Global surveillance

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Global mass surveillance can be defined as the mass surveillance of entire populations across national borders.[1]

Its existence was not widely acknowledged by governments and the mainstream media until the global surveillance disclosures by Edward Snowden triggered a debate about the right to privacy in the Digital Age.[2][3] One such debate is the balance which governments must acknowledge between the pursuit of national security and counter-terrorism over a right to privacy. Although, to quote H. Akın Ünver "Even when conducted for national security and counterterrorism purposes, the scale and detail of mass citizen data collected, leads to rightfully pessimistic observations about individual freedoms and privacy".[4]

Its roots can be traced back to the middle of the 20th century when the UKUSA Agreement was jointly enacted by the United Kingdom and the United States, which later expanded to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand to create the present Five Eyes alliance.[5] The alliance developed cooperation arrangements with several "third-party" nations. Eventually, this resulted in the establishment of a global surveillance network, code-named "ECHELON" (1971).[6][7]

  1. ^ Webb, Maureen (2007). Illusions of Security: Global Surveillance and Democracy in the Post-9/11 World (1st ed.). San Francisco: City Lights Books. ISBN 978-0872864764.
  2. ^ Zevenbergen, Bendert (3 December 2013). "Adventures in digital surveillance". European View. 12 (2): 223–233. doi:10.1007/s12290-013-0287-x. Snowden used the press to inform the world that a global surveillance state may be being built. This led to the beginning of a global political debate on digital communications surveillance.
  3. ^ Ranger, Steve (24 March 2015). "The undercover war on your internet secrets: How online surveillance cracked our trust in the web". TechRepublic. Archived from the original on 12 June 2016. Retrieved 12 June 2016.
  4. ^ Ünver, H. Akın (2018). Politics of Digital Surveillance, National Security and Privacy (Report). Centre for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies.
  5. ^ Pfluke, Corey (4 July 2019). "A history of the Five Eyes Alliance: Possibility for reform and additions". Comparative Strategy. 38 (4): 302–315. doi:10.1080/01495933.2019.1633186. ISSN 0149-5933. S2CID 202317080.
  6. ^ "Q&A: What you need to know about Echelon". BBC. 29 May 2001.
  7. ^ Nabbali, Talitha; Perry, Mark (March 2004). "Going for the throat". Computer Law & Security Review. 20 (2): 84–97. doi:10.1016/S0267-3649(04)00018-4. It wasn't until 1971 that the UKUSA allies began ECHELON