After Germany’s Attorney General concluded to stand down in order to prevent “serious harm to the Federal Republic […]”, the Swiss Federal Prosecutor’s Office has now launched investigations into National Security Agency (NSA) operations in Switzerland. As the International Service of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation reported on Sunday, “article 271 of the penal code, which lists punishable acts by a foreign state, had been broken, according to the office”.
Meanwhile, Brazil and Germany have submitted their draft resolution to the United Nations (UN) general assembly. The document is calling the pervasive surveillance illegal, as it violates “the right to privacy and freedom of expression”, threatening “the foundations of a democratic society”. Following that, the UN special raporteur on counter-terrorism, Ben Emmerson, announced on Monday that he would launch an investigation on the Snowden revelations and give recommendations for the UN general assembly 2014. While international law tolerates espionage, the international community may agree that snooping around at the level of the revealed NSA activities exceeds tolerable espionage due to excessive human rights violations (Articles 12 and 19 Universal Declaration of Human Rights).
Legal consequences on the NSA’s pervasive surveillance activities from outside the United States can therefore take two ways: foreign domestic law and international law. Their impacts, though, remain subject to a different analysis.
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