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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.
There is no "us" if the people can't communicate. That's the real reason for surveillance, always has been and always will be: to stamp out any effective resistance before it begins. And that's also why the ability to communicate secretly is absolutely vital to keep tyranny from rising its ugly head.
Well, we all know which side of power vs. freedom America has cast its lot with...
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
UN isn't a governing body. It's a collection of diplomats from around the globe.
What could happen is US getting pushed out of certain diplomatic circles, causing decline in its ability to leverage its influence over issues important to it. The loss is not the type that is easily evident to average citizen - but consequences of that loss usually are, as they can be for example about a US company not getting deals it needs to get or losing bids or even getting its property nationalized abroad, things like that. Diplomatic pressure is one of the main ways of ensuring that your national interests are taken into account abroad. Losing ability to apply it can be crippling in certain scenarios, or force you to take a much less efficient, and less functional means of accomplishing the same task.
Then there's the general aspect of know-who. A lot of things are done on upper level though people who know people. When you're cut out of certain aspects of diplomacy, this particular resource dwindles fast.
And this is why Schneier undid 10 years NSA work on subverting encryption algorithms. Terrorists are a miniscule threat compared to our Governments and Secret Services
The US no longer has a legitimate "government (..) for the people." The UK never did, except occasionally by chance.
We know that power like this is abused and attracts those who will abuse it. We must consider whether we want our children to live in a free country.
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
We need to support projects like MailPile and BitMessage. Maybe some of you know of or are working on other projects you'd care to mention.
It is an illusion that all these other countries are "different" than the US. Citizens of the UK, Germany, France, etc.. have all found out that the US is spying on them, with full cooperation of their own agencies and corporations. What is changed and what is different after that revelation? Nothing!
They are still doing the same things, even if Merkel said "please stop spying on 'me'".
People want to believe that things are the same today in politics as they were 40 years ago, they are not. They want to believe that their Government controls their own country, but that is no longer the truth. Sure, the local governments control some things, but the economies are all from the central banks. The same owners of the central bank in the US own the banks in the Western world.
The US is playing fall guy for the surveillance, sure. But the rest of the West benefits from the surveillance as much as the US. It's control, and they want more of it.
People were warning us about this New World Order thing back in the 50s and 60s. The media quickly labelled them "crazy conspiracy theorists" and people fell for the ruse. People today still don't want to believe it. They claim that these are 'political mistakes' or that they do it for the money. Mistakes? With hundreds of people analyzing the situation, none of them are below average IQ, and every decision they happen to make is a mistake? To believe that, is a mistake.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
When Kerry signed the Small Arms treaty, it was innocuous in itself. However, it did have a clause which allows UN troops to operate on US soil independent of the Army and police forces.
No it doesn't. UN troops can't deploy *anywhere* without the Security councils approval, and *any* decision of the security council can be vetoed by the united states. It literally has no power to deploy anywhere without the unanimous approval of the United States, China, Russia, France and England. If any one of those countries say "No", it can not happen.
The UN is just a group of representitives from each country. It has no powers beyond what those countries wish it to have. its not a government, and it has very limited powers beyond what its members give it. If it ever deployed forces into the united states to abduct or kill someone, chances are those forces would be arrested, imprisoned and perhaps even executed as a hostile foreign power. And it would not be the UN, either. That power has never existed for the UN and the US is sufficiently stand-offish with the body that it would never agree to it. And without the agreement of the US, it will never happen.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
It's difficult to pin down an exact date.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Let us give thanks that the United States is going to protect us from those dirty third world countries that want to impose basic human rights of privacy on us.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
even if the UN passes something to assert "universal human right to online privacy", we know that the ones doing the snooping are still going to keep snooping with no regard for the law.
Sure, UN laws aren't trivial to enforce... And yes, it's hard to say to what extend a US court will acknowledge treaties signed by the US.
And hey, the US maybe not even choose to sign such a treaty.
But highlighting the problem, and making in bluntly obvious that the US is spying on people to an extend Stasi could onl y dreams of is a good start. Nothing ever changes over night, NSA wasn't built in a day, and it'll take more than day to shut it down.
But when to US makes moves like this, is bluntly obvious to the rest of the world that going forward internet cables needs to be routed around the US. That's not going to happen over night either, if ever...
It allows treaty nations to seek redress in international courts. So it allows signatory nations to punish and/or restrict US companies (Google/Microsoft/etc) for cooperating with routine NSA/CIA monitoring in violation with the treaty, and if/when the US takes the matter to the WTO court, it allows signatories to use the treaty to justify their unilateral trade restrictions against US companies.
Since those companies cannot refuse to comply with secret warrants in the US, and they cannot refuse to comply with treaty nations' laws, their only way out of the bind is to stop operating in treaty countries. This increases the political pressure within the US against the monitoring, since those US companies (and hence their rented politicians) care more about being locked out of foreign markets than they care about teh terrists.
Put it another way, if it didn't matter, why is the US pushing so hard to change it?
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
As much as I know it pains the US to see privacy advocacy, I'm a bit dumbfounded as to why the UN would want it. Most of its members don't even like freedom of speech or freedom of religion, so why would they give a damn about privacy? The only thing I can think of is to kneecap the competitive advantage that the US economy has in the tech sector, which by its nature is very anti-privacy, though more as a result of the way it functions than any interest in spying on you.
The EU is already red handed guilty of this because they raise a huge stink over it and want to push laws trying to bring more business to their domestic tech services, even though their governments often do worse things (Or would do worse things if they had the capability. Which they mainly don't due to a lack of jurisdiction; part of the reason why they need to have more of these services run domestically.)
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
us is totalitarian in [very bad] disguise
Au Contraire !!
There are billions of Homo Sapiens Sapiens in this world who still believe in the dog and pony shows sponsored by the United States of America, and all its lapdog allies, such as Britain, Canada, Singapore and Australia.
Since the Edward Snowden affair, has USA apologized to the many millions of people who were spied on by NSA and all its allies ?
Since the Edward Snowden affair, has USA admit their wrongdoings ?
Nope !
Instead, they countered with lies, deceits, and threats, designed specifically to show the world that THEY ARE STILL THE BOSS and the rest of the world must continue kowtow to them.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !