Region: North America

Nathan White, legislative director at Access, calls on U.S. congressmen and women to stand on the side of the people and vote to restrain our out-of-control surveillance agencies.

This week, Access released an Implementation Guide for the 13 Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications Surveillance. The Implementation Guide applies the Principles to each step of the government surveillance process, calling on officials to respect human rights no matter the justification for the activity — whether it is law enforcement, national security, or intelligence gathering.

Access supports passage of the USA FREEDOM Act, but urges Congress to use the amendments process wisely in order to address serious inadequacies in its key provisions, without diluting any of its reforms or protections.

Access today welcomed the reintroduction of a bipartisan reform bill meant to rein in the National Security Agency’s (NSA) bulk collection of domestic telephone metadata.

Last week, Access and a number of allies sent a letter to Congressional leadership calling for improvements to the U.S. MLAT system. We point out that the current failure of the U.S. to comply quickly with requests for international legal assistance pushes governments to use other means of obtaining information, including surveillance, that infringe users’ rights and risk the integrity and interoperability of the internet.

How do video games impact digital rights? Here are four lessons for activists from the Games for Change festival.