Mass surveillance

The report included a list of "State Enemies of the Internet", countries whose governments are involved in active, intrusive surveillance of news providers, resulting in grave violations of freedom of information and human rights.

[16] Media reports published in July 2021 exposed the use of NSO Group's phone malware software, Pegasus, for spying on rights activists, lawyers, and journalists, globally, by authoritarian governments.

Bahrain was among the many countries listed as the Israeli firm's clients accused of hacking and conducting unauthorized mass surveillance using phone malware despite a poor human rights record.

After moving to the UK and getting his asylum request accepted, Al-Jamri legally filed charges against Bahrain along with the notorious spyware firm, NSO Group for infecting his phone with a malware, built with military-grade technology in August 2019.

Most East German citizens were well aware that their government was spying on them, which led to a culture of mistrust: touchy political issues were only discussed in the comfort of their own four walls and only with the closest of friends and family members, while widely maintaining a façade of unquestioning followership in public.

The vote is part of efforts in Europe to shield citizens from online surveillance in the wake of revelations about a far-reaching spying program by the U.S. National Security Agency.

[28] European Union justice and rights commissioner Viviane Reding said "The question has arisen whether the large-scale collection and processing of personal information under US surveillance programmes is necessary and proportionate to meet the interests of national security."

[33][34]Protection Undertaken under the Seventh Framework Programme for research and technological development (FP7 - Science in Society[35]) some multidisciplinary and mission oriented mass surveillance activities (for example INDECT and HIDE) were funded by the European Commission[36] in association with industrial partners.

[47] The Indian parliament passed the Information Technology Act of 2008 with no debate, giving the government fiat power to tap all communications without a court order or a warrant.

The system creates a "data library" of users which includes details such as IP addresses, websites, locations, duration and frequency of use and files uploaded and downloaded.

The government enforces restrictions around the types of appliances North Koreans may own in their home, in case radio or TV sets pick up signals from nearby South Korea, China and Russia.

[68] The installation of mass surveillance cameras in Singapore is an effort to act as a deterrence not only for terror attacks[69] but also for public security such as loan sharks, illegal parking, and more.

[74] A tethered unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was unveiled by the Singapore Police Force to be used during search and rescue operations including hostage situations and public order incidents.

[84] All SIGINT has to be authorized by a special court and meet a set of narrow requirements, something Minister for Defence Sten Tolgfors have been quoted as saying, "should render the debate on mass surveillance invalid".

With state impunity granted by the Assad government, Mukhabarat officers wield pervasive influence over local bodies, civil associations, and bureaucracy, playing a major role in shaping Ba'athist administrative decisions.

[94] Several academics have described the military, bureaucratic, and secret police apparatus of the Ba'athist state as constituting a pyramidal socio-political structure with an Orwellian surveillance system designed to neutralize independent civic activities and political dissent from its very onset.

[16] In October 2016, The Intercept released a report detailing the experience of an Italian security researcher Simone Margaritelli, of allegedly being hired for mass surveillance operations run by United Arab Emirates.

"[97] In January 2019, Reuters released a detailed account of a 2014 state-surveillance operation – dubbed as Project Raven – led by the United Arab Emirates with the help of former NSA officials like Lori Stroud, an ex-NSA cyberspy.

[105] After the growth of the Internet and development of the World Wide Web, a series of media reports in 2013 revealed more recent programs and techniques involving GCHQ, such as Tempora.

[110][111][112] The Investigatory Powers Tribunal, a judicial oversight body for the intelligence agencies, ruled in December 2014 that the legislative framework in the United Kingdom does not breach the European Convention on Human Rights.

[122] However, notable civil liberties groups continue to express strong views to the contrary and plan to appeal the ruling to the European Court of Human Rights,[123] while others have criticised these viewpoints in turn.

[128][129] This was superseded by the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, a comprehensive statute which made public a number of previously secret powers (equipment interference, bulk retention of metadata, intelligence agency use of bulk personal datasets), and enables the Government to require internet service providers and mobile phone companies to maintain records of (but not the content of) customers' Internet connections for 12 months.

The vast majority of video surveillance cameras in the UK are not operated by government bodies, but by private individuals or companies, especially to monitor the interiors of shops and businesses.

[140] COINTELPRO projects conducted by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) between 1956 and 1971 targeted various "subversive" organizations, including peaceful anti-war and racial equality activists such as Albert Einstein and Martin Luther King Jr.

According to The Register, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 "specifically authorizes intelligence agencies to monitor the phone, email, and other communications of U.S. citizens for up to a week without obtaining a warrant" when one of the parties is outside the U.S.[146] PRISM was first publicly revealed on 6 June 2013, after classified documents about the program were leaked to The Washington Post and The Guardian by American Edward Snowden.

Such revelations allow critical commentators to raise questions and scrutinize the implementation, use, and abuse of networking technologies, devices, and software systems that partake in a "global surveillant assemblage" (Bogard 2006; Collier and Ong 2004; Haggerty and Ericson 2000; Murakami Wood 2013).

[16] According to a July 2012 Freedom House report, 91 percent of survey respondents connected to the Internet on their mobile devices believe that the government monitors conversations and tracks the calls of "activists" or "reactionaries".

[159] In 2008 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, said: "The arrival of a truly mobile Web, offering a new generation of location-based advertising, is set to unleash a 'huge revolution'".

And today I would say, a minority choose to do that, but I think over time a majority will... because of the stored values in the servers and so forth and so on....Organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation are constantly informing users on the importance of privacy, and considerations about technologies like geolocation.

The continual use of electronic mass surveillance can result in constant low-level fear within the population, which can lead to self-censorship and exerts a powerful coercive force upon the populace.