[LINK] UN declares that the right to privacy, including online privacy, is a human right

[Frank O'Connor]

Well, yeah ...

But the US precedent only applies to US citizens or people domiciled in the US. It doesn't apply to Australians to Zambians or anybody else in between. We're still pretty much on the NSA's (and no doubt numerous other intelligence agencies from other countries) hit list.

As for the 'achievements' of the NSA's unrestricted intelligence gathering and the Manning/Snowden leaks. Yeah ... agree with you 100%. They shot themselves in the foot right royally, and will probably end up having to 'lie low' for a few years given the embarrassment and aggravation they have caused the US government.

No bad thing really.      :)

Just my 2 cents worth ...
---
On 18 Dec 2013, at 10:23 am, Jim Birch <planetjim at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Monday, a U.S. federal district court ruled that the extent of the
> National Security Agency's surveillance programs "surely...infringes on
> 'that degree of privacy' that the founders enshrined in the Fourth
> Amendment." It is the first successful legal challenge to the NSA's program
> since leaks about the programs began in June.
> 
> http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/12/16/this_court_case_could_kneecap_the_nsa?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=*Morning%20Brief&utm_campaign=MB%2012.17.13#sthash.pR3fdmNp.dpbs
> 
> This actually seems a little more hopeful than individual encryption
> actions (most people won't do this stuff) or a quaint demand that
> government surveillance just stop.  Surveillance will become increasingly
> easier, smarter and normal over time as we become surrounded by smarter
> interacting systems.  These systems have benefits but they are prone to
> misuse, on purpose or though zealous incompetence.  It seems much better to
> me to develop that there are baseline rules of what is acceptable and what
> is not - and back it up with some serious/extreme penalties for
> transgressions - rather than imagining that world should or could revert to
> some mythological pre-Internet age of information naivety.
> 
> I'm not sure about this but I also appear to have a different scale of harm
> to most people of organisations that might be tracking me: I'd put the NSA
> somewhere near the bottom.  Off the top of my head, something like:
> criminal organisations (clearly the worst), random shadowy uncontrolled
> companies, big name companies with a brand to support, the NSA (etc), the
> Australian government.  The NSA appear to have achieved about nothing with
> their zillion dollar surveillance operation except pissing a lot of people
> off and promoting privacy awareness.
> 
> - Jim
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