<
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/10/28/biden-admin-blessed-un-surveillance-treaty-trump-admin-gets-to-abuse-it/>
"The US attended the
UN Cybercrime Treaty signing ceremony in Hanoi this
weekend, where 72 countries signed on to a Russia-backed framework for global
surveillance cooperation. Whether the US actually puts pen to paper (and all
the reporting on this is kind of cagey) is almost beside the point—by showing
up and legitimizing the proceeding, what the Biden administration last year
blessed with “we’ll fix it from within” is now in the hands of the Trump
administration. You know, the one that views criticism as crime and
governmental power as something to maximize, not constrain. What could go
wrong?
The Russian-initiated treaty, which we’ve warned about multiple times over the
past few years, creates a framework for cross-border law enforcement
“cooperation” on “cybercrime” that’s defined so broadly it could cover
basically any activity a government doesn’t like that happens to involve a
computer.
As
The Record notes, despite widespread concerns raised by plenty of people,
the Biden administration felt it made more sense to sign onto this agreement in
order to be able to fix it from within later:
The White House later told reporters they felt they had to back the treaty
now in order to make changes to it later and shape how it was implemented
globally. They also said it would likely expand the number of countries that
will respond to warrants issued by the U.S. related to cybercrime.
That’s… optimistic. And also completely backwards.
That reasoning might work for a trade agreement where you’re negotiating tariff
rates or dispute resolution procedures. But when the treaty is about creating a
legal framework that explicitly empowers any government to demand data on
anyone accused of a “serious crime” under their domestic law, you can’t shape
your way out of that. The mechanism itself is the problem.
You don’t fix a fundamentally broken treaty by signing it and hoping to shape
implementation later. That’s not how it works. Once you’ve given your stamp of
approval to a Russia-backed surveillance framework, you’ve already lost the
game. The “we’ll fix it later” approach might have made some sense when there
was at least a theoretical chance the US would push back against abuse. But now
we’re handing these powers to an administration that has made clear it views
any criticism as an attack, any dissent as a threat, and any check on its power
as illegitimate."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
