The Basis for Democracy in the Digital Age

December 11, 2013, 11:41 PM

A Call from Writers Against Mass Surveillance

On International Human Rights Day,562 writers, including 5 Nobel laureates, from more than 80 countries, joined forces to call for the defense of civil liberties against surveillance by corporations and governments. The 5 Nobel laureates who have signed are: Orhan Pamuk, JM Coetzee, Elfriede Jelinek, Günter Grass and Tomas Tranströmer.
Also among the signatories are: Umberto Eco, Margaret Atwood, Don DeLillo, Daniel Kehlmann, Nawal El Saadawi, Arundhati Roy, Henning Mankell, Richard Ford, Javier Marias, Björk, David Grossman, Arnon Grünberg, Angeles Mastretta, Juan Goytisolo, Nuruddin Farah, João Ribeiro, Victor Erofeyev, Liao Yiwu and David Malouf.

This global commitment was organized by an independent international team of writers: Juli Zeh, Ilija Trojanow, Eva Menasse, Janne Teller, Priya Basil, Isabel Cole and Josef Haslinger.
On December 10, 2013, it was published in 30 newspapers around the world:

In recent months, the extent of mass surveillance has become common knowledge. With a few clicks of the mouse, the state can access your mobile device, your email, your social networking and your web searches.

They can track and identify your political orientation and activities and, in collaboration with internet companies, collect and store your data, and therefore can predict your consumption habits and behavior.

The fundamental pillar of democracy is the inviolable integrity of the individual. Human integrity extends beyond the physical body. In their thoughts and in their personal environment and in their communications, all people have the right to remain unobserved and undisturbed.

This fundamental human right has been rendered ineffective through the misuse of technological developments by states and businesses for the purposes of mass surveillance.

A person under surveillance is no longer free, a society under surveillance is no longer a democracy.

To retain any validity, our democratic rights must apply in the virtual space as well as in the real space.

Surveillance violates privacy and jeopardizes freedom of thought and opinion.
Mass surveillance treats every citizen as a potential suspect. It overturns one of our historical triumphs, the presumption of innocence.
Surveillance makes the individual transparent, while the state and corporations operate in secret. As we have seen, this power is systematically abused.
Surveillance is theft. This data is not public property: it belongs to us. When it is used to predict our behavior, it steals something else with it: the principle of free will, which is vital to democratic freedom.

WE DEMAND THE RIGHT for all people to determine, as democratic citizens, to what extent their personal data may be lawfully collected, stored and processed, and by whom. To receive information about where their data is stored and how it is used. To have their data erased if it has been unlawfully collected and stored.

WE CALL ON ALL STATES AND COMPANIES to respect these rights.

WE CALL ON ALL CITIZENS to stand up and defend these rights.

WE CALL ON THE UNITED NATIONS to recognize the importance of protecting civil rights in the digital age, and to create an International Law on Digital Rights.

WE CALL ON GOVERNMENTS to sign and adhere to such a convention.