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Katitza Rodriguez
International Rights Director, Electronic Frontier Foundation
(415) 800-4985
katitza@eff.org
Today, a group of over 400 organizations and experts, along with 350,000 individuals, continue to rally in support of the 13 International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications Surveillance (the Necessary and Proportionate Principles) a year to the day after Edward Snowden first revealed how governments are monitoring individuals on a massive scale. The international experts who supported the Necessary and Proportionate Principles has issued a press release containing quotes from professionals weighing in on the need to end the mass surveillance.
Today, a group of over 400 organizations and experts, along with 350,000 individuals, continue to rally in support of the 13 International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications Surveillance (the Necessary and Proportionate Principles) a year to the day after Edward Snowden first revealed how governments are monitoring individuals on a massive scale. The international experts who supported the Necessary and Proportionate Principles has issued a press release containing quotes from professionals weighing in on the need to end the mass surveillance.
For Immediate Release: Thursday, June 05, 2014
A huge international collection of experts have called on world governments to adopt the 13 International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications Surveillance (IPAHRCS), principles aimed at putting an end to the blanket surveillance of innocent persons. The call comes a year to the day after whistleblower Edward Snowden first revealed details about how government spy agencies, including the United States' National Security Agency, are monitoring individuals on a massive and unprecedented scale. In the 12 months since the revelations, most world governments have ignored growing calls from citizens to put an end to this bulk collection.
The group of over 450 organizations and experts, supported by over 350,000 individuals from across the globe, have been calling for the adoption of new rules to protect innocent citizens from government spying. The 13 International Principles establish clear guidelines to ensure government surveillance activities are consistent with human rights. These principles were developed over months of consultation with technology, privacy, and human rights experts from around the world. The principles emphasize the human rights obligations of governments engaged in communications surveillance.
Group members are also recommending greater use of software libre, decentralized architectures, and end-to-end encryption to help safeguard citizens' privacy rights. They say citizens deserve strong data protection safeguards to protect their privacy from government monitoring.
Here's what international experts are saying about the Necessary and Proportionate Principles and the need to end mass surveillance:
Latin America
Luis Fernando Garcia, R3D (Mexico):"The 13 Principles are defenders of an Internet that constitutes a space for the exercise of human rights. By promoting its recognition, we reject the false choice between security and privacy and, at the same time, we defend the democratic aspirations of our societies."
Paulo Rena da Silva Santarem (Brazil):"Edward Snowden's revelations were crucial in ensuring that civil society had enough evidence to pressure our government for the approval of Marco Civil. Certainly, now is time for the Brazilian Government to take the lead by implementing the 13 Principles into domestic law, specifically against mass data retention."
Pilar Saenz, RedPaTodos (Colombia):"We insist that surveillance must be 'necessary and proportionate' and with independent oversight to prevent abuse of power."
Joana Varon, Center for Technology and Society (Brazil):"Snowden has provided us with the most powerful tool of our current era: information. Every single Internet user around the world should feel empowered by that and, as such, push for a change in current surveillance practices. Mass surveillance has nothing to do with security, it represents a serious threat to fundamental human rights. Any surveillance practice should be limited to what is necessary and proportionate, and that's why the 13 principles should be the starting point."
Ramiro Alvarez Ugarte, Asociacion por los Derechos Civiles (Argentina):"A year ago, we confirmed what many suspected. Now we know that basic human rights are being violated due to a wide system of mass surveillance which simply is incompatible with a free and democratic society. While Snowden has shed light onto these practices, in Latin America we remain in the dark. Unchecked and autonomous intelligence agencies engage in political surveillance all the time, as recent scandals in Colombia and Argentina have clearly shown. Massive or not, this kind of surveillance puts a check on democratic participation and region-wide reform efforts are as urgent as necessary."
Valeria Betancourt, Association for Progressive Communications (Ecuador - International):"It is necessary to reinforce the call to states to take measures that will put an end to privacy violations and ensure that legislation and practices related to communications surveillance, collection of personal data, and interception of communications, adhere to international human rights. A robust protection for human rights is a condition for democracy."
Jacobo Najera, free software developer (Latin America):"Snowden highlights the capabilities of the most powerful system of mass surveillance; and has reaffirmed that mass surveillance and the centralization of development processes and services on the Internet destroy the Net as we know it. There is a need to use and develop free software, end-to-end encryption, and decentralized services."
Ivan Martinez, President, Wikimedia Mexico (Mexico):"Freedom on the internet is an essential component of the Wikimedia projects, and a value that governs their overall performance. Its defense in the social context is a necessary task in many societies because of the temptations of certain political figures to place barriers on its development. As Wikipedians and promoters of free knowledge, in previous years we didn't consider it right to passively observe possible attempts to monitor peoples' actions on the net, and we always support efforts to guarantee a free internet without any kind of surveillance."
Claudio Ruiz, ONG Derechos Digitales (Latin America):"Snowden's revelations illustrate the significance of human rights on the Internet. In the post-Snowden era, states are not the only enemies to our civil liberties, private companies are as well. The fragility of our rights in the light of technological developments is to require all actors unrestricted commitment to protecting the privacy of all."
Katitza Rodriguez, International Rights Director, Electronic Frontier Foundation (Peru-International):"As our everyday interactions, activities, and communications now emit a continuous stream of revealing information, the question has become: How do we preserve fundamental freedoms in the digital age?" EFF International Rights Director Katitza Rodriguez said. "The 13 Principles explain how and why we must rein in unchecked surveillance state at home and abroad and protect the freedoms of everyone, regardless of citizenship or statelessness."
North America
Steve Anderson, OpenMedia Executive Director (Canada - International): "These 13 Principles represent the positive alternative to secretive and unaccountable mass surveillance. We all need to work together to rein in out-of-control government surveillance by making sure it is necessary, proportionate, and respects our fundamental human rights. Everyone deserves to keep their private life private and it's past time decision-makers listened to citizens and implemented these common sense international principles."
Jochai Ben-Avie, Policy Director, Access (United States - International):"The human rights that are negatively impacted by surveillance are some of the most treasured and the most easily invaded. The 13 Principles provide a framing against which government surveillance practices around the world can be measured and they are already affecting change around the world. The Principles are a rallying cry for human rights defenders, and the chorus of users who have already spoken out demonstrate that no longer will the public acquiesce quietly to mass surveillance. As we mark the one year anniversary of the first Snowden revelation and reflect on what we know now, we can see that the Principles have fundamentally changed the discourse and are one of the most powerful tools in the fight to limit how States spy on the users of the world."
Cindy Cohn, Legal Director, Electronic Frontier Foundation (United States): "Human rights law already strongly protects the privacy and free expression of people around the world, but the dramatically increased ability and willingness of the NSA, along with its counterparts, to engage in mass surveillance and to undermine online security required specific thinking about how to apply and preserve this important law in this radically new context. The 13 Principles accomplish this goal, providing a guidestar for nongovernmental organizations and governments around the world who want to ensure the ongoing protection of our fundamental freedoms in the digital age. They also serve as an important complement to the work that EFF and others are doing domestically in the US to try to rein in the NSA."
Tamir Israel, Staff Lawyer, Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC):"The long string of Snowden revelations have confirmed for us that the worst case scenario is true: state agencies have transformed our digital networks into a means of mass surveillance. If permitted to stand, this state of affairs threatens the very foundations of democracy by subverting our most powerful vehicle for those wishing to challenge prevailing opinion. It is incumbent on us to fix this problem, and the solution requires dynamic political, technical and legal solutions. The Necessary & Proportionate Principles address the last of these by reasserting privacy and other human rights in a way that is meaningful in this new technological era. They are designed to bring us back to a world where surveillance occurs only when it is needed and justifiable and to put an end to the current 'collect everything' reality that has crept up on us in recent years."
Christopher Parsons, Postdoctoral Fellow, Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto (Canada):"The past year has revealed that dragnet state surveillance has enveloped the world despite our nations' privacy and data protection laws, laws that have demonstrably been diminished, undermined, and evaded by privacy-hostile governments over the course of the past decade. It is critical that we take the initiative and work to better endow our privacy commissioners and data protection regulators with the powers they need to investigate and terminate programs that inappropriately or unlawfully invade and undermine our individual and collective rights to privacy."
Yana Welinder, Legal Counsel, Wikimedia Foundation (United States):"Untargeted surveillance means that people cannot anonymously share their wisdom online or freely read without the fear of constantly being watched. It's a threat to the very core of what makes us human--the drive to think and formulate ideas. The 13 Principles push back on that threat. They demand that governments avoid excessive surveillance and respect human rights."
Yochai Benkler, Professor, Harvard Law School and Berkman Center for Internet and Society (United States):"Because mass surveillance is technically difficult, legally suspect, and social taboo in democratic societies, the national security establishment has had to break or warp all other major systems in society to achieve it. What we learned from Snowden is that the ambition of the national security establishment has subverted open technical systems and the professional norms-based processes that undergird our technical infrastructure; undermined markets and commercial innovation; and produced a theatre of the grotesque where public accountability and judicial, executive, and legislative control should have been."
Eben Moglen, President and Executive Director of the Software Freedom Law Center (International):"If--by technical, legal and political means--we prevent centralized control and surveillance of the Net, we save liberty. If not, unshakeable despotism lies in the human future."
Cynthia Wong, Human Rights Watch (United States - International):"The Internet has become central to our lives. But the NSA and GCHQ's 'collect it all' attitude makes it incredibly hard for human rights defenders, journalists, and ordinary citizens worldwide to go online without fear. To accept these agencies' arguments for mass surveillance without challenge means the beginning of the end of privacy in the digital age."
Africa
Arthur Gwagwa, Zimbabwe Human Rights Forum (Zimbawe): "As the evolution of digital technologies outpaces international and regional regulatory consensus, the 13 Principles collect what little there is in the form of guidance, and proactively go beyond that by providing a sturdy, timeless, and universal framework within which national, regional, and international reforms on the presenting issues can sit and find strength."
Hisham Almiraat, Global Voices Advocacy (Morocco, International):"The advent of the internet marked a major milestone for human rights activists in some of the most repressive places on earth. It symbolized an unprecedented extension of the public sphere and a serious blow to governments' attempts to curtail freedom of speech. Mass, indiscriminate surveillance is threatening to destroy this progress. The 13 Principles offer a workable solution to balance security and privacy. We call upon all governments to adopt these principles in order to protect their citizens' right to privacy and freedom of speech."
Europe
Simon Davies, Publisher, "The Privacy Surgeon" (United Kingdom - International):"The majority of the world's governments have responded with either orchestrated deception or brazen indifference to the Snowden revelations. A year on, the secret arrangements that enabled the creation of a vast global spying regime continue almost unchanged. Initiatives such as the 13 Principles--and the huge coalition that supports them--can make a real difference to an arrogant and unaccountable spy empire that imperils the privacy of everyone."
Stuart Hamilton, Director of Policy and Advocacy, International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (International):"For librarians, safeguarding the privacy of our users is a crucial professional principle. When people are under surveillance, they lose their ability to think freely--nobody likes to read with someone looking over their shoulder. The 13 Principles show us the way to ensure existing human rights law applies to modern digital surveillance. IFLA is proud to be a signatory."
Christian Horchert, CCC (Germany):"Snowden helped us to understand on what fragile foundation our information society is build upon. We are at a turning point where we need to decide how to move forward: Do we really want to live in a world of insecurity and mistrust or not?"
Joe McNamee, European Digital Rights, Executive Director (European Union):"We have slipped unconsciously into a world where basic concepts of democracy and the rule of law have been replaced by sophistry and impunity. The 13 Principles draw a clear baseline on which democratic principles, privacy and freedom of communication can be rebuilt.
Carly Nyst, Legal Director, Privacy International (United Kingdom - International):"The 13 Principles have completely changed the debate around communications surveillance. By providing a detailed, clear interpretation of human rights standards that is relevant and meaningful in the digital age, the 13 Principles have done what so many national legislatures have failed to do--update long-standing legal protections of the right to privacy in the light of new technologies that challenge traditional distinctions such as content vs metadata, nationals vs non-nationals, intelligence vs. law enforcement. The 13 Principles are the most important tool that civil society has to mould the crucial debate being had, in the aftermath of the Snowden revelations, about the limits of state power to spy on citizens around the world."
Danny O'Brien, International Director, Electronic Frontier Foundation, (United Kingdom - International):"The application of international law has lagged for years behind the technological advances which have led to our current global surveillance state. The 13 Principles spells out exactly how we can update our understanding of human rights to combat this erosion of civil liberties. As courts around the world begin to tackle these issues seriously, it's invaluable for them to have such timely and precise guidance."
John Ralston Saul, President, PEN International (International):"The principles of expression are simple--maximum transparency in places of power, maximum free expression for citizens. Privacy is a key part of free expression. In private we work out what we will say and do in public. The growing use of secrecy and surveillance by governments and corporations is a direct attack on free expression. The use of fear to justify this secrecy and surveillance is a cynical diversion from the central issue. Free expression."
Katarzyna Szymielewicz, President, Panoptykon Foundation (Poland):"In the aftermath of Snowden's disclosures, civil society organisations have to speak with one voice to remind governments across the world what principles should apply when it comes to surveillance. The 13 Principles make it very clear that there is no way of reconciling mass, preemptive surveillance with the right to privacy and human rights safeguards such as presumption of innocence. The manifesto with 13 principles is our way of communicating these core values to decision makers and the media. However, we expect much more than public debate: we demand their implementation."
Friedhelm Weinberg, HURIDOCS (Germany):"There has been an incredible gap between the practices of mass surveillance and the protections everyone ought to enjoy under international human rights law. The 13 Principles have been the one crucial document that has fueled the process of addressing this gap, and closing it. Unlawful mass surveillance still occurs, but the 13 Principles are now so widely recognised that there will be no more excuses for everyone--government, businesses or others--not to do more to protect the rights of individuals around the globe."
Jeremie Zimmermann, La Quadrature du Net (France):"Our humanities are now indivisible from the Machine, we became the Cyborg. And now we see that the machine as a whole has been subverted to work against us, to spy on us and control us. We must fight back for our humanities against this oppressive Machine, with software libre, decentralized architectures, and end-to-end encryption."
Asia
Professor Kyung Sin Park, Open Net (South Korea):"The 13 Principles are the first attempt to create an international legal standard on the right to be free from surveillance, that is, surveillance by any government on any private person on earth via any communications medium."
Sana Saleem, Bolo Bhi (Pakistan):"The Snowden revelations were instrumental in exposing the corporate-government nexus that enables surveillance. The Necessary & Proportionate Principles are a much-needed step towards limiting states' power to infringe on our right to privacy."
Oceania
Joy Liddicoat, Association for Progressive Communications (New Zealand - International):"The revelations of whistleblowers, includiing Edward Snowden, have shone a bright light into the dark interior workings of modern democracies, revealing the deeply uncomfortable truth that our human rights are at grave risk at home from those elected to represent democractic values, including human rights to privacy. We do not want our governments to protect us--we want them to protect our rights, but when they will not, civil society voices and leadership must respond emphatically. The 13 Principles provide a clear set of guidance for the application and upholding of human rights in a digital age in relation to surveillance."
The 13 Principles state that surveillance is only permissible in strictly defined circumstances that respect citizens' human right to privacy. They state that governments should only engage in surveillance that is consistent with the following principles: Legality, Legitimate Aim, Necessity, Adequacy, Proportionality, Competent Judicial Authority, Due Process, User Notification, Transparency, Public Oversight, Integrity of Communications and Systems, Safeguards for International Cooperation, Safeguards against Illegitimate Access. More information on each of these Principles is available here.
Groups supporting the Necessary & Proportionate Principles include: Access, Association for Progressive Communications, Chaos Computer Club, Center for Internet & Society-India, Center for Technology and Society at Fundacao Getulio Vargas, Digitale Gesellschaft, Digital Courage, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fundacion Karisma, HURIDOCS, La Quadrature du Net, OpenMedia.org, Open Net, Open Rights Group, Panoptykon Foundation, Privacy International, Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC), SHARE Foundation and Wikimedia Foundation
Hundreds of thousands of citizens are speaking out against mass surveillance
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading nonprofit organization defending civil liberties in the digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF champions user privacy, free expression, and innovation through impact litigation, policy analysis, grassroots activism, and technology development. EFF's mission is to ensure that technology supports freedom, justice, and innovation for all people of the world.
(415) 436-9333"As long as House Republicans continue pushing Project 2025 funding bills, they will continue pushing our nation towards a government shutdown," said Democratic Rep. Brendan Boyle.
The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday rejected a GOP resolution that would have punted a fight over government funding until after the next president takes office and pushed through a noxious voter suppression measure backed by Republican nominee Donald Trump.
The final vote was 202-220, with 14 Republicans joining nearly every member of the House Democratic caucus in voting against the legislation. GOP opponents of the bill included far-right lawmakers who want to slash spending.
Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine), Don Davis (D-N.C.), and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) broke with their party and backed the Republican continuing resolution, which would have largely extended government funding at current levels into March.
With Trump's backing, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) agreed to attach to the continuing resolution the SAVE Act, legislation purportedly aimed at preventing noncitizens from voting—which is already illegal. Voting rights advocates have condemned the SAVE Act as an "unnecessary and dangerous" bill that would "make it harder for voters of color and naturalized citizens to register to vote."
"Instead of working with Democrats to fund the government, House Republicans tied themselves into knots trying to give Trump what he wants."
House Democrats said Wednesday that the failure of the GOP continuing resolution was an inevitable consequence of the party's decision to push extremist spending bills instead of working on a bipartisan solution to government funding.
The government will shut down on October 1 unless Congress acts. Johnson said leading up to Wednesday's vote that there is "no Plan B."
"Once again, the House Republican majority has failed at its most basic tasks while trying to force Trump's extreme and unpopular Project 2025 agenda on the American people," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee. "Everyone in Washington, Democrats and Republicans, knew this ill-conceived continuing resolution was destined to fail. Why we spent a week and a half considering a partisan bill, just days from a government shutdown, is beyond comprehension."
"We have seven legislative days to keep the government open," she continued. "The time to begin negotiations on a continuing resolution that can gain the support of Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate was last week—but right now will suffice, if Republicans are willing to meet us at the table and actually govern."
Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said late Wednesday that "as long as House Republicans continue pushing Project 2025 funding bills, they will continue pushing our nation towards a government shutdown."
"Trump said he'd 'shut down the government in a heartbeat' to push his Project 2025 agenda—and instead of working with Democrats to fund the government, House Republicans tied themselves into knots trying to give Trump what he wants," said Boyle. "Just as they've done for the last two years, House Republicans have proven they're more interested in imposing Trump's dangerous agenda than lifting a finger to help middle-class families and keep our government open. American families deserve better than this extreme bill and they deserve better than House Republicans."
Democratic lawmakers are reportedly expected to propose a clean three-month extension of government funding to avert a shutdown and buy time to negotiate a longer-term deal on government spending.
Ahead of Wednesday's vote, DeLauro warned that House Republicans believe delaying the government funding fight until March 2025 would give them "more leverage to force their unpopular cuts to services that American families depend on to make ends meet."
"This bill is an admission that a House Republican majority cannot govern," said DeLauro. "They would rather gamble on an intervening election than attempt to complete their work on time."
"Because we believe that housing is a human right, like food or healthcare, we believe that more Americans deserve the option of social housing."
"It's becoming nearly impossible for working-class people to buy and keep a roof over their heads. Congress must respond with a plan that matches the scale of this crisis."
That's according to U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.), who on Wednesday introduced the Homes Act in a New York Timesopinion piece and an event with supporters of the proposal on Capitol Hill.
"Because we believe that housing is a human right, like food or healthcare, we believe that more Americans deserve the option of social housing," the pair wrote in the Times. "That's why we're introducing the Homes Act, a plan to establish a new, federally backed development authority to finance and build homes in big cities and small towns across America. These homes would be built to last by union workers and then turned over to entities that agree to manage them for permanent affordability: public and tribal housing authorities, cooperatives, tenant unions, community land trusts, nonprofits, and local governments."
"Our housing development authority wouldn't be focused on maximizing profit or returns to shareholders," the congresswomen continued. "Rent would be capped at 25% of a household's adjusted annual gross income. Homes would be set aside for lower-income families in mixed-income buildings and communities. And every home would be built to modern, efficient standards, which would cut residents' utility costs. Renters wouldn't have to worry about the prospect of a big corporation buying up the building and evicting everyone. Some could even come together to purchase their buildings outright."
In addition to establishing the new authority under the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the bill would repeal the Faircloth Amendment, which prevents the use of federal money for building new public homes. Under the new plan, construction would be funded by congressional spending and Treasury-backed loans.
"In New York, the average worker would need to clock in 104 hours a week to afford a one-bedroom apartment," Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement. "This country is staring down a full-blown housing crisis. A crisis where affordable housing is slipping out of reach."
"This bill would create more than 500,000 jobs and create 1.25 million affordable housing units," she noted, declaring that "everyone deserves a place to call home."
It's not just New York City where lower-wage people are struggling to keep a roof over their heads. Smith pointed out that "more than 90% of workers cannot afford a modest one-bedroom apartment. Americans across the country are bidding for homes against the wealthiest financial firms and they're losing."
"We have a severe housing crisis," she stressed. "The private market cannot meet this moment on its own. The Homes Act meets peoples' needs through social housing."
As Jacobin's Samuel Stein wrote Wednesday:
The housing system sketched out in the Homes Act looks nothing like what we are used to in the United States. Though we have an important social housing legacy, we have never normalized decommodification as the cornerstone of our housing system.
Introducing legislation like the Homes Act does not accomplish that goal in and of itself, but it offers us a concrete depiction of what that transition could look like. It also highlights the severe disjuncture between what our housing and urban planning system does right now—promote private profits in real estate while minimizing the public provision of housing—and what we need it to do.
The goal of legislation like this is not to pass it immediately, since no sober person would expect the current U.S. Congress to line up in support. Nor is the goal to supplant the messy work of organizing with the schematic and technical language of legislation. Instead, the point is to inspire organizing: to show that the status quo is not the only way our housing could operate, to give tenant organizations a concrete and affirmative vision to build toward, and to offer socialist candidates for office a platform to run on.
The bill to create a social housing authority—introduced less than two months out from the U.S. general election—is backed by the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) and its affiliates from across the country.
"Working families are being forced to make sacrifices in order to pay the skyrocketing cost of keeping a roof over their heads, while corporate landlords and Wall Street executives are getting even richer," said CPD co-executive directors Analilia Mejia and DaMareo Cooper. "This legislation provides a clear alternative to for-profit housing. It creates a framework to make community-owned, permanently affordable green social housing a reality."
Advocates from both sponsors' states also spoke out in favor of the bill.
"In Greater Minnesota, counties and towns don't have staff to build affordable housing projects, financing is another huge issue. We don’t have as many philanthropic organizations or financial institutions as urban areas," explained Noah Hobbs, policy director at One Roof Community Housing in Duluth. "This bill is the first real investment we've had in years. We're incredibly proud to endorse this legislation."
Aisha Hernandez, secretary of the Coalition to Save Affordable Housing at Co-op City in the Bronx, said that "cooperative housing gave me the ability to co-own my home. A few years ago, my neighbors and I came together to ensure our housing stays affordable, that our management is working in the interest of homeowners and prevent any corporate takeover of Co-op City."
"We are co-owners, not at the whims of corporate landlords," Hernandez added. "I want my fellow Americans to have the same access to housing that co-op has afforded me. This bill has the ability to do that. So let's get it done."
"This research provides a view into just how embedded the corporate, profit-fueled war machine is in our higher education and cultural institutions," said one campaigner.
A trio of human rights groups on Wednesday announced a new interactive initiative exposing what the coalition is calling a "Genocide Gentry" of weapons company executives and board members and "54 museums, cultural organizations, universities, and colleges that currently host these individuals on their boards or in other prominent roles."
The coalition—which consists of the Adalah Justice Project, LittleSis, and Action Center on Race and the Economy (ACRE)—published a map and database detailing the "educational and cultural ties to board members of six defense corporations" amid Israel's ongoing annihilation of Gaza, for which the U.S.-backed country is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice.
" Israel has destroyed every university in Gaza and nearly 200 cultural heritage sites since October 2023, using bombs and weapons manufactured by the companies included in the Genocide Gentry research," the coalition said. "As of April, these attacks have killed more than 5,479 students and 261 teachers and destroyed or critically damaged nearly 90% of all school buildings in Gaza."
"Universities across the country including the likes of Columbia University, Harvard University, the University of Southern California, and New York University have remained largely silent on Israel's genocidal campaign in Gaza," the groups added. "Behind closed doors, these same universities are hosting executives and board members of the companies manufacturing the weapons used in these attacks as board members, trustees, and fellows."
Members of the Genocide Gentry include:
"Students on university campuses across the country have not only been demanding divestment, but transparency," said Sandra Tamari, executive director of the Adalah Justice Project. "Transparency about their institutions' investments, partnerships, donors, and decision-makers, and their connections to individuals and companies directly enabling and profiting off war and genocide."
"This research helps provide some of this transparency by illuminating just how embedded the interests of the weapons industry are within our institutions, so we can begin chipping away at the power and influence that they wield," she added.
ACRE campaign director Ramah Kudaimi noted that "as part of its genocide since October 2023, Israel has targeted universities and cultural centers across Gaza, destroying campuses, museums, libraries, and more."
"That this is all backed by the United States means U.S. educational and cultural institutions have a responsibility to consider what their role is in helping end these war crimes, and that starts with reconsidering their connections with the weapons companies profiting from the destruction," Kudaimi said.
Munira Lokhandwala, director of the Tech and Training program at LittleSis, said: "This research provides a view into just how embedded the corporate, profit-fueled war machine is in our higher education and cultural institutions. Through this research, we show how the defense industry shapes and influences our civic and cultural institutions, and as a result, their silence around war and genocide."
"We must ask our institutions: What role are you playing in whitewashing war and destruction by inviting those who profit from manufacturing weapons onto your boards and into your galas?" she added.