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Slaying the monsterThe country reports gathered here have been writtenat a critical time: new threats of terrorism incountries such as Kenya, the intensification of regionalconflicts and wars, the economic isolationof Russia, and a drift towards authoritarianism inmany states. Alarming parallels in Japan are madebetween the rise of totalitarianism ahead of WorldWar II and what is happening now in that country;and there is a sense many have that regional conflictsmight spin even more out of control.At the centre of this is the need for governmentsto control their futures, and to maintain power oversituations that threaten to become ungovernable.One way they do this is through surveillance. Thismakes these country reports – and the thematic reportsthat you have just read – highly political. Theycome in the wake of WikiLeaks revelations, and EdwardSnowden’s public exposure of United States(US) spying and the so-called “Five Eyes network”,linking some of the most powerful countries in aglobal surveillance programme. They reinforce theidea that human rights are under threat globally.Common to most of the country reports publishedhere is that states – frequently with thecooperation of business – are acting illegally:their actions are neither in line with national constitutionalrequirements, nor with a progressiveinterpretation of global human rights standards.While many profess to be standard bearers of democracy,they are in fact acting illegitimately – theyno longer carry the mantle of public good or operatein the best interests of their citizens that havevoted them into power. For instance, in South Korea,“Communications surveillance, in particular, whichhas insufficient legal control given the rapid developmentof the internet and mobile technologies,has largely extended the power of the police andthe intelligence agency beyond the law.”Despite the media attention that Snowden’s revelationsreceived, the public at large remains numbto the problems of surveillance, through ignorance,or, in some instances, complicity. In Turkey, “If youdo nothing wrong, if you have no illegal business,don’t be afraid of wiretapping,” a government ministersaid there.This attitude of “only bad people should worry”completely misses the point of mass surveillance: itis ubiquitous, widespread, and involves everyone,whether or not you are a “threat to the state”, orengaged in criminal activities. This includes legislationallowing authorities to bug an entire room, andcapture the conversations of innocent bystanders,or to monitor the public en masse if there is a potentialthat a suspect happens to be amongst thatpublic.Moreover, as numerous reports point out, definingwho is or is not a “threat to the state” isobviously a slippery concept, and depends on theregime in power, democratically elected or not. Today’sfriend is tomorrow’s enemy. In Pakistan, in thewords of the chairperson of Aware Girls:I was shocked when I was told that I and mysocial media communications had been undersurveillance for last three years... In my communicationwith the agencies it was clear that mywork for peace and human rights was seen as“anti-state”, and I was seen as an enemy ratherthan an activist.And for those who imagine a benign governmentonly interested in their welfare, Syria shows how,during a national strike, even the children and familiesof striking union members were surveilled:Firstly, the police acquired all the mobile communicationrecords of union members and theirfamilies, including schoolchildren, and trackedthe real-time location of their mobile phones– the mobile service providers had offered toprovide this at ten-minute intervals for severalmonths.In fact surveillance can put the security of the averagecitizen constantly under threat – and can oftenhave even more dire implications for the vulnerable.Without public awareness of this, and transparencyin surveillance programmes, a real erosion of humanrights occurs.Sometimes surveillance legislation is rushedthrough without proper parliamentary discussion,process or media attention. Legislation shifts and56 / Global Information Society Watch country reports / 57