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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).
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?
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
The first 10 or so are noble, a rough analog of US rights. After that, it starts turning into this bizarre amalgam of a socialist wish list and rules deliberately violating the first 10 fir the purpose of preserving the status quo of those in power.
This item 12 is itself a great example, stating a right not to have one's reputation harmed. Intention: censorship of things which are true but which embarrass politicians, a concept foreign in a land with free speech.
Before downmodding me in quasi-censorship of censorship talk, go look up many examples...from nominally free democracies, forget about dictatorships.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
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.
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.
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.
It does. It routinely condemns it.
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.
As opposed to the US government, which is a model of competency and the ability to get something done?
Sorry, but if you have a better system for doing stuff, we're all ears.
If not ... well, then you have nothing of value to add here.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Article 12:
"No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks."
it says we are free from attacks to our reputation not that we are free from having our reputation harmed by ourselves and then reported by someone else. harming ones own reputation and then having someone else report on what the individual has done is not an attack on their reputation. Article 12 references the ability for people not to be unjustly attacked not to be able to censor the world from their own mistakes. but i see how some people could interpret it the way you have.
its simply the difference between reporting events and libel. The truth is not an attack, it is the truth! it is the constant corruption that has been going on for generations that lead people to think backwards on this one.
The founding fathers weren't exactly the pillars of individual freedom you seem to think they were. They were an American centric elite and plutocracy trying to displace a Britsh centric elite and plutocracy, mostly so they could have a bigger cut of America's growing wealth.
You can tell because most of those constitutional protections and the Bill of Rights didn't apply to people who weren't affluent(i.e. who didn't own land), women, native American's, blacks/slaves and indentured whites. They applied mostly to white men who had wealth (at least enough to own land).
They actively prevented people who were not white, male and affluent from voting or holding office. They were mostly slave owners themselves, and they were for the most part very affluent and owners of very large real estate holdings. They were all 1%'ers.
The Declaration of Independence and Constitution were carefully designed to inspire support from enough people in the colonies for their Revolution to succeed, and to create the illusion of freedom, but they had no intention of relinquishing their power and control over the levers of government when it their Revolution did succeed. That plutocracy has never relinquished that control in the more than 200 years since.
The NSA along with the DHS, FBI, ATF and IRS are means for maintaining that control.
The Internet let a genie out of a bottle and created dangerous potentential for the rest of us to organize and try to win some of that power and control back.
When faced with the twin crises, and excuses, that were 9/11 and the 2008 crash it was nearly inevitable that The Powers That Be in the U.S. and U.K. would exploit every tool at their disposal, mainly computers and networks, to try to put a lid back on their control of their increasingly restless and networked homelands and to try to maintain their domination of the world as a whole in the face of increasing challenges.
The 2008 crash in particular resulted in widespread global disillusionment with the fact economies and governments are rigged to benefit the ruling elite and screw everyone else. When ruling elites start feeling that heat they trot out their police states, always have, always will.
@de_machina
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.
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.
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.
Try reading Zinn's A People's History of the United States. It will disillusion you of the comic book U.S. History taught in U.S. school where the founding fathers are all saints and geniuses.
They were mostly self serving and profiteering. Its fitting Andrew Jackson is on the $20 dollar bill because he was infamous for profiteering off the battles he won, mostly by seizing the lands he took and splitting it up between himself and his friends.
@de_machina
Yep, those damn plutocrats sure did their best that the rest of us would never have a leg up. /sarcasm
I suggest that you take some time to read the Federalist Papers. I think you'll discover things aren't quite as black and white as you believe.
Of course most of them would have tolerated this as long as it was being used against loyalists or any of the sub-human types, read up on how the colonists who were not in favour of revolution were treated. Just like now, what they wouldn't tolerate was this being used on them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism