Reader Response Final Draft

In the article “Who’s the true enemy of internet freedom -China, Russia or the U.S?”, Morozov (2015) asserts that though Russia and China restrict internet freedom to maintain their technological sovereignty on their land, it is the U.S that exploits internet freedom to assert its digital sovereignty globally. It is reported in the article that the U.S have great interest in the information that is serviced by its companies but stored elsewhere. Finally the author concludes that countries, like Russia and China, are imposing stricter internet censorship and control over their citizens’ data not just to control domestic tensions, but in response to the growing technological supremacy of the U.S.

It is necessary for other nations to restrict the usage of foreign internet and communication services so as to avoid unauthorised surveillance of their citizens’ data by any other nations, particularly the U.S who conduct mass surveillance globally.

The act of retrieval of anyone’s personal or important data without their acknowledgement creates a sense of eeriness. This issue has been attended in the past. As stated in the report “Privacy and Human Rights”, written by Privacy International (n.d), the Universal Declaration, 1948, specifically protected territorial and communications privacy. Now the rules should be much stricter and modified to be applicable in this technological era. But on the other hand, the retrieval of online personal data by the U.S seems to increase and happen globally. This act of the U.S strongly justifies the banning of Gmail, an American email service, in China.

Mass surveillance is the intricate surveillance of the whole or substantial fraction of a populace. It is often conducted or controlled by the government and is done concerning the security of its nation. To avoid the misuse of the data retrieved, every nation has its own set of rules controlling such surveillance activities. According to Harding, in the article “Mass surveillance is fundamental threat to human rights, says European report”, the way the U.S   retrieves users’ data globally is against the laws of other nations. Harding also points out that there are veiled and poorly examined laws and courts that justify such mass surveillance.

 

As these surveillance are carried undercover, no one knows how and which data are retrieved. This increases the vulnerability of not just users’ data but any nations’ official and private information which are now being stored on computers. This can be supported by the revelations of the NSA’s plans by Edward J. Snowden who told that the agency has plans to even retrieve data from computers which are not connected to the outside world (Perlroth and Sanger, 2015).

U.S companies are well established across the globe and that their services cannot be easily replaced by domestic companies in other countries (Morozov, 2015). Hence, the only immediate way to reduce mass surveillance is by restricting the usage of foreign internet and communication services in one’s nation. In the meanwhile, they should invest in the development of their technological and communication sector. If such steps are not taken now, replacing American communication services, which aid mass surveillance by the U.S, in one’s country might become a very difficult task. Just like how a nation can determine what information its citizen have access to on the internet, the U.S might be able to do it across the world with its growing power in technology. If the U.S easily gains access to the data, serviced by its company elsewhere, today, it might be able to even alter the data without anyone’s acknowledgement in the future.

(586 words)

Reference:

Morozov, P. (2015, January 4). Who’s the true enemy of the internet freedom – China, Russia, or the U.S? The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/04/internet-freedom-china-russia-us-google-microsoft-digital-sovereignty

Bainsar, D., Davis, S. (n.d). Privacy and Human Rights-An International Survey of Privacy Laws and Practice. Retrieved from http://gilc.org/privacy/survey/intro.html

Harding, P. (2015, January 26). Mass surveillance is fundamental threat to human rights, says European report. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/26/mass-surveillance-threat-human-rights-council-europe

Perlroth, N., Sanger, D. E. (2015, February 16). U.S. Embedded Spyware Overseas, Report Claims. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/17/technology/spyware-embedded-by-us-in-foreign-networks-security-firm-says.html