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eシールに係る認定制度の関係規程策定のための有識者会議（第3回）

The post was written by Laura Vidal (PhD), independent researcher in learning and digital rights.

This is part one of a series. Part two on the legacy of Venezuela’s state surveillance is here.

As thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets across the country to demand transparency in July’s election results, the ensuing repression has been described as the harshest to date, with technology playing a central role in facilitating this crackdown.

The presidential elections in Venezuela marked the beginning of a new chapter in the country’s ongoing political crisis. Since July 28th, a severe backlash against demonstrations has been undertaken by the country’s security forces, leading to 20 people killed. The results announced by the government, in which they claimed a re-election of Nicolás Maduro, have been strongly contested by political leaders within Venezuela as well as by the Organization of American States (OAS),  and governments across the region. 

In the days following the election, the opposition—led by candidates Edmundo González Urrutia and María Corina Machado—challenged the National Electoral Council’s (CNE) decision to award the presidency to Maduro. They called for greater transparency in the electoral process, particularly regarding the publication of the original tally sheets, which are essential for confirming or contesting the election results. At present, these original tally sheets remain unpublished.

In response to the lack of official data, the coalition supporting the opposition—known as Comando con Venezuela—presented the tally sheets obtained by opposition witnesses on the night of July 29th. These were made publicly available on an independent portal named “Presidential Results 2024,” accessible to any internet user with a Venezuelan identity card.

The government responded with repression and numerous instances of technology-supported repression and violence. The surveillance and control apparatus saw intensified use, such as increased deployment of VenApp, a surveillance application originally launched in December 2022 to report failures in public services. Promoted by President Nicolás Maduro as a means for citizens to report on their neighbors, VenApp has been integrated into the broader system of state control, encouraging citizens to report activities deemed suspicious by the state and further entrenching a culture of surveillance.

Additional reports indicated the use of drones across various regions of the country. Increased detentions and searches at airports have particularly impacted human rights defenders, journalists, and other vulnerable groups. This has been compounded by the annulment of passports and other forms of intimidation, creating an environment where many feel trapped and fearful of speaking out.

The combined effect of these tactics is the pervasive sense that it is safer not to stand out. Many NGOs have begun reducing the visibility of their members on social media, some individuals have refused interviews, have published documented human rights violations under generic names, and journalists have turned to AI-generated avatars to protect their identities. People are increasingly setting their social media profiles to private and changing their profile photos to hide their faces. Additionally, many are now sending information about what is happening in the country to their networks abroad for fear of retaliation. 

These actions often lead to arbitrary detentions, with security forces publicly parading those arrested as trophies, using social media materials and tips from informants to justify their actions. The clear intent behind these tactics is to intimidate, and they have been effective in silencing many. This digital repression is often accompanied by offline tactics, such as marking the residences of opposition figures, further entrenching the climate of fear.

However, this digital aspect of repression is far from a sudden development. These recent events are the culmination of years of systematic efforts to control, surveil, and isolate the Venezuelan population—a strategy that draws from both domestic decisions and the playbook of other authoritarian regimes. 

In response, civil society in Venezuela continues to resist; and in August, EFF joined more than 150 organizations and individuals in an open letter highlighting the technology-enabled political violence in Venezuela. Read more about this wider history of Venezuela’s surveillance and civil society resistance in part two of this series, available here. 

 

　　懐かしい街をゆったりと歩いているような小説に出会う。寝っ転がって時折ふふふと頬を緩めながら読む。ごく普通の暮らしのようでいて、でもそれぞれに何かを抱えている人たちが、なんとなく知り合う。　長いアメリカ生活から離婚を機に帰国し、母校の女子大で講座を持った沙希が主人公。彼女が暮らすのは伯父の家。伯父は認知症になり施設に入所した。その家がある街が「うらはぐさ」という東京の西の穏やかな街。うらはぐさとは風知草のことで花言葉は未来…。　伯父の友人だった足袋屋の主人とその妻、沙希に懐..

Greenwashing is a well-worn strategy to try to convince the public that environmentally damaging activities aren’t so damaging after all. It can be very successful precisely because most of us don’t realize it’s happening.

Enter the Yes Men, skilled activists who specialize in elaborate pranks that call attention to corporate tricks and hypocrisy. This time, they’ve created a website – wired-magazine.com—that looks remarkably like Wired.com and includes, front and center, an op-ed from writer (and EFF Special Adviser) Cory Doctorow. The op-ed, titled “Climate change has a posse” discussed the “power and peril” of a new “greenwashing” emoji designed by renowned artist Shepard Fairey:

First, we have to ask why in hell Unicode—formerly the Switzerland of tech standards—decided to plant its flag in the greasy battlefield of eco-politics now. After rejecting three previous bids for a climate change emoji, in 2017 and 2022, this one slipped rather suspiciously through the iron gates.

Either the wildfire smoke around Unicode’s headquarters in Silicon Valley finally choked a sense of ecological urgency into them, or more likely, the corporate interests that comprise the consortium finally found a way to appease public contempt that was agreeable to their bottom line.

Notified of the spoof, Doctorow immediately tweeted his joy at being included in a Yes Men hoax.

Wired.com was less pleased. An attorney for its corporate parent, Condé  Nast (CDN) demanded the Yes Men take the site down and transfer the domain name to CDN, claiming trademark infringement and misappropriation of Doctorow’s identity, with a vague reference to copyright infringement thrown in for good measure.

As we explained in our response on the Yes Men’s behalf, Wired’s heavy-handed reaction was both misguided and disappointing. Their legal claims are baseless given the satirical, noncommercial nature of the site (not to mention Doctorow’s implicit celebration of it after the fact). And frankly, a publication of Wired’s caliber should be celebrating this form of political speech, not trying to shut it down.

Hopefully Wired and CDN will recognize this is not a battle they want or need to fight. If not, EFF stands ready to defend the Yes Men and their critical work.

Staff

To contact individual staff members, replace [at] with @.

Chris Jones (Executive Director)

Chris has been working for Statewatch since 2010 and in September 2020 was appointed as Executive Director. He specialises in issues relating to policing, migration, privacy and data protection and security technologies.

• Email: chris [at] statewatch.org
• @earsinfingers

Romain Lanneau (Consultant Researcher)

Romain Lanneau is a legal researcher based in Amsterdam, publishing on the topics of migration, asylum, and the use of new technologies for public policies. In 2021, he was selected as a Bucerius Start Up PhD Fellow for a one-year project on the theme of 'Beyond Borders'. He is a recent graduate of a research LLM on International Migration and Refugee Law from the Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam. In the past, he worked for several NGOs, including the largest research network on migration and refugee law in Europe, the Odysseus Academic Network.

• Email: romain [at] statewatch.org
• @romainlanneau

Yasha Maccanico (Researcher)

Yasha has worked for Statewatch since 1998, providing news coverage, analysis and translations to link EU policies to events on the ground in the justice and home affairs field in several member states (UK, Italy, Spain, France, Belgium and Portugal). He has extensive public speaking experience in civil society and academic contexts and in 2019 completed a PhD at the University of Bristol in Policy Studies on the topic of 'European Immigration Policies as a Problem: State Power and Authoritarianism'.

• Email: yasha [at] statewatch.org
• @yashamac1

Rahmat Tavakkoli (Finance & Administration Worker)

Rahmat joined Statewatch in September 2021 to take care of our financial and administrative procedures, ensure compliance with regulatory requirements and contribute to the smooth running of the office and the organization.

• Email admin [at] statewatch.org

Tony Bunyan (Director, 1991-2020; Director Emeritus, 2020-2024)

We are sorry to announce that Tony passed away in September 2024. We will update this entry in due course.

Tony is an investigative journalist and writer specialising in justice and home affairs, civil liberties, EU state-building and freedom of information. He was Director of Statewatch 1990-2010 and edited Statewatch News (1999-2010). He is the author of The Political Police in Britain (1977), Secrecy and Openness in the European Union (1999) and The Shape of Things to Come (2009) and edited The War on Freedom and Democracy (2005). He is a Member of the Council of the Institute of Race Relations and a Lifetime Member of the National Union of Journalists  The position of Director Emeritus in Statewatch is a life-time appointment - Tony continues to be a member of the Statewatch team.

Trustees

Marie-Laure Basilien-Gainche

Marie-Laure Basilien-Gainche is Professor of Law at the University Jean Moulin Lyon 3, honorarium member of the Institut Universitaire de France, and fellow of the Institut Convergence Migrations. Her researches focus on the exigencies of the rule of law and their limitations in cases of exceptions: the situations of serious crises which allow the concentration of powers and restriction of rights (e.g. the use of the state of emergency), and the areas of legal confinement which are conducive to abuses of power and rights infringements (e.g. camps and centres where migrants and refugees are detained). She is member of the editorial board of various reviews and is involved in numerous academics networks regarding human rights law. You can find more information about her activities and publications on her personal webpage.

Laure Baudrihaye-Gérard

Laure is a lawyer based in Brussels, where she works on EU and Belgian criminal justice policy. She qualified as a solicitor in London, specialised in EU law and worked in private practice in both London and Brussels before studying criminology. After participating in several academic research projects, Laure joined Fair Trials, a criminal justice watchdog, in 2018. As Legal Director for Europe, she led on EU advocacy, strategic litigation in European courts and the coordination of a European-wide network of criminal defence lawyers, civil society and academic organisations. She has also been working as a prison monitor since 2019 in a large pre-trial detention prison in Brussels, and since 2020 heads up the appeals committee that adjudicates on complaints from detained people against the prison administration.

Jonathan Bloch

Jonathan Bloch studied law at the University of Cape Town and the London School of Economics. He was politically involved in South Africa in the worker and student movement and remains active in human rights circles in the UK. From 2002 until 2014 he chaired the Canon Collins Educational and Legal Assistance Trust, one of the largest scholarship awarding organisations in South Africa. He was a councillor in the London Borough of Haringey 2002-14. He has co-authored several books on intelligence. He owns and runs a worldwide financial information business across four continents.

Victoria Canning

Victoria Canning is senior lecturer in Criminology at the University of Bristol. She has spent over a decade working on the rights of women seeking asylum, specifically on support for survivors of sexual violence and torture with NGOs and migrant rights organisations. She recently completed an ESRC Research Leaders Fellowship focussing on harmful practice in asylum systems in Britain, Denmark and Sweden, and the gendered implications thereof. Vicky has experience researching in immigration detention in Denmark and Sweden, as well as Denmark’s main deportation centre. She is currently embarking on a study of torture case file datasets with the Danish Institute Against Torture which aims to create a basis from which to better identify and thus respond to sexual torture and sexualised torturous violence with refugee survivors of torture more broadly.

Nadine Finch

Nadine was a member of the Statewatch contributors group for a number of years and also previously a trustee. She was a human rights barrister between 1992 and 2015 and an Upper Tribunal Judge from 2015 to 2020. She is now an Honorary Senior Policy Fellow at the University of Bristol and an Associate at Child Circle, a children's rights NGO based in Brussels.

Lilana Keith

Lilana Keith is PICUM’s Senior Advocacy Officer on Labour Rights and Labour migration. PICUM - the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants, is a network of more than 165 organisations in 35 countries, mostly in Europe, working for human rights and social justice for undocumented migrants.

Lilana joined PICUM in 2011 and has had various roles, including leading PICUM’s work to advance the rights and inclusion of undocumented children, young people and families for many years. She has been involved in work to advance migrants’ rights since 2009, including through community development and funding. She has an academic background in international and European migration law and policy and anthropology.

Read the full report here (pdf). You can find our full annual report and accounts on the website of the Charity Commission.

Civil liberties in an era of crisis and turmoil

“It has been said that history repeats itself. This is perhaps not quite correct; it merely rhymes,” the Austrian psychoanalyst Theodor Reik once wrote. At a time of growing support for parties and movements of the extreme right, and the adoption of their ideas by mainstream political parties; rising geopolitical tension between the world’s most powerful states; outright war and military conflict; flagrant racism and xenophobia; and growing economic inequality, it is sobering to think that the 2020s may rhyme with the 1920s.

It is in this context that European states, and “the west” more broadly, are seeking to define themselves in opposition to their geopolitical foes – primarily Russia and China. Both these countries have vastly different forms of government to those of European states, marked by a disturbing level of state control over both individual and collective activities, and brutal human rights violations. Nevertheless, events in Europe increasingly appear to suggest that the differences between the “old continent” and its current rivals are of degree, rather than kind. Europe has plenty of its own authoritarian tendencies, and these are increasingly coming to the surface.

The most obvious and longstanding example is that of Hungary, where the far-right Fidesz government has been in power for over a decade. But Italy is now governed by a coalition of the far-right, with a prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, whose political life began in neo-fascist movements. Meloni, in turn, apparently forged close links with former UK prime minister Rishi Sunak, whose governing programme was largely based on trying to appease the most right-wing elements of the Conservative Party. Meanwhile, in France and Germany – the EU’s two most powerful states – the far-right is increasingly popular with the electorate. Examples abound within and without the EU, across the European continent, and beyond.

Predictions for the European Parliament elections consistently show a substantial increase in support for parties explicitly opposed to universal rights and freedoms. At the same time, amongst EU institutions and member states there is a broad consensus that forging alliances with and funding authoritarian leaders abroad is a price worth paying to halt the arrival of unwanted migrants and refugees, a policy goal that is also seeing increasing restrictions on and repression of those defending migrant and refugee rights, and those saving lives in the Mediterranean and Aegean. The ongoing attempts to delegitimise protest movements – for racial justice, action against climate change, or in solidarity with Palestine – including by painting them as extremist or even terrorist, has made the political colours of many European governments increasingly clear.

The claims advanced by European governments that they are steadfast supporters of human rights, civil liberties and democratic standards – an idea often bundled up in the phrase “European values” – is starting to ring hollow to a growing number of people. It is likely to become increasingly so for as long as governments that claim to support those values continue to undermine them domestically, and through the influence they exert over the institutions of the EU and other supranational fora. In this context, the role of an independent, critical and contentious civil society, understood in the broadest possible sense – a civil society of associations, organisations, trade unions, campaign groups, journalists, lawyers, researchers and beyond – becomes more important than ever.

Throughout 2023 we continued to support that vision of civil society. Our core tasks of reporting, documentation and analysis – focusing on police powers, border controls, state secrecy, surveillance and security technologies – have supported campaigns and movements seeking to defend and extend the values and principles that are being actively undermined by governments across the continent.

We remain a widely-used and well-respected resource: our website received almost 170,000 visits over the course of the year, our work was cited in the press more than once per fortnight, and at least 18 other civil society organisations or initiatives have publicly cited our work. We were closely involved in projects and activities undertaken by our networks, and participated in a wide range of events that helped to disseminate our work and foster the development of new ideas and projects. Our staff, trustees and contributors can be immensely proud of what we have achieved in 2023, and we are grateful to all those who supported our work, financially or otherwise.

Nevertheless, there remains much that we can do to improve, both with regard to the work we produce, and how we produce it. Some of those improvements began in 2023: at the end of the year, we employed our first ever member of staff to work on solely on communications, which in 2024 will change the way our work is publicly presented. This will help us to disseminate the findings of our research and reporting in clearer and more accessible ways, broadening our audience and aiding their understanding of our work.

We still have much to do in terms of working more closely within our networks and with organisations and associations of people at the sharp end of state power to gain a better understanding of what it is they want and need from our work. This will require increased coordination and cooperation across groups and countries, and will require us taking more time to explore topics and ideas before diving into research and writing. The increased income we have enjoyed in 2023, which we aim to see continue in 2024 and beyond, will help us with this. This will also make it possible for us to achieve the more mundane, but crucial, objective of increasing staff remuneration and conditions to a level that ensures we can recruit and retain people over the long-term – something we have made substantial progress with in recent years, but on which we still have much to do.

Ultimately, we also need to gain a better understanding of how civil society can work together in an increasingly repressive political environment to defend and, in the longer-term, extend the rights and freedoms that everyone in society should be able to exercise and enjoy. Our part in that struggle is to conduct research and investigations into policies and practices that undermine those rights and freedoms, and to oppose them through campaigning and advocacy alongside others. In the years to come, we will build on our existing knowledge, connections and practices to do that work even more effectively.

Chris Jones
Executive Director
May 2024

This is a truncated version of our annual report and accounts, which are available here.

来る９月２９日（日）、立川基地の航空祭が開催されます。毎年公称数千人の市民が訪れ、兵器展示やヘリのアクロバット飛行などを観覧するというおまつりです。

　「劣等被爆都市」。この夏、わたしはこんなフレーズを知った。社会学者の高橋眞司・元長崎大教授が２００４年の著書『続・長崎にあって哲学する』で、長崎のことを表現したものだ。「被爆地長崎はいつも広島の陰に立ってきた」「世界の注目と脚光を浴びるのはいつも広島」と。だが、高橋氏が20年前に指摘したように、長崎は広島の陰になってきたのか。ときどき長崎も訪れながら広島で取材を続けてきたわたしはこの数年、もう一つの被爆地・長崎市の姿を見るにつけ、「平和都市」広島市の平和行政に対して疑問を抱..

黒鉄好です。レイバーネット204号の放送を無事終えました。13日までパソコンの前を離れていたので報告を書けませんでした。私が放送を担当した回では、いつも裏話を含め、報告を書いていますので今回も書きます。前回私が担当したのが羽田空港事故とJAL争議を扱った200回記念号でした。それからわずか4回後の放送です。私が担当するのはリニア問題と合わせると3回目ですが、司会者としての番組の「仕切り」は、実は今回が最も楽でした。何より後藤政志さんがテレビ向けのゲストだったことが大きいと思います。後藤さんのことは、原子力市民委員会委員として、元東芝の原子力プラント設計技術者として、その功績も、お名前も存じ上げていました。しかし対面できちんとした形でお話ししたのはこの日の放送が初めてです。3.11直後の後藤さんは、あまりに大きな存在で、雲の上の人のように感じていました。

統計トピックスNo.142 統計からみた我が国の高齢者

　日銀に対する信頼が揺らいでいる。日経平均株価は８月５日にブラックマンデーを超える過去最大の下げ幅を記録したが、その原因のひとつに日銀のコミュニケーションを問題視する声があがっている。確かに７月の利上げは、市場の意表をついた格好となり、市場との対話に課題を残した。このところの情報漏洩（リーク）疑惑も含めて、日銀はもう少し丁寧に説明すべきだ。予想されず　日銀は７月の金融政策決定会合で15ベーシスポイントの利上げを決めた。７月会合での利上げは直前まで予想されていなかったためサプラ..