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Government Surveillance

National Security Surveillance and Human Rights in a Digital Age

CDT and a number of other civil society groups led by the Brennan Center, submitted a “shadow report” to the Human Rights Council to assist the Council in its quadrennial review of the human rights record of the United States. The report called on the Council to urge the U.S. to recognize its duty to respect the human rights of people outside the U.S., limit its surveillance to that necessary for the protection of specific national security interests, make public its legal interpretations of surveillance laws and create remedies for people whose rights are violated by unlawful surveillance. CDT and ACLU also submitted a separate report to the Council making similar recommendations, focusing on certain large scale surveillance programs.