An effort in the United Nations by Brazil and Germany to hold back government surveillance is quickly picking up steam, as the uproar over American eavesdropping grows.
The German and Brazilian delegations to the U.N. have opened talks with diplomats from 19 more countries to draft a General Resolution promoting the right of privacy on the Internet. Close American allies like France and Mexico -- as well as rivals like Cuba and Venezuela -- are all part of the effort.
The push marks the first major international effort to curb the National Security Agency's vast surveillance network. Its momentum is building. And it comes as concerns are growing within the U.S. intelligence community that the NSA may be, in effect, freelancing foreign policy by eavesdropping on leaders like Germany's Angela Merkel.
The draft, a copy of which was obtained by The Cable, calls on states "to respect and ensure the respect for the rights" to privacy, as enshrined in the 1976 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It also calls on states "to take measures to put an end to violations of these rights" and to "review their procedures, practices and legislation regarding the extraterritorial surveillance of private communications and interception of personal data of citizens in foreign jurisdictions with a view towards upholding the right to privacy."
Activists to rally against government spying
Those who oppose the Obama administration's vast spying programs will gather in the nation's capital this weekend to urge the government to get out of their private lives.
The Stop Watching Us: Rally Against Mass Surveillance, organized by a coalition of 100 organizations, companies and public figures, will take place Saturday, the 12th anniversary of the signing of the Patriot Act into law.
Documents released by leaker Edward Snowden showed that the NSA is collecting phone records of tens of millions of Verizon customers as well as emails through nine companies including tech giants Microsoft, Yahoo, Google and Facebook.
"In the last four months, we've learned a lot about our government," Snowden said in a statment released by protesters. "We've learned that the U.S. intelligence community secretly built a system of pervasive surveillance. Today, no telephone in America makes a call without leaving a record with the NSA. Today, no internet transaction enters or leaves America without passing through the NSA's hands. Our representatives in Congress tell us this is not surveillance. They're wrong."
Speakers at the rally will include Laura Murphy, director of the ACLU's Washington legislative office; former senior NSA executive and whistleblower Thomas Drake and Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., whose introduced a bill to change the NSA that was defeated.
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