US Working To Kill UN Privacy Resolutions 197
schwit1 writes with a short excerpt from The Cable "The United States and its key intelligence allies are quietly working behind the scenes to kneecap a mounting movement in the United Nations to promote a universal human right to online privacy, according to diplomatic sources and an internal American government document obtained by The Cable. American representatives have made it clear that they won't tolerate such checks on their global surveillance network."
A leaked memo containing U.S. suggestions for changes to the ICCPR includes gems like (referring to intercepting communications) "Move 'may threaten' from before 'the foundations of a democratic [society]...' to before 'freedom of expression.' We need to clarify that privacy violations could 'interfere with' freedom of expression and avoid the inaccurate suggestion that all privacy violations are violations of freedom of expression." The U.S. changes are pretty much directed at making dragnet surveillance of non-citizens technically legal.
Text of one of TFA (Score:4, Informative)
Excepts from it:
The Brazilian and German initiative seeks to apply the right to privacy, which is enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to online communications. Their proposal, [...], affirms a "right to privacy that is not to be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with their privacy, family, home, or correspondence." It notes that while public safety may "justify the gathering and protection of certain sensitive information," nations "must ensure full compliance" with international human rights laws. A final version the text is scheduled to be presented to U.N. members on Wednesday evening and the resolution is expected to be adopted next week.
Publicly, U.S. representatives say they're open to an affirmation of privacy rights. "The United States takes very seriously our international legal obligations, including those under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights," Kurtis Cooper, a spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations, said in an email. "We have been actively and constructively negotiating to ensure that the resolution promotes human rights and is consistent with those obligations."
But privately, American diplomats are pushing hard to kill a provision of the Brazilian and German draft which states that "extraterritorial surveillance" and mass interception of communications, personal information, and metadata may constitute a violation of human rights. The United States and its allies, according to diplomats, outside observers, and documents, contend that the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights does not apply to foreign espionage.
In recent days, the United States circulated to its allies a confidential paper highlighting American objectives in the negotiations, "Right to Privacy in the Digital Age -- U.S. Redlines." It calls for changing the Brazilian and German text so "that references to privacy rights are referring explicitly to States' obligations under ICCPR and remove suggestion that such obligations apply extraterritorially." In other words: America wants to make sure it preserves the right to spy overseas.
The United States negotiators have been pressing their case behind the scenes, raising concerns that the assertion of extraterritorial human rights could constrain America's effort to go after international terrorists. But Washington has remained relatively muted about their concerns in the U.N. negotiating sessions. According to one diplomat, "the United States has been very much in the backseat," leaving it to its allies, Australia, Britain, and Canada, to take the lead.
There is no extraterritorial obligation on states "to comply with human rights," explained one diplomat who supports the U.S. position. "The obligation is on states to uphold the human rights of citizens within their territory and areas of their jurisdictions."
Duhhh... what?!? So, breaking human rights doesn't count if done outside the country of the perpetrator? You mean Abu Ghraib was perfectly legal after all?
Re:What can the UN actually do? (Score:5, Informative)
UN isn't a governing body. It's a collection of diplomats from around the globe.
What could happen is US getting pushed out of certain diplomatic circles, causing decline in its ability to leverage its influence over issues important to it. The loss is not the type that is easily evident to average citizen - but consequences of that loss usually are, as they can be for example about a US company not getting deals it needs to get or losing bids or even getting its property nationalized abroad, things like that. Diplomatic pressure is one of the main ways of ensuring that your national interests are taken into account abroad. Losing ability to apply it can be crippling in certain scenarios, or force you to take a much less efficient, and less functional means of accomplishing the same task.
Then there's the general aspect of know-who. A lot of things are done on upper level though people who know people. When you're cut out of certain aspects of diplomacy, this particular resource dwindles fast.
Re:What can the UN actually do? (Score:5, Informative)
When Kerry signed the Small Arms treaty, it was innocuous in itself. However, it did have a clause which allows UN troops to operate on US soil independent of the Army and police forces.
No it doesn't. UN troops can't deploy *anywhere* without the Security councils approval, and *any* decision of the security council can be vetoed by the united states. It literally has no power to deploy anywhere without the unanimous approval of the United States, China, Russia, France and England. If any one of those countries say "No", it can not happen.
The UN is just a group of representitives from each country. It has no powers beyond what those countries wish it to have. its not a government, and it has very limited powers beyond what its members give it. If it ever deployed forces into the united states to abduct or kill someone, chances are those forces would be arrested, imprisoned and perhaps even executed as a hostile foreign power. And it would not be the UN, either. That power has never existed for the UN and the US is sufficiently stand-offish with the body that it would never agree to it. And without the agreement of the US, it will never happen.
Add To That: U.N. Funding (Score:3, Informative)
Re:They don't give a fuck (Score:5, Informative)
No. But it's a good reason for other countries, or groups thereof, to establish their own root servers.
Re:They don't give a fuck (Score:1, Informative)
to show the world that THEY ARE STILL THE BOSS
Is there some other boss you would prefer?
I read this time and time again about how vile the U.S. is for policing the world and pushing every other country around.
Without the U.S. there will be a power vacuum. Who would you prefer to take it's place?