Internet Privacy, A Vital Human Right

Our communications on the internet, our browsing habits, our social media, etc. should all be free of government surveillance. Why? Because that is where a great deal of our lives takes place. The Internet has taken the place of television, radio and the public commons. It’s where we live.

Without privacy, it is difficult to have an effective life, a life worth living. A life under the microscope of government and private interests is a much diminished life. 

James Alan Pilant 

Internet privacy as important as human rights, says UNs Navi Pillay | World news | The Guardian

The UN general assembly unanimously voted last week to adopt a resolution, introduced by Germany and Brazil, stating that \”the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online, including the right to privacy\”. Brazils president, Dilma Rousseff, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, were among those spied on, according to the documents leaked by Snowden.The resolution called on the 193 UN member states \”to review their procedures, practices and legislation regarding the surveillance of communications, their interception and collection of personal data, with a view to upholding the right to privacy of all their obligations under international human rights law\”. It also directed Pillay to publish a report on the protection and promotion of privacy \”in the context of domestic and extraterritorial surveillance … including on a mass scale\”. She told Berners-Lee it was \”very important that governments now want to discuss the matters of mass surveillance and right to privacy in a serious way\”.Berners-Lee has warned that online surveillance undermines confidence in the internet, and last week published an open letter, with more than 100 free speech groups and leading activists, to protest against the routine interception of data by governments around the world.

via Internet privacy as important as human rights, says UNs Navi Pillay | World news | The Guardian.