UN: US Espionage in the Fray

A draft resolution calling for protecting the right to privacy in the digital era has been circulating in the United Nations since last Friday. It is a text that does not mention countries, but nobody doubts it is linked to global espionage by the United States.

Since it became known officially, shortly before the beginning of the weekend, expectations abound about reactions to the document.

The initiative, which Germany and Brazil have presented to the Third Committee of the General Assembly, reflects “a deep concern for violations and human rights abuses” that can result from the surveillance of communications, and interception and collection of personal data from those communications.

The text, sent to the working group in charge of humanitarian issues, draws particular attention to the risks massive off-shore surveillance poses with regard to violations of the U.N. Charter, Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other mechanisms and conventions.

It also calls on governments to adopt measures to prevent and stop such violations, including ensuring that national laws comply with universal humanitarian norms.

Although the project does not mention any specific countries or situations, there is almost total agreement among analysts, the media and the few diplomats who have given commentary on the matter, of its connection to Washington’s espionage, from which not even its allies escaped, and which sparked a scandal.

The scenario former National Security Agency member Edward Snowden revealed, the content of the document and criticisms Brazil and Germany have leveled against U.S. electronic interference leave no doubt of the relationship.

Snowden brought to the forefront U.S. espionage against some 35 countries, as well as its extension to the United Nations, whose video conferencing system and information encryption mechanisms the northern nation’s intelligence community intercepted.

The reactions of Washington spokespersons and diplomats have been scarce and cautious since it became known at the end of October that Brazil and Berlin intended to submit a project to the General Assembly to develop instruments of control for monitoring cyberspace.

Before it was circulated, the U.S. Department of State’s spokesperson Jen Psaki said she had expected the official document, and after its release, civil servants — on condition of anonymity — explained that there had been a detailed study of the same document.

In this context, the White House — in Psaki’s words — warned that the U.S. “will of course continue to gather the information we need to keep ourselves and our allies safe.”

However, that spokesperson and her NSA counterpart Caitlin Hayden admitted that Washington reviews its intelligence programs to ensure a balance between “the needs of security and privacy issues.”

Returning to the draft resolution Brazil and Germany submitted to the Third Committee of the General Assembly, it is hoped that that initiative will be analyzed for several weeks in order to be submitted to a vote at the end of the month, where you can count on some changes to the original initiative. If the predictions of diplomats come to fruition, the text will appear at the meeting of the 193 U.N. countries in December.

The vast majority of the views derived from this initiative points to its adoption without major setbacks, beyond some likely changes in favor of agreement.