The United Nations is set to carry out an investigation into the spying activities of the US and UK, a senior judge has said. The probe will examine the espionage programs and assess whether they conform to UN regulations.
UN special rapporteur Ben Emmerson QC told British newspaper The
Guardian that the UN will conduct an inquiry into the NSA and the
GCHQ’s spying antics. Following Edward Snowden’s revelations,
which blew the whistle on both agencies’ intelligence gathering
programs, Emmerson said the issue was at “the very apex of
public interest and concerns.”
The report will broach a number of contentious issues, said
Emmerson, including whether Snowden should be granted the legal
protection afforded to a whistleblower, whether the data he
handed over to the media did significant harm to national
security, whether intelligence agencies need to scale down their
surveillance programs and whether the UK government was misled
about the extent of intelligence gathering.
"When it comes to assessing the balance that must be struck
between maintaining secrecy and exposing information in the
public interest, there are often borderline cases,” Emmerson
told The Guardian.
Emmerson also mentioned the raid this summer on The Guardian’s
London offices in search of hard drives containing data from
Snowden. Addressing the allegations made by the chiefs of British
spy agencies MI5, GCHQ and MI6, that publishing Snowden’s
material was “a gift to terrorists,” Emmerson said it was
the media’s job to hold governments to account for their actions.
"The astonishing suggestion that this sort of responsible
journalism can somehow be equated with aiding and abetting
terrorism needs to be scotched decisively," said Emmerson,
who will present the conclusions of his inquiry to the UN General
Assembly next autumn.
Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger is set to appear before
a Commons home affairs committee in a hearing about the newspaper
publishing of Snowden’s security leaks. British Prime Minister
David Cameron issued a statement in September, warning of a
possible crackdown if media continued to publish information on
covert intelligence gathering programs.
He said the government had not yet been “heavy-handed” in
its dealings with the press, but it would be difficult not to act
if the press does not “demonstrate some social
responsibility.” Cameron added that the UK was a more
dangerous place after the Guardian published Snowden’s material.
Snowden’s revelations of the international spying activities of
the UK and US have embarrassed the White House and Downing
Street. Recent leaks show that the NSA and GCHQ not only
monitored millions of civilian communications using programs such
as PRISM and Tempora, but also eavesdropped on high-profile
businessmen and politicians. Moreover, it was revealed that the
NSA also spied on the UN’s headquarters in New York.
Both nations have sought to justify their intelligence gathering
programs as being in the interests of national security.