Yesterday, Chairman of the
Senate Intelligence Committee Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) went
to the Senate chamber and confirmed a
story published last week, in which Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.)
is quoted as saying that the CIA had taken “unprecedented action”
against the Senate Intelligence Committee, which was investigating
the agency’s detention and interrogation program. In yesterday’s
speech, Feinstein said that the CIA had searched the computers
being used in the investigation without asking the committee. CIA
Director John Brennan has issued
a vague denial of Feinstein’s accusations and has not issued a
detailed response.
Reason’s Scott Shackford
outlined Feinstein’s 50-minute speech yesterday.
Feinstein has been one of the NSA’s staunchest supporters in the
wake of reporting on the information leaked by whistle-blower
Edward Snowden. She has said that Snowden committed
treason and that he should not be granted
clemency.
Unsurprisingly, Snowden has
called Feinstein out for her hypocritical complaints relating
to her committee’s computers being snooped on, saying that her
protests are the latest example of the “Merkel effect” (being fine
with the rights of millions being violated because of mass
surveillance but expressing outrage when you are the target of
spying).
News of Snowden’s statement on Feinstein’s statement came on the
same day that Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web,
called for an
online Magna Carta.
The original Magna
Carta, which was signed almost 800 years ago, was drawn up by
English barons who wanted to limit the powers of King John and have
their rights protected. It declared (among other things) that:
No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his
rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his
standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against
him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgement of his
equals or by the law of the land.
Legal documents such as the U.S. Bill of Rights can trace their
roots back to the Magna Carta, and there is a copy of it in the
National Archives in Washington, D.C.
Berners-Lee’s plan for a bill of rights for the web is being
taken up as part of the Web We
Want initiative which, as The Guardian explains,
“calls on people to generate a digital bill of rights in each
country—a statement of principles he hopes will be supported by
public institutions, government officials, and corporations.”
Of course, it is unlikely that an online Magna Carta is going to
deter governments around the world from carrying out mass
surveillance. The U.S. government has already shown that it is
willing to trample on the rights guaranteed in already existing
legal documents.
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