Recently, I’ve been circulating a reading list of papers and reports on the NSA revelations on a couple of mailing lists. The writings take a step back from the nitty gritty details, and focus on the more fundamental issues that technical, legal and political responses need to address. People have been asking me to blog about it, so here’s a stub, and I encourage you all to add your suggestions in the comments. [UPDATE 25.02.14: added extra sources on securitization] 
Continue reading Paper Repository on the NSA Revelations – Add Yours in the Comments [UPDATE]
Interviewed by the Dutch Financial Times on the Collingridge Dilemma
The other day, the Dutch Financial Times published an interview with me on my ‘Brandende Kwestie’ (literal translation: burning issue). It was a great opportunity to raise awareness for something I’ve really wanted to talk about for a long time: the lack of meaningful societal debate and hidden agendas when new technologies or new government IT-projects are introduced. Continue reading Interviewed by the Dutch Financial Times on the Collingridge Dilemma
Signing Mass Surveillance Declarations and Petitions: Should Academics Take a Stance?
Published 30 Oct. 2013 at Freedom to Tinker.
Quite often, especially since the Snowden revelations began, tech policy academics will be approached by NGO’s and colleagues to sign petitions ‘to end mass surveillance’. It’s not always easy to decide whether you want to sign. If you’re an academic, you might want to consider co-signing one initiative launched today. Continue reading Signing Mass Surveillance Declarations and Petitions: Should Academics Take a Stance?
The Politics of the EU Court Data Retention Opinion: End to Mass Surveillance?
Published 13 Dec. 2013 at Freedom to Tinker.
The Wall Street Journal headlines: “EU Court Opinion: Data Retention Directive Incompatible With Fundamental Rights”. The Opinion is strong, but in fact not yet an outright victory to privacy and civil liberties. The jury is out: the Opinion is a non-binding, but influential advice to the E.U. Court, that will deliver its final judgment come next spring. Now is a perfect moment to analyze the Opinion, as well as the institutional politics of the E.U. Court — critical in understanding the two-tier approach to surveillance and fundamental rights in Europe. The two-tier approach converges, after 60 years, when the E.U. accedes to the European Convention of Human Rights anytime soon. Amidst the Snowden revelations, these are the fundamental legal developments that will ultimately answer the question whether European law can end mass surveillance. Continue reading The Politics of the EU Court Data Retention Opinion: End to Mass Surveillance?
NSA Strategy 2012-16: Outsourcing Compliance to Algorithms, and What to Do About It
Over the weekend, two new NSA documents revealed a confident NSA SIGINT strategy for the coming years and a vast increase of NSA-malware infected networks across the globe. The excellent reporting overlooked one crucial development: constitutional compliance will increasingly be outsourced to algorithms. Meaningful oversight of intelligence practises must address this, or face collateral constitutional damage. Continue reading NSA Strategy 2012-16: Outsourcing Compliance to Algorithms, and What to Do About It
The 2008 Liberty Case: An Authoritive Ruling on Snowden’s Disclosures
Published 30 Oct. 2013 at Freedom to Tinker.
The other day, I was re-reading the 2008 Liberty vs. The United Kingdom ruling of the European Court of Human Rights (‘ECHR’). The case reads like any BREAKING / REVEALED news report on Edward Snowden’s disclosures, and will play a crucial role in the currently pending court cases in Europe on the legality of the surveillance programs. Liberty is also great material for comparing surveillance jurisprudence across the Atlantic. Continue reading The 2008 Liberty Case: An Authoritive Ruling on Snowden’s Disclosures
When an Ethnographer met Edward Snowden
Published 18 Oct. 2013 at Freedom to Tinker.
If you talk about ‘metadata’, ‘big data’ and ‘Big Brother’ just as easily as you order a pizza, ethnography and anthropology are probably not your first points of reference. But the outcome of a recent encounter of ethnographer Tom Boellstorff and Edward Snowden (not IRL but IRP), is that tech policy wonks and researchers should be careful with their day to day vocabulary, as concepts carry politics of control and power. Continue reading When an Ethnographer met Edward Snowden
U.S. Citizenship and N.S.A. Surveillance – Legal Safeguard or Practical Backdoor?
Published 15 Oct. 2013 at Freedom to Tinker.
The main takeaway of two recent disclosures around N.S.A. surveillance practices, is that Americans must re-think ‘U.S. citizenship’ as the guiding legal principle to protect against untargeted surveillance of their communications. Currently, U.S. citizens may get some comfort through the usual political discourse that ‘ordinary Americans’ are protected, and this is all about foreigners. In this post, I’ll argue that this is not the case, that the legal backdoor of U.S. Citizenship is real and that relying on U.S. citizenship for protection is not in America’s interests. As a new CITP Fellow and a first time contributor to this amazing blog, I’ll introduce myself and my research interests along the way. Continue reading U.S. Citizenship and N.S.A. Surveillance – Legal Safeguard or Practical Backdoor?
Data Retention: Figurehead of Our Liberation?
Back in 2010, I wrote a long piece in Dutch for De Groene Amsterdammer about the deplorable state of the controversial EU Data Retention Directive evaluation. My point was that, instead of the prime example of our loss of fundamental rights, data retention might one day become the case in point of digital freedom vindicating over surveillance, once the Directive in one way or another is repealed or its inherent privacy violations seriously limited. Continue reading Data Retention: Figurehead of Our Liberation?
Data Retention Directive evaluation: expect the unexpected?
This piece was posted on the Bits of Freedom blog on 8 December 2010. I still think it is a quite accurate and informative take on the Data Retention Directive evaluation.
The evaluation of the controversial Data Retention Directive takes an unexpected turn, for the worse. At a crucial one-day conference in Brussels, aimed at gathering input for the evaluation, long-term critic of the Directive Commissioner Malmström (Home Affairs) surprisingly announced that ‘data retention is here to stay’. The statement not only disregards legal developments since 2005, the damage done by telecommunications data retention to 500 million Europeans and lack of evidence that such a measure is necessary and proportionate. On top of that, the Commissioner undermines the entire evaluation process and evidence-based decision making itself. To great risk, because our fundamental freedoms and the very nature of our free and open societies are at stake. Continue reading Data Retention Directive evaluation: expect the unexpected?