Human rights commission questions NSA surveillance

October 28, 2013

The U.S. government needs to answer for human rights abuses related to the National Security Agency’s massive worldwide surveillance of Internet communications and telephone records, privacy advocates told an international human rights board Monday. The NSA is conducting surveillance on “hundreds of millions” of people worldwide, said Steven Watt, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Human Rights Program, speaking to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), part of the Organization of American States (OAS). “The government has sought to justify this mass surveillance on national security grounds, yet official reports indicate that the NSA has conducted surveillance of the communications of world leaders, of allied foreign powers, U.N. and E.U. offices, foreign corporations and endless numbers of innocent Americans and foreign nationals,” Watt continued. Press reports this year on the surveillance programs raise questions about unchecked authority and the effect on freedom of speech, added Frank La Rue, special rapporteur on the freedom of expression at the United Nations. Secret surveillance programs will “inevitably” lead to abuses, he said. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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