Mass surveillance: wrong in practice as well as principle

The paradox of mass state surveillance, as the answer to non-state violence, is that it can overlook the intelligence targeted law enforcement finds and render critical infrastructures vulnerable—never mind threatening fundamental freedoms.

Edward Snowden could only speak to the committee by video link. Flickr / Robert Douglass. Some rights reserved.In recent weeks, parliamentarians specialising in legal and human rights from the 47 member states of the Council of Europe have sent a strong signal in favour of upholding privacy rights in the face of the threat of terrorism.

On 26 January, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) unanimously adopted a draft resolution, ‘Mass surveillance’. Work on this report had started in the summer of 2013, when the whistleblower Edward Snowden first revealed the extent to which the US National Security Agency (NSA) and others were spying on everyone and everything.

The committee invited Snowden to testify before it in Strasbourg in April 2014. Unfortunately, he was unable to attend in person as he could not be given the required guarantees of his safety and freedom, in the face of the strong wish of the US authorities to apprehend him. He therefore communicated with the parliamentarians via a live video link from Moscow.