Tag: Regulation

To help telcos address these concerns, Access has developed guidance for telcos and other information and communication technology (ICT) firms in our new paper, Forgotten Pillar: The Telco Remedy Plan. The paper will be officially released at a special event open to the public in Washington, DC, on Monday June 24th.

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) is the government oversight body principally charged with protecting privacy and civil liberties in the United States. However, in the eight years since it was established, the PCLOB has met only infrequently. But with the recent revelations of unconstitutional massive data collection by the NSA, it seems the PCLOB’s long run of applied irrelevance may have finally come to an end – and not a moment too soon.

As secrets about the NSA’s surveillance programs continue to command the world’s attention, some communications companies involved are advocating that the US government allow them to reveal more about their participation in the programs in order to maintain their reputations.

Update: After members of civil society, including Access, submitted a proposal to the governing body of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the ITU Council, calling for more steps to be taken “to meet the goal of an open, transparent, and multistakeholder debate,” the ITU Council has rejected proposals to open up the Council Working Group on Internet Related Public Policy Issues (CWG-Internet) at its most recent session.

Representatives of top U.S. intelligence agencies testified before the House Intelligence Committee in a public oversight hearing. While the hearing largely served to allow officials to legitimate the recently-revealed massive US surveillance programs, a few representatives pushed back, granting the public important new information on these programs.

Access has partnered with ARTICLE 19, PEN International, and English PEN on a joint submission on Vietnam to the United Nations Universal Periodic Review (UPR), which focuses on the lack of improvement of human rights, specifically freedom of expression, in Vietnam and highlights the Vietnamese government’s troubling response to the recent increase in cyber attacks against civil society.

Today Access, in coordination with a broad-based group of civil society organizations and individuals, sent a letter to the US Congress representing the international response to the massive NSA surveillance program. Amidst the often US-centric response to this scandal, the letter presents an important reminder that these programs not only affect, but specifically target, non-US citizens in a gross breach of the United States’ responsibilities under international human rights law.

Details of the recently revealed large-scale, secret United States surveillance programs, the collection of Verizon users’ metadata and PRISM, are still emerging. However, from the information available, it is clear that while the programs rest on dubious legal ground under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), they are both unconstitutional.

Access, along with a coalition of more than 80 organizations and internet companies, released a letter and online petition demanding that Congress halt and investigate the US National Security Agency’s mobile phone surveillance and PRISM programs. During the press call held that day by lead organizers, coalition representatives stated that they would continue outreach to internet users and youth, while increasing outreach to both government officials and corporations.

Access has received new information about the unprecedented level of US lobbying against the EU Data Protection Regulation in response to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests filed on both sides of the Atlantic.