Category: - Human Rights - TARGETED AMERICA

Private Surveillance Is a Lethal Weapon Anybody Can Buy: Is it too late to rein it in?

7/19/2019

Private Surveillance Is a Lethal Weapon Anybody Can Buy: Is it too late to rein it in?
Sharon Weinberger, The New York Times, July 19, 2019

. . . One thing is clear: The private surveillance industry is growing. A firm that creates a catalog of these technologies, once named the “Little Black Book of Electronic Surveillance,” changed the name in 2016 to the “Big BlackBook.” It had doubled in size in its first three years. The 2017 edition includes 150 vendors.

The genesis of this global spy bazaar can be traced back to the frenetic weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, when Congress rushed through the Patriot Act, a law that vastly expanded the American government’s wiretapping authorities. In the process, lawmakers inadvertently created a market for companies interested in providing services and technologies to collect and analyze the new trove of data. . . .

Activists, Amnesty International, Azerbaijan, Big Black Book of Electronic Surveillance, Cell Phones, Citizen Lab, Congress, Contractors, Cybersecurity, DarkMatter, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Digital Rights, Drones, Edward Snowden, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Ethiopia, European Union, Exports, Federal, FinSpy, FlexiSPY, Gamma Group, Guardian, Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, Intelligence Agencies, Internet, Journalists, Israel, Law, Law Enforcement, "Lawful Interception", Luta Security, National Security Agency, New York Times, NSO Group, Patriot Act, Prism, Privacy, Privacy International, Saudi Arabia, Security, State Department, Spyware, Surveillance, Surveillance Industry (Private), Surveillance (Private), Surveillance Technology, Syria, Telephones, TeleStrategies, Terrorism, Unit 8200, Uzbekistan, Vans,"Voice Print", Wassenaar Arrangement, Weapons, "Wiretappers Ball", Wiretapping, WiSpear

America is fueling our age of impunity. Just look at Yemen: The US has the power to set a global standard on international human rights. Unfortunately, it is retreating from our global rules-based system

4/5/2019

The Guardian Fri 5 Apr 2019 08.47 EDT
David Miliband

The promise by Donald Trump to veto the bipartisan Congressional War Powers Resolution on Yemen is significant in and of itself. The decision is rightly drawing significant fire. The war in Yemen is a humanitarian disaster and a strategic failure, with precisely the forces the Administration says it opposes - Iran, jihadists, separatists - gaining ground on the back of the bankrupt Saudi-led war strategy.

However, there is a wider, ugly picture, beyond Yemen. It can be summarized as an Age of Impunity: where war crimes go unpunished and the laws of war become optional. This is not solely the responsibility of the United States, but the US has the power and position to set a global standard, and when it fails to do so the effects are felt worldwide, by innocent civilians feeling the brunt of lawless military tactics and humanitarian aid workers risking life and limb as they go about their work. . . .

Chemical Weapons, Civilians, Congress, Congressional War Powers Resolution on Yemen, Donald Trump, Global, Human Rights, Law, War Crimes, Yemen

Towards new human rights in the age of neuroscience and neurotechnology

4/26/2017

Towards new human rights in the age of neuroscience and neurotechnology
Life Sciences, Society and Policy, Marcello Ienca and Roberto Andorno, 26 April 2017

Abstract: Rapid advancements in human neuroscience and neurotechnology open unprecedented possibilities for accessing, collecting, sharing and manipulating information from the human brain. Such applications raise important challenges to human rights principles that need to be addressed to prevent unintended consequences. This paper assesses the implications of emerging neurotechnology applications in the context of the human rights framework and suggests that existing human rights may not be sufficient to respond to these emerging issues. After analysing the relationship between neuroscience and human rights, we identify four new rights that may become of great relevance in the coming decades: the right to cognitive liberty, the right to mental privacy, the right to mental integrity, and the right to psychological continuity.

Ethics, Human Rights, Life Sciences Society and Policy, Neuroethics, Neuroscience, Neurotechnology

New human rights to protect against 'mind hacking' and brain data theft proposed: A response to advances in neurotechnology that can read or alter brain activity, new human rights would protect people from theft, abuse and hacking

4/26/2017

The Guardian Wed 26 Apr 2017 06.26 EDT Last modified on Wed 26 Apr 2017 08.54 EDT
Ian Sample

New human rights that would protect people from having their thoughts and other brain information stolen, abused or hacked have been proposed by researchers.

The move is a response to the rapid advances being made with technologies that read or alter brain activity and which many expect to bring enormous benefits to people’s lives in the coming years.

Much of the technology has been developed for hospitals to diagnose or treat medical conditions, but some of the tools – such as brainwave monitoring devices that allow people to play video games with their minds, or brain stimulators that claim to boost mental performance – are finding their way into shops.

But these and other advances in neurotechnology raise fresh threats to privacy and personal freedom, according to Marcello Ienca, a neuroethicist at the University of Basel, and Roberto Andorno, a human rights lawyer at the University of Zurich. Writing in the journal Life Sciences, Society and Policy, the pair put forward four new human rights that are intended to preserve the brain as the last refuge for human privacy. . . .

Brain, Cognitive Liberty, Ethics, Human Rights, Mental Integrity, Mental Privacy, Military, Mind Hacking, Neuroethics, Neuroscience, Neurotechnology, Personal Freedom, Privacy, Psychological Continuity

IN THE NEWS

Private Surveillance Is a Lethal Weapon Anybody Can Buy: Is it too late to rein it in?

America is fueling our age of impunity. Just look at Yemen: The US has the power to set a global standard on international human rights. Unfortunately, it is retreating from our global rules-based system

Towards new human rights in the age of neuroscience and neurotechnology

New human rights to protect against 'mind hacking' and brain data theft proposed: A response to advances in neurotechnology that can read or alter brain activity, new human rights would protect people from theft, abuse and hacking

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