Sarah McKune and I have a new piece up @lawfare responding to a recent paper there.

The summary: "Enforceable regulation of commercial spyware requires human rights, transparency, oversight & accountability, & exclusion of private industry."

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-scourge-of-commercial-spyware-and-how-to-stop-it

In making foreign policy, officials tend to rely heavily on materials from intelligence agencies.

But intelligence agencies don’t often specifically look at human rights abuses in the countries they’re analyzing, so policymakers are working with a distorted picture of the world – and the policies they make often reflect this institutionalized ignorance.

My newsletter today argues this should change: https://www.hrw.org/the-day-in-human-rights/2023/06/06?story=paragraph-5856

Something different! 👇

If you are outside the USA, you probably live in a country with a National Human Rights Institution, a body that can help hold govt accountable to its human rights obligations.

But if you live in the US, you're out of luck. In fact, we hardly implement our human rights obligations domestically.

A coalition of 84 orgs/37 individuals today called for the Biden Admin to change that & begin the process to establish an American NHRI. See https://www.aclu.org/letter/coalition-letter-susan-rice-establishment-domestic-human-rights-institution