🚨 New Paper Alert 🚨
Just posted "Selling Surveillance" on SSRN (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4323985).
A shorter policy-oriented whitepaper version of this piece is scheduled for publication with
@lawfare next month thanks to support of the incomparable @arozenshtein.
As this broader piece is going out to law reviews soon -- any and all feedback is welcome!
#spyware #cybersecurity #surveillance #encryption #goingdark #internationallaw #nationalsecurity #foreignpolicy #privacy #intelligence #espionage
The CSAS model responds to these limitations by proposing a multistakeholder forum with a set of binding controls, enforced through governmental licensing and contracting, that could mitigate the harms produced by these technologies. The control spans the five stages of the spyware lifecycle: (1) development and investment; (2) marketing and sale; (3) client management; (4) spyware diplomacy; and (5) client and product/service termination.
As an alternative to these flawed approaches, this paper makes the case for an international system to standardize the commercial spyware industry, which I call the “Commercial Spyware Accreditation System” (CSAS). The paper first explains the limits of existing domestic and international regulation—including international export control law, international human rights law, and corporate social responsibility—in constraining the negative externalities of the commercial spyware trade.
Policy makers both in the United States and across the Atlantic are engaging in an ongoing dialogue to develop new international instruments that effectively respond to threat of spyware. This paper aims to provide these regulators with a set of innovative tools that have not been considered before in the literature.
UN human rights special rapporteurs, civil society orgs, & members of the European Parliament have recently called for an immediate and global moratorium on the sale, transfer, and use of spyware technologies. The paper argues that such calls are not only impractical, but they are also hypocritical & pose a danger to public safety and the future integrity of our telecommunication technologies. Ad hoc litigation & ex post blacklisting are similarly inapt in generating sufficient deterrence.
There is a vast and growing network of private companies selling spyware—tools and services that provide their clients with unprecedented access to smartphones, laptops, and other internet-connected devices. Investigative reporting and work by civil society have now repeatedly confirmed the systematic abuses of these technologies by government actors to target human rights activists, journalists, and dissidents around the world.
🚨 New Paper Alert 🚨
Just posted "Selling Surveillance" on SSRN (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4323985).
A shorter policy-oriented whitepaper version of this piece is scheduled for publication with
@lawfare next month thanks to support of the incomparable @arozenshtein.
As this broader piece is going out to law reviews soon -- any and all feedback is welcome!
#spyware #cybersecurity #surveillance #encryption #goingdark #internationallaw #nationalsecurity #foreignpolicy #privacy #intelligence #espionage
Had a blast at the #AALS annual meeting, my first in-person. Sat on three panels discussing such topics as #cyber #legal #pedagogy, internet regulation in wartime and #internationallaw & #digital #rights as a #nationalsecurity issue. More importantly got to see many good friends & made a ton of new ones!
#fedilaw #lawfedi #lawtwitter #academic #lawprof #lawprofs
Look what arrived in the mail today!
Happy to have contributed to this timely @[email protected] symposium, especially given the wonderful company: @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] Tsvetelina & Fatemah!
Access the full issue here: https://www.transnat.org/current
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