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UN Report Finds NSA Mass Surveillance Likely Violated Human Rights
An anonymous reader writes A top United Nations human rights official released a report Wednesday that blasts the United States' mass surveillance programs for potentially violating human rights on a worldwide scale. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay also praised whistleblower Edward Snowden and condemned U.S. efforts to prosecute him. "Those who disclose human rights violations should be protected," she said. "We need them."
In particular, the surveillance programs violate Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
does that mean I'm no longer an extremist for demanding my Constitutional rights be respected?
The single greatest evil that mankind ever unleashed upon the world was a corrupt government.
We need more people like Snowden. And when they pop up, we should step up and defend them.
(Of course, all *I* am brave enough to do is post an AC comment on a geek forum....but....maybe somebody else will be brave enough to do what needs to be done).
How about a hot poker up the ass or female genital mutilation. That's violating human rights, but the UN really doesn't have an issue with that.
I can understand very well why the UN might not have done this earlier - the US government would want to quash any positive PR for a man they consider to be a traitor, and I'm sure they can exert enough force on the UN to ensure this happens. I would not be at all surprised if that was why this report hadn't come out until now.
The question is, though, what made them decide to release it?
This is the group that has declared paid time off to be a basic human right.
Human rights are things like freedom of religion, and the right to not be imprisoned for your political beliefs.
Sure, the things Snowden has accused the NSA of doing are violations of our civil rights, our constitutional rights. But not our human rights.
In 1948, the United States voted for that declaration.
"n 10 December 1948, the Universal Declaration was adopted by the General Assembly by a vote of 48 in favor, none against"
This was the West announcing their idea of human rights.
(see Wikipedia)
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
Oh shit, the UN said we did something bad. I'm sure the Administration will scream into high gear to appease them.
I mean, we all know how severe the penalties for crossing the UN are.
Now if only the UN were a realistically competent and non-laughable organization this might actually matter in some way.
I like it when the guy forced to dress up in a gorilla costume is forcibly caged with a supposedly real gorilla and they do a close up of the guy's eyes as he makes a sick sound like "MMMMPH!"
This coming from a world organization that wants to ban American 2 Amendment Rights to own firearms and protect our lives and property. Sounds very selective towards promulgating agendas.
No shit....
It looks like Ivan just violated the human rights of about 300 people by blowing up their airliner.
http://www.reuters.com/article...
Annex Greece? You can annex it, Vlad, oh, yes, you can annex it.
Ah, the typical asshole American response.
The US helped form the UN. The US alternates between using the UN to further own ends, and decrying the UN if people refuse to blindly follow what the US wants.
Face it, the US has actively become the enemies of human rights and liberties over the last bunch of years.
The fact that you're a bunch of whiny, self-entitled cock-suckers who think you run the world is your problem.
The UN is a framework for countries to try to resolve issues diplomatically. Yes, it can be ineffective as blocs of countries drag their heels on stuff. But it's all we've got.
The US talks about international justice, but refuses to be a signatory to the ICC -- so that they can continue to commit war crimes and answer to nobody.
Fuck America. Fuck you.
You've become a banana republic with delusions of being the champions of rights and freedoms.
What a deluded bunch of assholes.
Calm down there, buddy. Not all of us Americans are freedom-hating, self-righteous morons.
does that mean I'm no longer an extremist for demanding my Constitutional rights be respected?
No.
The UN has stated that this probably violated Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which, together with the ICCPR and ICESCR, serve as the "International Bill of Rights." While international law is part of the law of the United States, it is rarely looked to in the United States, and the Universal Declaration is more aspirational than really binding. It doesn't invalidate our laws on its own; we don't have a policy as striking things down because they violate it.
This has *nothing* to do with the United States Constitution. You can demand your Constitutional rights be respected as much as you want; most people demand that without having an understanding of what the Constitution guarantees, instead using it (without legal basis) to rationalize a position that the government shouldn't interfere in X, where X is what they want to do.
Well, to be fair, Kissinger inside a Doonesbury strip said, "I'm sick and tired of people asking about human rights. What do you want: human rights or world peace?"
harrumph
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
I'm sure it's just the NSA. I can't imagine China, Russia or heck, even England intercepting and collecting.
Can you?
And you follow the law only because of the penalties and you shit all over everybodys place until there is some law that forbits it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg%27s_stages_of_moral_development
Your stuck on level 1, and when someone mentions _the_ constitution then you may be level 4.
Let's take a look at the membership of the UN Human Rights Commission-
China
Kuwait
Pakistan
Russia
Saudi Arabia
UAE
Venezuela
Clearly these folks are qualified to tell other people about how important civil rights are.
If only the USA would cede some power to the UN.
Become? Read your history. The federal govt was a force for good during a four year period 1942-45. Every other point in our history we have been bad guys. And even at our height of valor we nuked two cities.
Except you don't run your country. He's angry at the people who do and I can't say that I blame him too much.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Seeing which politicians were electable and have been elected the last decade and a half, that must be a minority.
U.N., what a joke...
In the future they'll just turn it into low rent housing anyway.
Eisenhower was not all that bad.
the US has actively become the enemies of human rights and liberties over the last bunch of years.
Every government is the enemy of human rights and liberties.
Please don't confuse the US with the US government ... The US government is all those things you say ... the US are the people suffering under that government.
... the UN will continue to be inconsequential in any affairs other than sucking funds from wealthy countries and offering crazy world leaders a place to get publicity.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
The road to hell may be paved with good intentions, but it's built by people waiting around for someone else "brave" or "smart" or "courageous" or "" enough to re-plot the course. Because guess what? No one or vanishingly few number of "brave" or "smart" or "courageous" men can achieve such a colossal course correction on their own.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
- said by Abraham Lincoln on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
First of all I'm not American, so much for assuming. Secondly, I just stated my feeling since how else is one suppose to feel about U.N. when they are essentially useless, I mean look at everything going on in places such as Gaza, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Ukraine. I would love to believe that U.N. is some benevolent entity that punishes evil and fights for justice and equality, but that's just not the case.
No shit, Sherlock.
There are no bad guys. There are no good guys. Life is not a Hollywood movie.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Apparently I am welcome to use the classic interface as long as I don't want to read about this story. Fuck you.
Read your history, they intentionally bled their allies out of all cash to become economic super power after the war and were pissed off they even have to join in 1942 because of the damn public opinion. Even so they delayed any serious military action until 1944, when it was basically over and they just came in the prevent Russia from taking over too much of Europe and protect their own interest and get a free piece of Germany. Not such a good guys the way I see it.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
Fuck you and your excuses. It's not us, it's them. Fuck you. Do something about it. It is done in your name so either accept the blame or make a change.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
Fuck America. Fuck you.
You mean "Team America, fuck yeah!"
I'm just trying to add some levity; we know we suck.
Bullshit. Good or bad is just a point of view. Nazis thought they were the divine force of good doing their historic duty to build civilizations and conquering the untermenchen that was created to serve as slave labor.
Both before, during and after the US (as well as all other states) did things most would now consider good and other things people now would consider outright evil.
Become? Read your history. The federal govt was a force for good during a four year period 1942-45. Every other point in our history we have been bad guys. And even at our height of valor we nuked two cities.
Tell that to US citizens of Japanese ancestry that were forced into internment camps and stripped of their rights and property for committing no crime.
This. Sometimes people make poor decisions. At any time, though, they can start making good decisions. Understanding this is important for peace. Seems so obvious, but it's competing against an entrenched way of thinking from a long history of violent tribal interactions (that violence is justified against "bad guys").
When people engage in the activities that the US government and the various super-rich have been engaging in, they are most assuredly bad guys. There may be no squeaky-clean good guys in the Hollywood sense, but there are a lot of people who are better -- some a little, some a lot -- than the very-clearly-bad guys.
Not "all" cash of course, but yes, they provided arms and men to allies.
Thanks to the manufacturing support they provided until then. And even this ignores battles such as the Battle of the Coral Sea (1942), the Battle of Midway (1942), and so on.
The U.N. is now in a unique position to rectify the (persecution/prosecution) of Edward Snowden by the U.S.
All they need to do is hire him, issue a U.N. passport,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_laissez-passer
and grant him dipolmatic immunity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomatic_immunity
bullshit. big money / big corp is, but in the US's case, that's the same. And they're infecting the EU and its members as well now.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Does the US Constitution specifically grant the government the power to interfere in X? If not then doing so is unconstitutional, because the constitution explicitly states (repeatedly, in several different ways) that the federal government has *only* those powers granted to it by the constitution. Which is why something as simple as banning alcohol required a constitutional amendment. You can thank legal gymnasts and an apathetic population for the steady expansion of federal powers beyond what has been explicitly granted. For example: despite the fact that Prohibition required a constitutional amendment to implement, the Supreme Court held that a similar ban on on marijuana was constitutional because it could theoretically be sold across state lines, and thus the federal government's legitimately granted power to regulate interstate commerce could be applied, even against individuals growing small quantities for their own consumption. You really want to tell me that's not a load of power-mongering BS? That line of reasoning gives the federal government control over *all* commerce within the US, completely gutting the initial restriction of only regulating interstate commerce without ever having to get a pesky constitutional amendment passed to expand it's powers.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I suggest reading REAL history. Since 2009, criticizing the US government has been confirmation that you're a racist. Have you checked your privilege lately? But since you brought it up:
As late as surrender time-even after the A-bombs had been dropped-a staff lieutenant colonel, related to the War Minister himself, was fervently convinced that even if the whole Japanese race were all but wiped out, its determination to preserve the National Polity would be forever recorded in the annals of man; whereas a people who sacrificed their will upon the altar of physical existence could never deserve resurrection. It would be useless for the people to survive the war, anyhow, if the structure of the State itself were destroyed. It was better to die than to seek ignominious "safety".
At a climactic last Imperial Conference, War Minister Anami was still talking about going on with the war, of meting out a terrible blow to the enemy and achieving a good opportunity to end the war. Japan must press forward courageously, seeking Life in Death: certain victory was not assured, but neither was utter defeat. The terrain was working in favor of the defenders, and so was the inflexible national unity. But just in case a massive blow against the enemy proved not possible, it seemed appropriate for the name of Nippon to be inscribed forever in history by the annihilation of her 100 million loyal subjects, etc., etc. And tears welled into the eyes of the earnest War Minister.
When the Emperor, by a thrilling act of personal courage, opted for peace-and surrender-he too was weeping. He reminded his stunned auditors that ever since the outbreak of the war there had been frequent cases when Army and Navy actions differed from plans. Now the armed forces were preparing for decisive battle in the homeland and were claiming that the prospects of victory were satisfactory.
He was profoundly troubled, continued the Emperor. What would happen if Japan plunged into decisive battle under such circumstances? The entire race would be obliterated, and this would be a betrayal of the trust of ancestors and the duty toward posterity, lest Japan never again rise. Continuation of the war, then, could only serve to cripple Japan, extinguish civilization, and bring misfortune to mankind.
The Japanese Emperor's decision to end the war, under enormous external and internal pressure, obviated the American landings and the hemorrhage that was bound to occur soon on the beaches of Miyazaki, Satsuma, and Ariake. Not only would five US ground divisions, etc., be saved from the destruction at sea which the Japanese resolutely promised them, but untold thousands of Japanese would not die either-such as squadrons of kamikaze pilots and sailors with one way tickets to the shrine of heroes at Yasukuni; or the women and children clutching pitiful staves and bamboo spears.
-- Dr. Alan C. Coox, "Olympic vs. Ketsu-Go", Marine Corps Gazette, August 1965, Vol. 49, No. 8.
August 5, 1963
Dear Kup:
I appreciated most highly your column of July 30th, a copy of which you sent me.
I have been rather careful not to comment on the articles that have been written on the dropping of the bomb for the simple reason that the dropping of the bomb was completely and thoroughly explained in my Memoirs, and it was done to save 125,000 youngsters on the American side and 125,000 on the Japanese side from getting killed and that is what it did. It probably also saved a half million youngsters on both sides from being maimed for life.
You must always remember that people forget, as you said in your column, that the bombing of Pearl Harbor was done while we were at peace with Japan and trying our best to negotiate a treaty with them.
All you have to do is to go out and stand on the keel of the Battleship in Pearl Harbor with the 3,000 youngsters underneath it who had no chance whatever of saving their lives. That is true of two or three other battleships that were sunk in Pearl Ha
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
bah.
The federal govt was a force for good during a four year period 1942-45.
You mean that time that we rounded up all the people of Japanese descent (or the Chinese, or Korean, or whatever, they all look the same) and put them in internment camps? Yeah, we were doing some real good back then.
You would be hard pressed to find a sane man arguing any genocide is good. I spoke only that from an outsider's point of view that the only war we can truly claim moral high ground in is WW2. The revolution could have been easily dealt with peacefully and while during the civil war fighting to free the slaves was noble, conquering the south to do it was not and we robbed their people of self-determination
Every government is the enemy of human rights and liberties.
Even if that were true there are no alternatives.
As his sentence said "after the war" I think they might be referring to the Bretton Woods System:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system
Hey, we're not a BANANA republic.... Come on. Sheesh. :D
You say that, but I don't think it's necessarily true... There are a lot of governments that seem to do a much better job of respecting the rights of their citizens than the US does.
and How many terrorists does it take to fill up Washington DC?
you mean to tell me i have rights? since when did the NSA ever grant us freedoms? oh, wait never because they are being violated...
Time for another Nobel Peace prize.
Hence the Nuremburg trials were staged to tell everyone "Here are the bad guys"! What great PR.
Life is not a Hollywood move, but there are good guys and bad guys. Not many of either, most are somewhere in between, and there are more good guys than bad guys, but one bad guy can do more damage than 100 good guys can repair. And the US feds seem to prefer to hire and promote badish guys...the worse, the stronger the preference.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Sorry, but there are points of view (currently unpopular) from which genocide is considered virtuous. The Romans would have had no problem with it, if they didn't need the slave labor. (But consider what they did to Carthage. The only work they preserved was a treatise on how to control slaves.)
It's difficult to come up with a moral code that is both absolute, and that preserves the values we consider proper. E.g., I generally consider lying a immoral action, but there are circumstances where I would consider a lie the lesser evil. You can't win this one by an appeal to natural law, either, because chimpanzees wage intentional war on other, weaker, groups of chimpanzees. Also some entire species of ant have evolved specifically to operate as slavers. You've got to win this one by an appeal to a "higher morality", which is damnably difficult to pin down as anything more than "This is what I feel is right." (or possibly "This is what god told me to do.").
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Every government is the enemy of human rights and liberties.
Yes, that's true. But governments aren't the only enemies of human rights and liberties. And frequently governments are less vile enemies and act to keep those others in check. The problem in the US is that those other enemies of human rights and liberties have purchased the government. I don't think this is true everywhere. There are places where the government itself is the major enemy. There also are, or were, places where there is a kind of balance.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Because you cannot imagine them does not mean that this is so.
Remember when the U.S. tried to invade Canada? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Canada_%281775%29
Yea, the U.S. was never a good guy by any measure. As I see it the U.S. is like a spoiled brat that got his way for far too long and has gotten a taste for it, it just needs to be bent over and beaten the ever living shit out of it until it learns what 'justice' and 'freedom' truly mean.
Genocide is perfectly fine, we should eliminate all the jews, ragheads, blacks, whites, yellows, spicks, facists, communists, budhists in this world. Kill them all I say.
The US didn't start flat-out giving military equipment to Britain before it had run mostly out of its dollar reserves. The US helped the Brits to a war effort maybe 20% more powerful than they could have managed on their own, near as I can tell. The US gave stuff to the Soviet Union and various other countries. This wasn't entirely altruistic, but it wasn't a plan to deliberately drain the British economy, and the other major allies were basically broke anyway. What catapulted the US into a position as the economic superpower was that US industry was pretty well untouched by war, unlike in Europe and Japan.
The US was actually in the naval war against Germany from September 1941, although there was no formal declaration. I'm not sure who you're saying was pissed off, since the declarations of war were almost unanimous. People don't really want to go to war, but they will accept it if necessary (or if duped by leaders into thinking it's necessary).
The US was toeing off against the whole Japanese Navy in the first half of 1942, and by the end of the year had basically gutted it as a fighting force and had stopped Japanese expansion in the Pacific. In Europe, the US was hindered by a great deal of unpreparedness, the expansion of the US Army being quite comparable to the prewar expansion of the German Army. It did not engage in ground operations until the end of 1942, and did not seriously engage German ground forces until 1943. As of 1943, a combined US/British offensive had succeeded in knocking Italy out of the war and securing airbases in southern Italy. Also in 1943, US strategic air forces hit Germany pretty hard, causing a major diversion of German fighters from the actual battlefronts. It's really hard to see how, given the state of prewar US readiness and the Battle of the Atlantic, the US could have mounted what you call serious military action before 1944.
So, while the US record is hardly spotless, I'd have to consider the US one of the good guys.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I can imagine no government being successful. Heck, Marx did, government having withered away in his socialist utopia. L. Neil Smith wrote a series of novels about his libertarian utopia. Lots of people have imagined peaceful anarchies.
What I'm short on is examples where there has been a successful anarchy on any reasonable scale. Got some?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes