Tag: Business & Human Rights

This morning eight major internet companies — AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter, and Yahoo! — issued a broad and powerful call for surveillance reform. The joint statement represents the strongest stance yet by U.S. internet companies on government surveillance and has the potential to shift the debate in Washington.

Today, Access is joining a day of action in the United State calling for reform of the U.S. Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) — the law known for giving the U.S. government the ability to access your email and documents in the cloud without a warrant. ECPA is one of the internet’s most outdated laws: it was passed in 1986, before most people even had access to the internet.

Swedish telco TeliaSonera is taking further steps to remedy its involvement in corrupt business deals in Uzbekistan, most recently by Monday’s ousting of four senior executives.

Today the U.N. General Assembly took a critical first step in addressing mass surveillance as a human rights violations with the passage of a resolution recognizing the right to privacy in the digital age.

In the 10th and 11th hearings held by the committee for civil liberties (LIBE), Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) focussed on the IT security of the EU Institutions and a possible discussion between the European Commission and the Council of the EU on mass surveillance.

In 2013, we learned digital surveillance by world governments knows no bounds. Their national intelligence and other investigative agencies can capture our phone calls, track our location, peer into our address books, and read our emails. They do this often in secret, without adequate public oversight, and in violation of our human rights.

As negotiations at the United Nations General Assembly over the right to privacy in the digital age grow heated, Access, together with Amnesty International, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Human Rights Watch, and Privacy International have written a letter to members of the General Assembly urging them to “take a stand against indiscriminate practices such as mass surveillance, interception, and data collection, both at home and abroad”.

Ecuador is set to finish a major revision to its Criminal Code on Friday, and it’s not looking good for user rights. Even as the country’s president, Rafael Correa, has been outspoken in criticizing NSA surveillance, the Ecuadorean Assembly is charging ahead with a requirement that all internet service providers spy on their customers, in violation of the country’s Constitution and international law.

The 8th annual U.N. Internet Governance Forum wrapped up late last month in Bali, Indonesia. This year’s official main theme was “Building Bridges – Enhancing Multi-stakeholder Cooperation for Growth and Sustainable Development”; however, mass online surveillance and a recently announced 2014 world summit on internet governance dominated many discussions at the IGF.

The NSA is eavesdropping on the private cables running between the Google and Yahoo data centers where all user data is held. Under a program codenamed MUSCULAR the NSA is going right in, without permission from the companies or the courts.