UN Human Rights Office: "government surveillance on rise worldwide"
We knew this, but now it's increasingly such a part of the written record that even the United Nations Office on Human Rights has made a statement.
Stepping into a fierce debate over digital privacy rights, the U.N. office says it has strong evidence of a growing complicity among private companies in government spying. It says governments around the world are using both the law and covert methods to access private content and metadata.[Ed. note: So who are these private companies, and are they hiring? Because it seems like a bit of a growth industry at the moment: job security, woo hoo!]
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said the lack of transparency and tactics extend to governments' "de facto coercion of companies to gain broad access to information and data on citizens without them knowing."