US National Security Agency Violates Human Rights through Surveillance Practices: HRW

Local Editor

The US National Security Agency violates fundamental human rights, including the right to privacy through electronic surveillance and intelligence gathering, as stated by a Human Rights Watch official on Wednesday.

"The mass communications surveillance revealed by Edward Snowden demonstrates a shocking disregard by the US for the privacy rights of both those inside the country and those abroad," said Andrea Prasow, a senior national security counsel and advocate at the non-governmental organization based in New York.

Documents released by Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, have revealed several programs that the agency uses to systematically spy on phone calls and online activities of millions of people worldwide, without any particular justification.

This week, the US is set to appear before the United Nations Human Rights Committee for a periodic review of its compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), a core international human rights treaty that the US confirmed in 1992.

According to the HRW organization, the United States engages in many practices that fail to respect human rights:

-The US has failed to fully repudiate abusive counterterrorism policies developed after September 11, 2001.
-The US fails to protect children by treating many as adults in the criminal justice system.
-The Us supports arbitrary and excessive sentencing and detention policies that do not take into account a person's individual.
- The US ignores the consequences of discriminatory state and federal laws, policies, and practices.

"The US review is the perfect time for the UN Human Rights Committee to make clear that mass communications surveillance, whether against a country's own citizens or another country's, violates basic rights," Prasow said.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team