[Chapter-delegates] NSA, GCHQ and international treaties

[Edwin A. Opare]

Elver,

You've highlighted some really important points here.

IMO, what will be equally helpful is if ISOC HQ could to tell us which
other concrete steps/actions, interactions or engagements they have had
with the NSA or the US Government beyond the statement which was released
on June 12, 2013 and what practical impacts/effects these interactions and
engagements( if there's been any that is) have had or will have on end user
privacy on the Internet going forward.

Best,

Edwin


On Mon, Jul 8, 2013 at 8:30 AM, Elver Loho <elver.loho at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all.
>
> A while back ISOC HQ released a fine statement on the whole NSA debacle:
>
>
> http://www.internetsociety.org/news/internet-society-statement-importance-open-global-dialogue-regarding-online-privacy
>
> The people who wrote that seem to know their way around international law
> and I've been waiting for a proper analysis of NSA and GCHQ activities in
> the context of various international treaties from anywhere, but either I
> haven't noticed anything like that or nobody has done it.
>
> Basically it would be really useful if a legal expert took Snowden's
> revelations about the mass spying activities of the US and various EU
> countries and did a point by point analysis of whether any treaties were
> broken and how ordinary citizens or nation-states could seek recourse under
> those same treaties.
>
> For example, US spying probably violates the International Covenant on
> Civil and Political Rights adopted by the UN in 1966, but the US is not
> party to the Covenant's Optional Protocol, which would allow ordinary
> citizens to file a complaint at the UN against the US.
>
> There is also the European Convention on Human Rights, where ordinary
> citizens probably can file complaints against UK and German spying in the
> European Court of Human Rights, as long as they are citizens of any
> European country, which has ratified the ECHR. Unlike some fundamental EU
> treaties, the ECHR should also cover the activities of intelligence
> agencies.
>
> And there are even more treaties, which might be relevant to this spying
> case.
>
> ISOC HQ probably has the resources (both monetary and lawyerly) to get
> such an analysis done. I'm wondering if I'm the only law nerd here or if
> anyone else would be interested in this as well? The NSA scandal is not
> going away anytime soon and this kind of analysis could feed meaningful
> information to chapters around the world that they could use as substantial
> talking points.
>
> Best,
> Elver
>
> elver.loho at gmail.com
> +372 5661 6933
> skype: elver.loho
>
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