US Working To Kill UN Privacy Resolutions

schwit1 writes with a short excerpt from The Cable "The United States and its key intelligence allies are quietly working behind the scenes to kneecap a mounting movement in the United Nations to promote a universal human right to online privacy, according to diplomatic sources and an internal American government document obtained by The Cable. American representatives have made it clear that they won't tolerate such checks on their global surveillance network." A leaked memo containing U.S. suggestions for changes to the ICCPR includes gems like (referring to intercepting communications) "Move 'may threaten' from before 'the foundations of a democratic [society]...' to before 'freedom of expression.' We need to clarify that privacy violations could 'interfere with' freedom of expression and avoid the inaccurate suggestion that all privacy violations are violations of freedom of expression." The U.S. changes are pretty much directed at making dragnet surveillance of non-citizens technically legal.

Comments

Notice to all posters

[Anonymous Coward]

You all know who cold fjord is and what his agenda is. So I suggest, we don't fall into his trap of getting into endless debates that don't achieve anything by ignoring his comments.

Re:Close but not quite

[AlphaWolf_HK]

This.

Though progressives often have these strange justifications for more government regulation. I recall once on slashdot talking up how stupid it is that in Oregon you can't pump your own gas due to regulation. Sure enough some derp comes along talking about how he'd prefer it that way for safety reasons, never mind that actually driving a car is a *lot* more dangerous than simply putting gas in it.