One Year After the Snowden Revelations: How the NSA Violates International Human Rights Standards

June 5, 2014 - Global Voices op-ed on NSA surveillance and international human rights standards

Even before Snowden leaked his first document, human rights lawyers and activists were concerned about law enforcement and intelligence agencies spying on the digital world. One of the tools developed to tackle those concerns was the development of the International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications Surveillance (the “Necessary and Proportionate Principles” ). This set of principles was intended to guide governments in understanding how new surveillance technologies eat away at fundamental freedoms, and outlined how communications surveillance can be conducted in a manner consistent with human rights obligations. The Necessary and Proportionate Principles are intended to work as a resource for citizens to measure government surveillance practices against international human rights standards.