US seeks to kill UN privacy push

The Obama administration is quietly trying to kill an effort at the United Nations to rein in its global spying, Foreign Policy‘s blog The Cable reports.

The behind-the-scenes maneuvers pit the United States against Brazil and Germany, which are leading the charge on online privacy after Edward Snowden’s revelations about massive U.S. spying. The two countries want to apply the right to privacy enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights should apply to online communications.

{mosads}The U.S. is arguing that the covenant doesn’t cover espionage, The Cable reports. U.S. diplomats are reportedly trying to kill draft language “which states that ‘extraterritorial surveillance’ and mass interception of communications, personal information, and metadata may constitute a violation of human rights.”

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