Human rights and civil liberties are well known world over. However, what is not very popular is the human rights protection in cyberspace. Governments and nations across the world are not very keen in protection of civil liberties in cyberspace. On the contrary, they are actively indulging in e-surveillance, e-eavesdropping and violation of various civil liberties and human rights in cyberspace and India is no exception to this rule.Any government that respects human rights and civil liberties must maintain a balance between civil liberties, human rights and national security requirements. Further, a sound and constitutional e-surveillance policy is also required that clearly demarcates the nature, extent, procedure, etc of using e-surveillance for national security purposes.
The United Nations must protect human rights in cyberspace more vigorously. Presently UN has not taken enough initiatives in this regard. Of course, UN has declared that access to Internet is a human right but that is far from satisfactory.
If UN believes in human rights, it must start thinking towards its new form in this Internet era. There is no reason why human rights in cyberspace must be given any lesser importance than its traditional human rights. After all human rights like right to speech and expression, right to information, right to know, privacy rights, etc are similar in cyberspace. Rather violation of human rights in cyberspace is much easier and more frequent.
In a welcome move, a positive attitude in this regard has been shown by FBI Director Robert Mueller. He said that the FBI has to stay ahead of changing threats and new technology to keep the nation safe from terrorism, espionage and cyber-attacks, but must not get ahead of the rule of law and constitutional protections.
He opined that the cyber-intrusions, be they aimed either at stealing national security systems, military technology or the private sector's intellectual property, or at disrupting public services or the private economy, is costing the nation billions. But adhering to the rule of law remains the FBI's guiding principle, he said, and the bureau knows it'll be judged on how well it safeguards the liberties for which it is fighting.
This attitude and mentality must be adopted by all the law enforcement agencies of the world, including India. Till human rights in cyberspace are not respected and protected, the fight against cyber crimes would always remain biased and incomplete.
