They tell us surveillance makes us safer. It undermines our democratic rights.

Link: The Quiet Erosion of Collective Action Under Digital Surveillance, by Gina Romero in Tech Policy PressThe most important outcome of increased surveillance is a chilling effect on free speech and expression. As Gina Romero, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly, notes here, that extends to the organizations that have been established to protect those rights:“As organizations operate under the constant assumption that they are being monitored, their core functions are profoundly affected. Their ability to serve as watchdogs, provide rights-based services, protect victims of human rights abuses, and educate the public is severely constrained. Ultimately, the very possibility of advancing and protecting rights, democracy and the rule of law is undermined.”Civil society organizations and advocates have been mislabeled as national security threats around the world. It’s true in some of the nations that we’ve long thought of as being…