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Firstly of June 2013, a lot of paperwork detailing surveillance by intelligence businesses such because the US’s NSA and UK’s GCHQ began to be revealed, based mostly on data equipped by NSA whistle blower, Edward Snowden.
These leaks revealed an enormous surveillance program that included interception of e-mail and different Web communications and telephone name tapping. A few of it seems unlawful, whereas different revelations present the US spying on pleasant nations throughout numerous worldwide summits.
Unsurprisingly, there was numerous furor. Whereas some nations are little question utilizing this to win some diplomatic factors, there was elevated tensions between the US and different areas around the globe.
A lot of the US surveillance packages got here from the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist assaults on the US in 2001. Issues a couple of crackdown on civil rights within the wake of the so-called conflict on terror
have been expressed for a very long time, and these revelations appear to be confirming a few of these fears.
Given the widespread assortment of knowledge, apparently from central servers of main Web corporations and from different core servers that type a part of the Web spine, actions of hundreds of thousands (if not billions) of residents have been caught up in a dragnet model surveillance downside known as PRISM, even when the communication has nothing to do with terrorism.
What impacts would such secretive mass surveillance have on democracy?
On this web page:
- Secrecy; US Congress unaware of mass NSA surveillance program
- In case you’ve bought nothing to cover…
- Entry to vasts quantity of consumer knowledge from Web Giants
- Web Governance
- Individuals and residents of different nations
- Spying on pleasant nations and worldwide establishments
- US mainstream media deal with Edward Snowden
- Privatization of surveillance means even much less accountability?
- Extra data
Secrecy; US Congress unaware of mass NSA surveillance program
One of many main considerations within the US has been how members of the US Congress themselves weren’t conscious at how huge the actions have been. Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist that revealed the paperwork from Edward Snowden wrote a follow-up article per week after the preliminary revelations. He famous Democratic Consultant Loretta Sanchez’s feedback stated after Congress was given a categorized briefing by NSA officers on the company’s beforehand secret surveillance actions that what was revealed was simply the tip of the iceberg
and that it’s broader than most individuals even notice
. She added that almost all of them in that session have been astounded to study a few of this.
Greenwald continued to replicate on the gravity of what she stated:
And even the unique writer of the controversial Patriot Act, has argued that the present metadata assortment is unbounded in scope
. He added that the overwhelming majority of information collected don’t have anything to do with investigating terrorism, and requested, How can each name that each American makes or receives be related to a selected investigation?
Greenwald additionally makes an fascinating commentary about partisanship and describes how in 2006 the Democrats have been very clearly against this sort of secret surveillance that Republicans had spear-headed within the aftermatch of the 9/11 terrorist assaults. And he contrasts that with how defensive Democrats have been this time spherical. He additionally factors to this fascinating YouTube video that summarizes this (although learn the article, too!)
In case you’ve bought nothing to cover…
Defenders of those packages have typically argued that in case you have nothing to cover then you shouldn’t fear about this invasion of privateness.
Cory Doctorow, writing in The Guardian, responded as to why you must care:
And, John Naughton, writing in The Observer, provides:
The opposite factor Hague overlooks is how the UK’s GCHQ used very misleading means to intercept communications throughout vital G20 summits to grasp the personal positions of different governments, together with regimes pleasant with the UK. This included organising pretend Web cafes, putting in adware corresponding to keyloggers, and intercepting emails.
It has typically been thought that each one governments want to (or do) carry out some type of spying and espionage throughout worldwide conferences, and it’s typically within the nationwide curiosity to take action (or a minimum of could be argued that method).
As well as, because the journal International Coverage revealed, the US spied by itself residents way back to the Vietnam conflict, together with spying on two of its personal sitting senior senators and distinguished figures corresponding to Martin Luther King, boxer Muhammad Ali, and others. This wasn’t with congressional oversight, however on the White Home’s behest; an abuse of energy, because the journal additionally famous.
However it has been hardly ever attainable to show such suspicions, till now. One other vital instance was the US and UK’s efforts to justify the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the assorted UN conferences about Iraq-related resolutions, the place the US and UK have been considered spying on associates and others.
Lastly, the in case you have nothing to cover
argument misses a elementary level; having such vasts quantity of knowledge, probably unnecessarily when collected through a dragnet model system, is awaiting abuse. The NSA and others at the moment declare they don’t seem to be abusing their roles (however we now have already heard them misinform Congress, so they’re already dealing with public belief points which is tough for a secretive group anyway), however with all this knowledge, it’s the potential to abuse it (internally, or by means of hacks, and so forth) that’s the privateness concern right here. Secrecy (particularly in a democracy) by-passes checks and balances. Within the case of the US, who strongly declare there’s authorized and judicial oversight in these items, it’s nonetheless finished in secrecy; it isn’t clear how a lot private knowledge of strange residents (of the US and remainder of the world) is caught on this.
Entry to vasts quantity of consumer knowledge from Web Giants
One other facet of the US/NSA spying story was the involvement of Web giants corresponding to Apple, Fb, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter.
It was claimed that the NSA had some type of backdoor or direct entry to the vasts quantity of knowledge these corporations have on their customers, which the Web titans vigorously denied. In some methods, these denials seem like spin as corporations must adjust to authorized surveillance requests and the data might not technically be shared through backdoors.
However, corporations should not legally allowed to acknowledge sure sorts of intelligence requests so legally there could be vasts quantities of knowledge sharing however the secrecy surrounding it means it isn’t clear how a lot privateness invasion is respectable or not.
However on the very least it emerged there have been presumably hundreds of requests for nearly all knowledge for numerous customers they might goal. And that the NSA have been capable of seize an enormous quantity of Web knowledge.
Edward Snowden advised the Hong Kong-based South China Submit that there had been greater than 61,000 hacking operations globally, with a whole bunch of targets in Hong Kong and on the [Chinese] mainland. We hack community backbones–like enormous Web routers, mainly–that give us entry to the communications of a whole bunch of hundreds of computer systems with out having to hack each single one,
Snowden added.
And a few corporations are solely too keen to promote to the US authorities to help these actions. For instance, Inter Press Service notes a Californian firm providing US authorities businesses software program to intercept alerts on undersea cables that can be utilized to investigate all kinds of fashionable Web companies, corresponding to Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Fb, Twitter, and so forth.
Web Governance
It’s fascinating to notice that just a few months earlier the US was resisting what appeared like worldwide efforts to place the stewardship of the Web within the palms of the United Nations relatively than being a decentralized system (although with the US having ultimate say over the adjustments to sure features of the core, or root, Web servers).
On the time, a lot of the know-how group and others argued that the US is an efficient defender of the Web (and helped create it within the first place), and that placing it into the palms of the UN was actually the agenda of countries like Russia, China and others with questionable information on human rights. Examples corresponding to surveillance and censorship got as causes to not belief different governments. And boards and blogs have been stuffed with the same old over-simplistic UN-bashing that the US is commonly recognized for.
The US, by comparability, (in all probability rightly) argued that the present decentralized system works properly. Web giants corresponding to Google additionally weighed in alongside related strains, as did numerous Web freedom activist organizations and people.
Sadly, even with the present system, governments sadly can sensor giant parts of the Web in the event that they wish to. However because the current spying episode has revealed as properly, that is maybe another excuse for the US not desirous to relinquish management of such a globally invaluable useful resource. Having the ability to faucet into a number of the core Web servers, a lot of that are based mostly within the US or US-friendly nations, provides it a bonus of different nations and entities.
In different phrases, if even inside the present system nations like China and Russia can censor and monitor the Web why do they care about wanting extra management? Larry Geller provides an instance:
Individuals and residents of different nations
A few of the scandal within the US has been that the surveillance by NSA has included American residents. Misplaced in that concern is the privateness of non-US residents. It nearly seems that mainstream US media should not too anxious about that. However residents around the globe are rightly out-raged.
It’s not just like the US-based companies (corresponding to these from Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple, Fb, and others) are simply replaceable. Not solely do individuals around the globe depend on these companies, however these corporations depend on individuals around the globe utilizing their companies too.
Being international companies, the concept of nation states and citizen rights have probably not developed shortly sufficient to cater for the adjustments being led to by the Web. (It has equally been argued that the way in which companies are pushing for a neoliberal type of globalization, nation states are struggling to deal with that, too, so there’s maybe an actual challenge of democracy and other people’s rights in a brand new world that’s essentially at stake.)
Spying on pleasant nations and worldwide establishments
Breaking UN protocol at a Common Meeting assembly of all members states Brazil strongly criticized the US for illegally infiltrating its communications community, intercepting telephone calls, and breaking into the Brazilian Mission to the United Nations. President Dilma Rousseff dismissed the US argument that such actions have been to counter terrorism. As a substitute, she argued, company data — typically of excessive financial and even strategic worth — was on the heart of espionage actions.
Reviews additionally surfaced of the US spying on the United Nations and numerous European nations, together with the workplace of the European Union on the UN. The US had managed to crack the UN’s inside video teleconferencing system, as a part of its surveillance of the world physique.
Main know-how web page, Ars Technica, additionally provides that the NSA additionally runs a bugging program in additional than 80 embassies and consulates around the globe, underneath a program known as the Particular Assortment Service
, an intensive
program that has little or nothing to do with averting terrorists,
in accordance with Der Spiegel.
US mainstream media deal with Edward Snowden
When Edward Snowden made his revelations he hoped the main target could be on the problems, not on him or his plight. However as many have recognized for a few years, the US mainstream media isn’t capable of do reporting of significant points; sensationalism and specializing in people are simpler to do in comparison with tackling core points which may maintain energy to account (be it authorities, company or in any other case).
In a Q&A session with The Guardian, he famous that Sadly, the mainstream media now appears way more excited by what I stated after I was 17 or what my girlfriend appears like relatively than, say, the biggest program of suspicionless surveillance in human historical past.
Within the US, a lot of the main target had turn out to be about whether or not he was a traitor or not; he felt there was no probability of a good trial within the US as a result of the US had overtly accused and judged him of treason. In response to questions on whether or not he was a traitor he added
When requested how the remedy of different whistleblowers influenced him, he had a profound problem for President Obama:
Privatization of surveillance means even much less accountability?
Chris Pyle, a former army teacher uncovered the CIA and Military’s monitoring of hundreds of thousands of Individuals engaged in lawful political exercise within the Nineteen Seventies. His revelations finally resulting in a sequence of legal guidelines aimed toward curbing authorities abuses.
He was just lately interviewed by the superb Democracy Now! concerning the current NSA revelations and echoed considerations raised by others; about lack of understanding and oversight by Congress and that the secrecy is uncontrolled.
However he additionally provides that privatization of surveillance (70% p.c of the intelligence funds of the USA as we speak goes to non-public contractors, Democracy Now! notes) is leading to a scarcity of accountability and importantly a method for governments to shirk their authorized obligations; the Fourth Modification of the Structure, which protects us from unreasonable searches and seizures, solely binds the federal government, doesn’t bind companies. That’s a significant issue,
he notes.
Extra data
This web page will in all probability not be capable to sustain with new revelations as they’re revealed. Nonetheless, there are a variety of web sites which might be price following on this challenge. As well as, the IPS information feed that this website carries will even cowl this.
Different websites
Listed here are quite a lot of websites which have additional data and might cowl this story because it occurs far faster than this web page can:
Information tales from IPS
Under is an inventory of tales from Inter Press Service associated to this challenge.
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Massive Brother is Watching You– as Digital Surveillance Dominates Lives
– Inter Press Service
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 22 (IPS) – The British novelist George Orwell’s “1984” characterised a dystopian society the place individuals have been restricted from impartial thought and have been victims of fixed surveillance.
Revealed in 1949, it was a prophecy of the long run with the underlying theme: “Massive Brother is Watching You”
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IAEA strikes take care of Iran on monitoring of nuclear programme
– UN Information
The UN atomic watchdog reached an settlement with Iran on Sunday permitting the Company entry to surveillance cameras inside its atomic amenities.
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Adware: Rights specialists push for surveillance know-how moratorium
– UN Information
A gaggle of UN-appointed specialists on Thursday known as for a moratorium on the sale of surveillance know-how, warning in opposition to the hazard of permitting the sector to function as “a human rights-free zone.”
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Pegasus: Human rights-compliant legal guidelines wanted to manage adware
– UN Information
The UN human rights chief on Monday stated the obvious widespread use of Pegasus spy software program to illegally undermine the rights of these underneath surveillance, together with journalists and politicians, was “extraordinarily alarming” and confirmed “a number of the worst fears” surrounding the potential misuse of such know-how.
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Q&A: If China had a Free Press COVID-19 Pandemic ‘Might not Have been so Extreme’
– Inter Press Service
BRATISLAVA, Might 26 (IPS) – China is among the worst locations on this planet for media freedom, in accordance with the worldwide media watchdog Reporters With out Borders (RSF) which ranked the nation 177 out of 180 in its newest World Press Freedom Index. Within the report, the group warned that Beijing is taking “web censorship, surveillance and propaganda to unprecedented stage,” and had “taken benefit of the Covid-19 pandemic to boost its management over on-line data much more”. China can be the world’s largest jailers of journalists with greater than 120 journalists and what the group calls “defenders of press freedom” at the moment detained.
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What Journalists Ought to Know About Coronavirus Cellphone Monitoring
– Inter Press Service
NEW YORK, Apr 08 (IPS) – Governments all around the world have been contemplating cellphone surveillance to assist monitor and include the unfold of the coronavirus.
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How Nigeria’s Police used Telecom Surveillance to Lure & Arrest Journalists
– Inter Press Service
NEW YORK, Feb 19 (IPS) – As reporters for Nigeria’s Premium Occasions newspaper, Samuel Ogundipe and Azeezat Adedigba advised CPJ they spoke typically over the telephone. They’d no concept that their common conversations about work and their private lives have been making a document of their friendship.
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Marketing campaign Targets UNESCO’s Tie-up with ‘Saudi Spies’
– Inter Press Service
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 14 (IPS) – The United Nations faces renewed criticism over its partnership with Saudi Arabia’s Misk Basis amid revelations that the charity is headed by the mastermind of a current Twitter spying operation.
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Why the Prosecution of Julian Assange is Troubling for Press Freedom
– Inter Press Service
NEW YORK, Apr 16 (IPS) – Alex Ellerbeck* is North America Program Coordinator on the Committee to Defend Journalists & Avi Asher-Schapiro* is North America Analysis Affiliate
After a seven-year standoff on the Ecuadorean embassy in London, British police final week arrested WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange–a growth press freedom advocates had lengthy feared.
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Q&A: How Will the World Compact for Migration Support the Work of Civil Society
– Inter Press Service
MARRAKECH, Morocco, Dec 12 (IPS) – IPS correspondent Steven Nsamaza interviews CLAUDIA INTERIANO from Fundación para la Justicia y el Estado Democratico de Derecho.
Claudia Interiano from Fundación para la Justicia y el Estado Democratico de Derecho, a Latin American organisation that works to entry justice for individuals killed or lacking throughout transit by means of Mexico to the USA, spoke to IPS concerning the foreseeable way forward for migration in a world after the top of the World Compact for Secure, Orderly and Common Migration (GCM) convention.
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Why Launch of Two Journalists in Ethiopia Doesn’t Sign Finish to Press Crackdown
– Inter Press Service
NEW YORK, Jan 26 (IPS) – On January 10, radio journalists Darsema Sori and Khalid Mohammed have been launched from jail after serving prolonged sentences associated to their work on the Ethiopian faith-based station Radio Bilal. Regardless of their launch and Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn’s promise earlier this month to free political prisoners, Ethiopia’s use of imprisonment, harassment, and surveillance implies that the nation continues to be a hostile surroundings for journalists.
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Turkish Surveillance Invades Social Media Privateness
– Inter Press Service
Nov 20 (IPS) – “The current authorities has taken measures that transcend something the earlier army juntas did”, in accordance with authorized knowledgeable Sercan Aran of the commerce union confederation KESK. The military has beforehand registered private knowledge and the personal political views of suspected dissidents, however all the time underneath secrecy.
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Southern Africa’s Marshall Plan to Cease Voracious Crop Worm
– Inter Press Service
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Jul 18 (IPS) – Southern African nations have agreed on a multi-pronged plan to extend surveillance and analysis to include the autumn military worm, which has reduce forecast regional maize harvests by as much as ten p.c, in accordance with a senior U.N. Meals and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) official.
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Tax Evasion Classes From Panama
– Inter Press Service
KUALA LAMPUR, Feb 21 (IPS) – In contrast to Wikileaks and different exposes, the Panama revelations have been fastidiously managed, if not edited, fairly selective, and therefore focused, a minimum of initially. Most observers attribute this to the political agendas of its major sponsors. Nonetheless, the revelations have highlighted some issues related to illicit monetary flows, in addition to tax evasion and avoidance, together with the position of enabling governments, laws, authorized and accounting corporations in addition to shell corporations.
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Threats to Freedom of Expression within the Social Networks
– Inter Press Service
ZAPOPAN, Mexico, Dec 27 (IPS) – E-mail surveillance, blocking of internet sites with content material that’s awkward for governments, or the interruption of companies corresponding to WhatsApp are signs of the risk to freedom of expression on-line, in accordance with Latin American activists.
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Australian Activists, Dissenters and Whistleblowers Feeling the Warmth
– Inter Press Service
MELBOURNE, Nov 24 (IPS) – For Australian activist Samantha Castro, it was her affiliation with the non-profit publishing organisation Wikileaks that introduced her to the eye of the Australian Federal Police (AFP).
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Opinion: Panama, Secrecy and Tax Havens
– Inter Press Service
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Apr 22 (IPS) – In contrast to Wikileaks’ exposes, the current Panama revelations have been fairly selective, focused, edited and punctiliously managed. Most observers attribute this to the political agendas of its primarily American funders. Nonetheless, the revelations have highlighted some issues related to illicit monetary flows, in addition to tax evasion and avoidance, together with the position of enabling governments, laws, authorized and accounting corporations in addition to shell corporations.
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Opinion: Why Are Threats to Civil Society Rising Across the World?
– Inter Press Service
JOHANNESBURG, Jun 10 (IPS) – Whistle-blowers like Edward Snowden and Julian Assange are hounded – not by autocratic however by democratic governments – for revealing the reality about grave human rights violations. Nobel peace prize winner, author and political activist Liu Xiaobo is at the moment languishing in a Chinese language jail whereas the killing of Egyptian protestor, poet and mom Shaimaa al-Sabbaghapparently by a masked policeman, in January this yr continues to hang-out us.
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Press Freedom Teams Denounce NSA Spying on AJ Bureau Chief
– Inter Press Service
NEW YORK, Might 12 (IPS) – Ahmad Muaffaq Zaidan does not deny that he is had contact with terrorist teams. In reality, it will have been relatively tough to do his job in any other case.
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The Definition of ‘Rape’ Can’t Change with a Marriage Certificates
– Inter Press Service
NEW DELHI, Might 12 (IPS) – “I used to be brutally raped thrice by my husband. He stored me underneath surveillance in his Dubai home whereas I suffered from extreme malnutrition and melancholy. Once I tried to flee from this hellhole, he confiscated my passport, disadvantaged me of cash and beat me up,” recollects Anna Marie Lopes, 28, a rape survivor who after six years of torture, lastly managed to board a flight to New Delhi from the United Arab Emirates in 2012.
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Battling Terrorism Shouldn’t Justify Torture, Spying or Hangings, Says U.N. Rights Chief
– Inter Press Service
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 05 (IPS) – The United Nations, which is the authorized guardian of scores of human rights treaties banning torture, illegal imprisonment, degrading remedy of prisoners of conflict and enforced disappearances, is troubled that an growing variety of nations are justifying violations of U.N. conventions on grounds of preventing terrorism in battle zones.
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Cameroon Desires the World to Wake As much as the Scent of its Espresso
– Inter Press Service
KOUOPTOMO, Cameroon, Aug 05 (IPS) – Issah Mounde Nsangou combs his 6.5-hectare Kouoptomo espresso plantation in Cameroon’s West Area, pulling up undesirable weeds and clipping off parasitic vegetation. For the 50-year-old farmer, the well being of his espresso vegetation are of prime significance.
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Mexico – Each Sufferer and Victimiser in Cyberespionage
– Inter Press Service
MEXICO CITY, Jun 01 (IPS) – A scarcity of controls, regulation and transparency marks the monitoring and surveillance of digital communication in Mexico, one yr after the revelations of cyberespionage shook the world.
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Taiwanese Saved a Little From Wiretapping
– Inter Press Service
TAIPEI, Mar 03 (IPS) – Taiwan’s nationwide legislature has taken a small however vital step to curb rampant authorities surveillance of residents and politicians by means of revisions of the Communication Safety and Surveillance Act and the legal code.
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Obama Curbs Spying on International Nationals Abroad
– Inter Press Service
WASHINGTON, Jan 17 (IPS) – In a extremely anticipated speech on Friday, President Barack Obama launched a sequence of reforms that can place new limits and safeguards on U.S. intelligence gathering, together with further protections for overseas nationals abroad.
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U.S. Snooping Makes It a Neighbourhood Pariah
– Inter Press Service
WASHINGTON, Oct 29 (IPS) – As the primary formal probe by a world rights physique into allegations of U.S. mass surveillance started right here Monday, privateness advocates from all through the Americas accused Washington of violating worldwide covenants and endangering civil society.
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U.N. Will Censure Unlawful Spying, However Not U.S.
– Inter Press Service
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 28 (IPS) – When the 193-member Common Meeting adopts a decision subsequent month censuring the unlawful digital surveillance of governments and world leaders by the U.S. Nationwide Safety Company (NSA), the U.N.’s highest policy-making physique will spare the USA from public condemnation regardless of its culpability in widespread wiretapping.
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U.S. Spying Worldwide Might Come Beneath U.N. Scrutiny
– Inter Press Service
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 25 (IPS) – When Clare Quick, Britain’s former minister for worldwide growth, revealed that British intelligence brokers had spied on former U.N. Secretary-Common Kofi Annan by bugging his workplace simply earlier than the disastrous U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the U.N. chief was livid that his discussions with world leaders had been compromised.
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Cybercrime Treaty May Be Used to Go After Cyberespionage
– Inter Press Service
MEXICO CITY, Oct 03 (IPS) – Governments of nations that have interaction in large-scale digital espionage, like the USA, and corporations that develop spying software program may theoretically face authorized motion for violating the Conference on Cybercrime.
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Breaking U.N. Protocol, Brazil Lambastes U.S. Spying
– Inter Press Service
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 24 (IPS) – Throwing diplomatic protocol to the winds, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff launched a blistering assault on the USA for illegally infiltrating its communications community, surreptitiously intercepting telephone calls, and breaking into the Brazilian Mission to the United Nations.
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