation.” -- Pearl S. Buck
Given that monitoring is impossible to prevent or really limit, all efforts should be made in shaming those taking bad ACTIONS based upon collected data.
It is not impossible to prevent or limit.
There are many projects working on software and technologies to do just that. Some are:
What you're saying
RedPhone and TextSecure: https://whispersystems.org/
Wickr: https://www.mywickr.com/en/index.php/
Parley.co: http://parley.co/
Silent Circle: https://silentcircle.com/
Seecrypt: https://www.seecrypt.com/
Who you're saying it to / who or where you are
Tor: https://www.torproject.org/
Both (for the most part)
LEAP: https://leap.se/ (Full disclosure: I am a developer on this project)
to name a few :)
Admission: I am not completely familiar with the details of many of these projects
It's not just the government. All those "log in using your facebook account" buttons aren't helping either. We need to campaign for protection of anonymous internet, or your ability to comment freely will soon be gone!