Safeguarding Privacy In The Fight Against Terrorism Report Of The Technology And Privacy Advisory Committee

The United States faces, in the words of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, "a new and deadly virus."1 That virus is "terrorism, whose intent to inflict destruction is unconstrained by human feeling and whose capacity to inflict it is enlarged by technology."2 As the murderous attacks of September 11 painfully demonstrated, this new threat is unlike anything the nation has faced before. The combination of coordinated, well-financed terrorists, willing to sacrifice their lives, potentially armed with weapons of mass destruction, capable of operating within our own borders poses extraordinary risks to our security, as well as to our constitutional freedoms, which could all too easily be compromised in the fight against this new and deadly terrorist threat.

This book maps the risk points that are emerging for cross-border corporate transactions in the digital and Internet eras and in the new enforcement environment, and explains the best practices to avert liability in cross-border transactions.

This book asks whether human rights, since the 9/11 attacks and the 'war on terror,' are a luxury we can no longer afford, or rights that must always remain a fundamental part of democratic politics, in order to determine the boundary between individual freedom and government tyranny. This volume brings together leading international lawyers, policy-makers, scholars and activists in the field of human rights to evaluate the impact of the 'war on terror' on human rights, as well as to develop a counter-terror strategy which takes human rights seriously. While some contributors argue that war is necessary in defense of liberal democracy, others assert that it is time to move away from the war model towards a new paradigm based upon respect for human rights, an internationally-coordinated anti-terror justice strategy, and a long-term political vision that can reduce the global tensions that generate a political constituency for terrorists.