Governments must keep invasive snooping technologies out of...

Governments must keep invasive snooping technologies out of the hands of dictators and oppressive regimes, said the Coalition Against Unlawful Surveillance Exports (CAUSE) Friday. The new alliance has as members Amnesty International, Digitale Gesellschaft, Human Rights Watch, International Federation for Human Rights, New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute, Privacy International and Reporters without Borders. The new group wants to hold administrations and private companies accountable for abuses linked to the $5 billion global trade in communication spying technologies, it said. Those technologies enable regimes to crush dissent and criticism, chill free speech and destroy fundamental rights, said Amnesty International Advocacy Coordinator Ara Marcen Naval. CAUSE members are alarmed by the virtually unregulated trade in spying equipment, and want governments to take immediate action to stop it, they said in an open letter on their website (http://xrl.us/bqtwz6).