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Make UN member states stand by their word on the Internet and privacy

By on July 4, 2016 in Big Brother, Censorship, Civil liberties, Democracy, Freedom of Speech, Global Politics, Hacktivism, Human rights, Intelligence, Police state, Privacy, Rule of law, surveillance

“1. Affirms that the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online, in particular freedom of expression, which is applicable regardless of frontiers and through any media of one’s choice, in accordance with articles 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights;”

These are words from the United Nations Human Rights Council, in a declaration of the 27:th of June. (PDF») It continues…

“8. Calls upon all States to address security concerns on the Internet in accordance with their international human rights obligations to ensure protection of freedom of expression, freedom of association, privacy and other human rights online, including through national democratic, transparent institutions, based on the rule of law, in a way that ensures freedom and security on the Internet so that it can continue to be a vibrant force that generates economic, social and cultural development;”

“9. Condemns unequivocally all human rights violations and abuses, such as torture, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and arbitrary detention, expulsion, intimidation and harassment, as well as gender based violence, committed against persons for exercising their human rights and fundamental freedoms on the Internet, and calls on all States to ensure accountability in this regard;”

“10. Condemns unequivocally measures to intentionally prevent or disrupt access to or dissemination of information online in violation of international human rights law and calls on all States to refrain from and cease such measures;”

Great! Or… what?

I cannot help noticing that Turkey is one of the signing countries… And Poland, despite the country’s ever more dubious approach to free speech.

The United Kingdom (with the GCHQ) and the United States (home of the NSA) have signed the declaration. And countries like Sweden (FRA), Germany (BND) – who are part of the global surveillance network.

Do they really mean what they say? Probably not.

This is a great UN declaration. But the fight for a free and open internet, free speech, privacy and civil rights still needs to be fought by an army of activists. You simply cannot trust governments with this, just because they say so.

It’s like 5 July 2012. The day that gave the 5 July-foundation (who, among other things is running this blog) its name. (Read more») This was the date for an ambitious UN resolution “on the Promotion, Protection, and Enjoyment of Human Rights on the Internet”.

Then, like now, we believe that words are not enough and that the Internet community must engage in the battle to defend the values stated in the resolution.

Today the 5 July-foundation runs several projects for security, privacy and liberty. (Read more»)

Actually, today is also the second anniversary of this blog – trying to identify threats to digital liberty. I hope you enjoy it.

And let’s use this UN resolution as valuable support when our governments go back to Big Brother Business as usual. We have their words on paper. And we demand that they stand by them!

/ HAX

• The Declaration (PDF) »
• UN rights council condemns internet blocking »
• UN rights council condemns the disruption of internet access »
• UN Human Rights Body Condemns Nations Blocking Internet Access »
• UN Human Rights Council Passes Resolution ‘Unequivocally’ Condemning Internet Shutdowns »
• Disrupting Internet Access Is A Human Rights Violation, UN Says »

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Corporatism vs. free speech

By on June 16, 2016 in Big Brother, Big Business, Big Data, Big Government, Censorship, Civil liberties, Democracy, EU, Facebook, Freedom of Speech, Google, Human rights, Rule of law, social media

Politics should stick to lawmaking. Companies should stick to making business.

When the two mix, the result is usually damaging. Politicians lose their focus on principles, their mandate from the voters and the public good. Companies who lobby for subsidies and (often competition reducing) special laws will find themselves worse of in the long run, as they detach from the realities of the market.

Nevertheless, politicians and businessmen are often involved in mutual back-scratching.

Lately, the political EU-apparatus and big data companies have ganged up to curb free speech. The EU, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Microsoft have decided on a mutual approach to keep back hate speech and religious radicalisation on the net.

In other words, the EU encourages private companies to censor statements on the Internet that the politicians do not approve of.

If you are to limit free speech at all — the rules must be clearly set out in law. If there should be any censorship at all — it must be decided in a court of law, in accordance with the laws. And if anyone is being censored — there must be a possibility to appeal the decision.

All these three principles are being thrown out in the EU-Big Data agreement.

And there is nothing you can do about it. Having signed e.g. various social networks terms and conditions, you have essentially given up your rights.

From a political point of view, the EU is acting in a deceptive way. When there are no legal means to censor voices they would like to silence – they turn to private companies to do what they themselves cannot accomplish. (It’s just like when US authorities had PayPal, credit card companies, and the banks to throttle the stream of donations to Wikileaks.)

The EU is short-circuiting the rule of law and democracy itself – in order to curb the people’s civil rights.

This is totally unacceptable.

/ HAX

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CoE on blocking of Internet content and rule of law

By on June 16, 2016 in Censorship, Civil liberties, Democracy, Freedom of Speech, Human rights, Rule of law

EDRi reports…

Several European countries lack clear legal provisions and transparent procedures when it comes to blocking and removal of online content. A comparative study published by the Council of Europe stresses that any restriction on the right to freedom of expression must be provided for by law, be proportionate and follow legitimate objectives. Blocking should only be a measure of last resort and applied with great caution. Furthermore, if a state endorses voluntary blocking measures by private companies, the authors of the study ascribe full responsibility to the state for not placing such a system on a legislative basis, accepting insufficient judicial review and the possibility of overblocking.

EDRi: CoE study: Blocking content has to respect fundamental rights »

Council of Europe: Filtering, blocking and take-down of illegal content on the Internet »

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The Economist makes a stand for Free Speech

By on June 2, 2016 in Censorship, Civil liberties, Democracy, Freedom of Speech, Human rights

[The] idea has spread that people and groups have a right not to be offended. This may sound innocuous. Politeness is a virtue, after all. But if I have a right not to be offended, that means someone must police what you say about me, or about the things I hold dear, such as my ethnic group, religion, or even political beliefs. Since offence is subjective, the power to police it is both vast and arbitrary. (…)

Opinion polls reveal that in many countries support for free speech is lukewarm and conditional. If words are upsetting, people would rather the government or some other authority made the speaker shut up. A group of Islamic countries are lobbying to make insulting religion a crime under international law. They have every reason to expect that they will succeed. (…)

So it is worth spelling out why free expression is the bedrock of all liberties. Free speech is the best defence against bad government. Politicians who err (that is, all of them) should be subjected to unfettered criticism. Those who hear it may respond to it; those who silence it may never find out how their policies misfired. As Amartya Sen, a Nobel laureate, has pointed out, no democracy with a free press ever endured famine.

The Economist: Curbs on free speech are growing tighter. It is time to speak out. »

Also read The Economists report: The muzzle grows tighter »

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Mass surveillance, journalists and their sources

By on June 2, 2016 in Big Brother, Civil liberties, Freedom of the Press, Human rights, Media, self-censorship, surveillance

The threat of mass surveillance on reporting, particularly work of an investigative nature, may “all but eliminate” confidential sources and the value they bring to journalism.

This is one of the conclusion presented in a new academic research paper, “No more sources? The impact of Snowden’s revelations on journalists and their confidential sources”, published on 24 May and authored by Paul Lashmar, journalist and senior lecturer at University of Sussex. (…)

“Journalists need to be more outspoken about the impact of surveillance in preventing them from delivering their most important role, bringing to account government and the powerful when they are errant,” Lashmar wrote.

Journalism.co.uk: Research highlights the impact of the threat of surveillance on journalists and their sources »

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EDRi: Next year, you’ll complain about the Terrorism Directive

By on May 26, 2016 in Big Brother, Censorship, Civil liberties, EU, Human rights, War on Terror

Next year, when your Member State starts blocking websites, without quite knowing why, when it starts imposing restrictions on Tor and proxy servers, without quite knowing why, when unaccountable, unclear legislation leads to arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement, and your government says that it is “EU law that it is obliged to implement” and you wonder why the press never reported on it, when you search in vain for who is accountable for a weak and dangerous text, come back and read this again.

EDRi: Next year, you’ll complain about the Terrorism Directive »

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EU:s EPP group calls for Internet censorship

By on May 24, 2016 in Big Brother, Censorship, Civil liberties, Democracy, EU, Freedom of Speech, Human rights, Internet, War on Terror

The centre-right group in the European Parliament, EPP, just released an article on its’ website: The Fight Against Online Radicalisation »

Let me copy paste a few passages…

This would mean limiting the internet reach that ISIS and other extremist groups have on our social media networks. To ban them completely would be impossible as it is difficult enough to figure out who is an extremist recruiter and who isn’t on Facebook and Twitter, but we can certainly limit and delete their Facebook pages and bar their accounts. (…)

It has been agreed that Europol is to obtain greater powers to deal with the tackling of the terrorist threat online. New specialist units, monitored by an European Data Protection Supervisor and a Joint Parliamentary Scrutiny Group, will be set up that will be able to contact social network providers (Facebook, Twitter etc.) directly to ask that pages and accounts run by ISIS are shut down as fast as possible.

Obviously, we need to make a stand against radical Islamism and others who advocate violence and who do not respect human rights and civil liberties. But is censorship really the right way to do it?

Either you have freedom of speech or you don’t. If you restrict free speech, e.g. by censoring Internet content, per definition you have lost it.

The only acceptable exception would be clearly expressed, substantial threats directed against other people’s life, security or property.

It is true that radical Islamism is a murderous ideology. But so is Communism and Fascism. Banning all bad and dangerous doctrines would have far-reaching implications. And who is to decide what to censor?

If we introduce far-reaching online censorship you can be absolutely sure that it will be extended beyond its’ original purpose.

Actually, we are already there. In many countries, xenophobic and anti-immigration Internet activities are prohibited, censored and can lead to prosecution. What is considered to be acceptable opinions or banned hate speech is a matter of definition. And once again, who is to decide?

The irony of it all is that the same set of rules are used to silence radical Islamism as anti-Muslim, anti-immigration rants.

Radical Islamism aiming at limiting other people’s freedom, human rights and/or civil rights must be opposed. Strongly. But it must be done in a frank debate and by good examples.

You simply cannot defend a free and open society by limiting people’s human and civil rights (such as freedom of speech).

/ HAX

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Surveillance: Who owns you and your life?

By on May 12, 2016 in Big Brother, Civil liberties, Democracy, Human rights, Police state, Privacy, surveillance

There are many dimensions to the concept of privacy.

A fundamental question is: Who owns you and your life?

If you are not the owner of your person – that will open up for abominations like slavery, organ farming, and some absurd utilitarian concepts.

But if you are the owner of your person – this must include your body as well as your mind and your faculties.

So… if you are the owner of your person – does anybody else (a private person or a collective of persons) have the right to look into your mind, your thoughts and your beliefs? Does anybody else have the right to look into your relations to other people, your quest for knowledge or your personal habits and preferences?

Because that is exactly what is done when government snoops around in your communications, among your files and in your social networks.

The only reason I can find for allowing this is if a person is threatening other peoples’ security or property.

A person who is no threat to others should be left alone. And this is actually what is said e.g. in the European convention on human rights. People have the right to privacy and private correspondence unless they are a threat to others or to society. (Obviously, it might be debated what constitutes a threat to society. But you get the general rule.)

However, governments do not care. They want mass surveillance. They want to collect as much information as possible about as much people as possible.

The ruling political class simply does not treat us as free citizens but as serfs.

You should keep that in mind next time there is a general election.

/ HAX

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