[Advocacy Advisors] Fwd: Week of Action: A World Without Mass Surveillance

-- Yana Welinder Legal Counsel Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext. 6867 @yanatweets https://twitter.com/yanatweets NOTICE: As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For more on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Katitza Rodriguez katitza@eff.org Date: Mon, Jun 23, 2014 at 3:39 PM Subject: Week of Action: A World Without Mass Surveillance To: Yana Welinder ywelinder@wikimedia.org Dear Yana, July 31th is the first anniversary of the 13 Necessary and Proportionate Principles! EFF would like to celebrate the Principles' anniversary by organizing a week of action: A World Without Mass Surveillance. The goal is to raise awareness of the most serious surveillance problem you are fighting against in your own country and how that surveillance measure violates one or more of the 13 Necessary and Proportionate Principles. The Week of Action: A World Without Mass Surveillance seeks to explain to the general public the Principles in normal language (for mom and pop) while raising awareness of concrete surveillance cases in your own country. The value-added proposition is that by doing this activity jointly, we would drive some traffic to our causes globally. We would love that Wikimedia join this week of Action with one blogpost about how surveillance affects the Wikimedia community and why you support one of the principles you are highlight in that post. The idea is to explain the principle in an easier way. This is the idea: Every day, each of us can write one (or more) blogposts on our own site about one or two of the principles of the day. We can then aggregate the links in one single page at the the N&P site (where we plan to generate a big media splash): necessaryandproportionate.org/a-world-without-mass-surveillance I'm borrowing this idea from the IP activist community, who did something similar for Copyright Week: https://www.eff.org/copyrightweek To make a big splash, we need many groups as possible committed to write at least one blog post (if not more) about the fight that you are having on the Principles. We will add the logos of everyone who is committed to join this world action, and we can aggregate all the links at N&P. If you are interested, please do let me know! Here are the list of principles grouped by themes and how we might focus on each. Legality & Legitimate Aim LEGALITY Limits on the right to privacy must be set out clearly and precisely in laws, and should be regularly reviewed to make sure privacy protections keep up with rapid technological changes. LEGITIMATE AIM Communications surveillance should only be permitted in pursuit of the most important state objectives. (An example of a topic: how UK surveillance law protections failed to take into account the rise of social media hosted in the US, recently revealed by Privacy International's case before the Investigatory Powers Tribunal , or economic/serious crime exemptions in local law) Necessity, Proportionality, and Adequacy NECESSITY The State has the obligation to prove that its communications surveillance activities are necessary to achieving a legitimate objective. ADEQUACY A communications surveillance mechanism must be effective in achieving its legitimate objective. PROPORTIONALITY Communications surveillance should be regarded as a highly intrusive act that interferes with the rights to privacy and freedom of opinion and expression, threatening the foundations of a democratic society. Proportionate communications surveillance will typically require prior authorization from a competent judicial authority. (Examples: NSA mass surveillance -- necessary and unproportional? EU Data retention decision?) User Notification, Transparency, and Public Oversight USER NOTIFICATION Individuals should be notified of a decision authorising surveillance of their communications and be provided an opportunity to challenge such surveillance before it occurs, except in certain exceptional circumstances. TRANSPARENCY The government has an obligation to make enough information publicly available so that the general public can understand the scope and nature of its surveillance activities. The government should not generally prevent service providers from publishing details on the scope and nature of their own surveillance-related dealings with State. (Examples: Transparency reports from companies: but where is the other side of this equation? Which countries publish reports?) PUBLIC OVERSIGHT States should establish independent oversight mechanisms to ensure transparency and accountability of communications surveillance. Oversight mechanisms should have the authority to access all potentially relevant information about State actions. (Example: A look into the failings of parliamentary oversight?) Integrity of Communications and Systems INTEGRITY OF COMMUNICATIONS AND SYSTEMS Service providers or hardware or software vendors should not be compelled to build surveillance capabilities or backdoors into their systems or to collect or retain particular information purely for State surveillance purposes. (Example: The recent successful push of an amendment in the US Congress? Backdoors, lawful interception) Safeguards SAFEGUARDS FOR INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION On occasion, States may seek assistance from foreign service providers to conduct surveillance. This must be governed by clear and public agreements that ensure the most privacy-protective standard applicable is relied upon in each instance. (Possible example: Access's MLAT project update? Spotlight on the the Five Eyes agreement?) SAFEGUARDS AGAINST ILLEGITIMATE ACCESS There should be civil and criminal penalties imposed on any party responsible for illegal electronic surveillance and those affected by surveillance must have access to legal mechanisms necessary for effective redress. Strong protection should also be afforded to whistleblowers who expose surveillance activities that threaten human rights. (Possible example: EFF's Ethiopia case? Wikileaks recent investigation similar to what Dinah from Human Rights Watch) -- Katitza Rodriguez International Rights Director Electronic Frontier Foundation -- Katitza Rodriguez International Rights Director Electronic Frontier Foundation