Book Review: State Sponsored Cyber Surveillance: The Right to Privacy of Communications and International Law
There have always been spies. For as long as there have been secrets, there have been people (and governments) willing to use every technology at their disposal to discover them. However, while surveillance by nation-State actors is a decidedly ancient practice, the scope and scale of modern espionage now reaches far beyond what past spymasters could possibly have imagined. The cascading internet-facilitated connections of 21st-century life have created an unprecedented number of avenues for both passive and active surveillance, with intelligence services more than happy to take advantage. As this new covert paradigm burgeons in the shadows of the World Wide Web, it is far from clear how any of this technological voyeurism squares with the international legal order, including our most deeply cherished human rights. Who gets to leverage the awesome power of cyber surveillance, against whom, and for what purpose? British legal expert Eliza Watt fastidiously addresses these questions in her thoughtful and deeply researched text, State Sponsored Cyber Surveillance: The Right to Privacy of Communications and International Law. By exploring how different kinds of large-scale technological intrusions into private life fit within the current landscape of international law, Watt has created a compelling baseline for any future discussion of protecting online privacy.