Socio-political perspectives on surveillance and censorship: Implications for on-line privacy in the age of cloud computing

Abstract

Governments interventions on the Internet have grown into importance after Edward Snowdens revelations about secret state mass surveillance programmes, along with content censorship and the partial or the complete shutdown of the Internet in times of turmoil. This paper sketches the sociopolitical perspective on State Surveillance, Censorship and Internet Intermediaries practices by evaluating the different points of view of several computer scientists, law and journalism specialists in regards to social and political implications of these interventions on individuals privacy, freedom of expression and freedom of opinion in social media and cloud computing platforms. It concludes that serious abuses of the jurisdictional power and attacks on several human rights especially freedom of expression and freedom of opinion buried using claims of threats to public order, national security, or speech defamation.