Strengthening Global Privacy & Free Expression Rights in the Age of Surveillance

by Emma Llansó
Center for Democracy and Technology
September 10, 2013

During this summer of surveillance, debate in the United States has focused mainly on the extent to which the NSA’s surveillance programs infringed on the privacy of people inside the U.S. Under the now-notorious PRISM program, the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) requires U.S.-based companies to disclose the communications of non-U.S. citizens located outside the U.S. In defense of the program, U.S. government officials have stressed that it only targets non-U.S. citizens outside the U.S., but people across the globe who get swept up in the NSA’s programs have privacy rights too. CDT has joined human rights advocates from around the world to highlight this issue to the UN Human Rights Council, the U.S. Congress, and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.

The entire article is here.

Morality and ethics - the 'next big thing' for IT suppliers

By Brian Glick
Computer Weekly Editor's Blog
Originally published on June 10, 2013

Here is an excerpt:

But with that greater influence, comes greater responsibility. It is inevitable there would be a backlash, and that backlash is well and truly underway.

IT was at the heart of the global boom in financial services. Today it stands accused of enabling the behaviours of bankers that crippled Western economies.

Facebook and social media have transformed personal communications, enabled new communities and improved information sharing for all. But at what cost for privacy of our personal information.

Google and Amazon have made it easy to find information, to buy quickly and cheaply, opening up new knowledge and commercial opportunities. And they are pilloried as arrogant tax avoiders.

But the biggest example of the dark side of technology so far is dominating front pages and web pages alike around the world - the US National Security Agency (NSA) monitoring of electronic communications, and the allegations of complicity on the part of the global internet giants that provide that data.

Look at all the great things the web allows us to do - and look at how easy that makes it to create a surveillance society. As someone said recently, if you could give George Orwell one Tweet from beyond the grave, he would write: "I told you so #Prism".

This backlash is an inevitable stage in the progress of technology and the digital revolution, but of course it presents challenges on a scale that the world has never before had to comprehend.

The entire blog post is here.