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UN Slams Mass Surveillance: “Trying To Appear Tough On Security By Legitimising Largely Useless … Measures”

March 20, 2017

UN Slams Mass Surveillance: “Trying To Appear Tough On Security By Legitimising Largely Useless … Measures”

A White House panel has previously slammed the NSA, and said that mass spying is unnecessary.

Now, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy notes in a new report (with our comments)

Deeply concerning … the status of the right to privacy in the surveillance area of activity has not improved since the last [UN surveillance] report. [Indeed, it’s getting worse … and will only expand unless we fight for privacy.]

***

Increasingly, personal data ends up in the same “bucket” of data which can be used and re-used for all kinds of known and unknown purposes. [Numerous high-level NSA whistleblowers say that NSA spying is about crushing dissent and blackmailing opponents … notstoppingterrorism.] This poses critical questions in areas such as requirements for gathering data, storing data, analysing data and ultimately erasing data. As a concrete example a recent study carried out by the Georgetown Center on Privacy and Technology in the United States has found that “one in two American adults is in a law enforcement face recognition network.” As the authors of the study put it: “We know very little about these systems. We don’t know how they impact privacy and civil liberties. [We have a pretty good idea.] We don’t know how they address accuracy problems.

***

While often “traditional” methods, such as the interception of phone calls and communications in general, are subject to judicial authorisation before the measure can be employed, other techniques such as the collection and analysis of metadata referring to protocols of internet browsing history or data originating from the use of smartphones (location, phone calls, usage of applications, etc.) are subject to much weaker safeguards. This is not justified since the latter categories of data are at least as revealing of a person’s individual activity as the actual content of a conversation.  [Correct.] Hence, appropriate safeguards must also be in place for these measures.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Snowden and Allies Issue Warnings as Australia Unleashes Mass Spying

October 14, 2015

Snowden and Allies Issue Warnings as Australia Unleashes Mass Spying

“Go dark against data retention,” consumer advocates tell users in new campaign against invasive surveillance laws

The new laws require Australian telecommunications companies and internet service providers (ISPs) to store user metadata for two years. (Photo: greensefa/flickr/cc)

As new controversial metadata laws went into effect in Australia on Tuesday, whistleblower Edward Snowden took to Twitter to warn the country’s residents about the privacy violations that come along with the legislation.

The new laws require Australian telecommunications companies and internet service providers (ISPs) to store user metadata—like phone records and IP addresses—for two years, during which time it may be accessed by law enforcement without a warrant. Civil liberties and internet freedom groups have criticized the laws as invasive and unconstitutional.

“Beginning today, if you are Australian, everything you do online is being tracked, stored, and retained for 2 years,” Snowden wrote, linking to a campaign by advocacy group GetUp! that gave instructions on how to circumvent the data retention scheme.

Edward Snowden ✔@Snowden

Beginning today, if you are Australian, everything you do online is being tracked, stored

ed, and retained for 2 years. https://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/digital-freedom-and-privacy/go-dark-against-data-retention/go-dark-against-data-retention …

10:36 AM – 12 Oct 2015

The laws are “costly, ineffective, and against the public interest,” GetUp! wrote in its campaign.

According to (pdf) the Australian Privacy Foundation, an internet advocacy group and subsidiary of Privacy International, the laws require telecoms to maintain, at minimum:

  • IP addresses for each device or connection to the internet (including from computers, tablets, phones, etc)
  • Time and duration of internet connections
  • Volume of uploads and downloads
  • Recipients of emails, along with date and time sent (Australian ISP emails only)
  • Size of email attachments (Australian ISP emails only)
  • Phone numbers called (even where the receiving party did not answer), on all landlines (including VoIP) and mobiles, along with the date and time of the call
  • SMSs sent, along with the date and time of the SMS

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

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