Following the Foreign Secretary\u2019s speech to the House of Commons on the GCHQ links to the Prism scandal, we the undersigned condemn the collection and surveillance of British citizens\u2019 online communications and activities through the US Prism programme. We equally condemn the worldwide reach of this monitoring.<\/p>\n
National security should not be used by governments to justify mass surveillance, either domestically or abroad. Such programmes directly undermine the right to privacy and the right to freedom of expression, chilling free speech and giving rise to self-censorship. This is not about the targeted surveillance of criminals or security risks but surveillance of private citizens on a massive scale \u2013 through the US government security services, which British citizens cannot hold democratically to account.<\/p>\n
William Hague’s claims on Sunday that innocent citizens have \u2018nothing to fear\u2019 are the sort of justification of population-wide monitoring that we might expect from China, not the UK. Mass surveillance chills freedom of expression and undermines our fundamental rights to freedom of expression and privacy.<\/p>\n
We call upon William Hague and David Cameron to protect the privacy and free speech rights of British citizens and to help end the mass online surveillance of individuals around the world. We also call on EU Presidents Barroso and van Rompuy to stand against mass surveillance and to uphold the EU’s Cybersecurity Strategy, which states \u201cincreased global connectivity should not be accompanied by censorship or mass surveillance\u201d.<\/p>\n
Index on Censorship
\nEnglish PEN
\nPrivacy International
\nOpen Rights Group
\nArticle 19<\/p>\n
For more information, please contact Pam Cowburn: pam@indexoncensorship.org, 07749785932<\/p>\n
Related<\/strong>: Index condemns mass surveillance<\/a> | UN report slams government surveillance<\/a><\/p>\n Index Events<\/strong> Index on Censorship, English PEN, Privacy International, Open Rights Group and Article 19 are calling on the Foreign Secretary\u2019s speech to the House of Commons on the GCHQ links to the Prism scandal, we the undersigned condemn the collection and surveillance of British citizens\u2019 online communications and activities through the US Prism programme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[366,4883,581,21],"tags":[4799,5563,2469,3934],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47516"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47516"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47544,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47516\/revisions\/47544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nCaught in the Web: How free are we online?<\/a>
\nThe internet: free open space, wild wild west, or totalitarian state? However you view the web, in today\u2019s world it is bringing both opportunities and threats for free expression — and ample opportunity for government surveillance<\/a><\/p>\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"