By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
November 25 --
When the
"Right to
Privacy in the
Internet Age"
resolution
came to the
floor in the
UN's Third (Human
Rights)
Committee on
November 25,
German Ambassador
Harald Braun summarized
its new
elements:
the inclusion
of metadata,
obligations by
the private
sector,
effective
remedies for
violations and
an invitation
to the UN
Human Rights
Council to
establish a
special
procedure on
the right to
privacy.
Ambassador
Antonio
Patriota of
co-sponsor
Brazil
expressed
regret on what
wasn't in the
resolution,
for example
extra-territorial
coverage of
communications
infrastructure
that a country
controls,
wherever
located.
While Braun
cited US
National
Security
Agency
whistleblower
Edward Snowden,
the resolution
was adopted by
consensus -
that is, no
country,
including the
United States,
objected.
International
law, if it
exists, is
incremental.
Back
on July 9,
First Look's "The
Intercept"
revealed
that the US NSA
and FBI spied
on at least
five
Americans, all
Muslims, and
used
place-holder
code names
like "Raghead,"
click here for
that.
Those spied on
included a
Republican
candidate for
the Virginia
legislature,
Faisal Gill;
Hooshang
Amirahmadi, an
Iranian-American
professor;
lawyer Asim
Ghafoor; Nihad
Awad of CAIR;
and "Agha
Saeed, a
former
political
science
professor at
California
State
University who
champions
Muslim civil
liberties and
Palestinian
rights."
The United
Nations'
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon has
already said
he thinks
Snowden
"misused"
information,
as Inner City
Press reported
here.
Back on March
14 when the US
delegation to
the UN Human
Rights
Committee in
Geneva took
the floor, it
was a full
court press.
Of the
elephant in
the room, NSA
spying, the
speaker from
the Civil
Rights
Division of
the US
Department of
Justice used a
single line:
DOJ is
"monitoring" a
number of
private
actions. You
don't say.
The
head of the US
delegation,
Mary McLeod,
said but did
not explain
why the US
Administration
has "no
current
expectation to
become a party
to the
optional
protocol" to
the
International
Covenant on
Civil and
Political
Rights --
which the US
says does not
apply to its
actions
outside of its
borders.
The
session closed
with a slew of
questions:
Walter Kalin
asked why the
US deports
people to
Haiti even
amid the
cholera
epidemic --
for which,
Inner City
Press notes, the
US has said
the UN should
be immune. Watch
this site.
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