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agreements. By remaining in the shadows, our intelligenceagencies – and the governments who controlthem – have removed our ability to challenge theiractions and their impact upon our human rights. Wecannot hold our governments accountable whentheir actions are obfuscated through secret dealsand covert legal frameworks. Secret, convoluted orobfuscated law can never be considered law withina democratic society governed by the rule of law.We must move towards an understanding ofglobal surveillance practices as fundamentally opposedto the rule of law and to the well-establishedinternational human right to privacy. In doing so, wemust break down legal frameworks that obscure theactivities of the intelligence agencies or that preferencethe citizens or residents of Five Eyes countriesover the global internet population. Trust must berestored, and our intelligence agencies must bebrought under the rule of law. Transparency aroundand accountability for secret agreements is a crucialfirst step.Privacy International has spent the last year tryingto unpick the Five Eyes alliance. We have sentfreedom of information requests to intelligenceagencies in each of the five countries, seeking accessto the secret agreements that govern the FiveEyes. We have brought legal cases against Britain’sGCHQ for mass surveillance and hacking activities,and have sought avenues to take similar complaintsin other jurisdictions. We filed a complaint underthe OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprisesagainst the seven telecommunications companiesfacilitating UK interception of fibre-optic cables. Wehave written to the Australian Inspector-General ofIntelligence and Security asking her to commencean investigation into the ASD, and to the US TreasuryDepartment and to every data protectionauthority in Europe seeking an investigation intothe SWIFT hacking.Now we are calling for the UN to appoint a SpecialRapporteur on the right to privacy, to ensurethat privacy and surveillance issues stay high on theagenda in the Human Rights Council. Support ourwork here: www.privacyinternational.org.Country reports54 / Global Information Society Watch Introduction / 55