Hong Kong\u27s Failure to Extradite Edward Snowden: More Than Just a Technical Defect

As the Edward Snowden case takes legs and exhibits all the earmarks of official misconduct and scandal, the U.S. government continues efforts aimed at extraditing this whistleblower, characterizing him as a traitor and doing damage control in the NSA. Part of this strategy includes intimidating those sovereign states that refuse to coooperate in returning Snowden to face trial.Yet, the legal basis for these U.S. efforts is highly contentious. If Snowden had stayed in Hong Kong and fought extradition, in all likelihood he would have prevailed. Thus, the U.S. is left with not credible basis for complaint, and its retaliatory diplomatic measures against other states are without merit. This essay reviews Snowden\u27s defenses under the double criminality principle and the political offense exception according to Hong Kong law, applying the British incidence standard,and casts light on a self defeating U.S. Policy

The Rise of China\u27s Hacking Culture: Defining Chinese Hackers

China has been home to some of the most prominent hackers and hacker groups of the global community throughout the last decade. In the last ten years, countless attacks globally have been linked to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) or those operating within the PRC. This exploration attempts to investigate the story, ideology, institutions, actions, and motivations of the Chinese hackers collectively, as sub-groups, and as individuals. I will do this using sources ranging from basic news coverage, interviews with experts and industry veterans, secondary reportage, leaked documents from government and private sources, government white papers, legal codes, blogs and microblogs, a wide array of materials from the darker corners of the online world, and many other materials. The work will begin to sketch for the reader some of the general and specific aspects of the shadowy world of cybercrime and hacker culture in China in recent years. One of the most prevalent beliefs is that the Chinese government is in fact the one responsible, whether directly or by sponsor, for cyber-attacks on foreign systems. My careful analysis has revealed is not always the case, or at least more complex than simply labeling the group as a state actor. At the root of these attacks is a social movement of hacktivists, a patriotic sub-culture of Chinese hackers. It is incorrect to allege that all attacks are performed by state-sponsored individuals or groups, because there are many individuals and groups that are motivated by other factors

Treatment and Evolution of Digital Rights: A Comparative Analysis of China, Russia, the United States, and Germany

The internet and digital technologies allow for the recognition, advocation, and protection of human rights. People around the world have access to faster and exponentially more information than ever before. The possibilities for education, politics, healthcare, work, and equality have greatly expanded. The internet provides new opportunities for the progression of humanity, but not without a cost. The transformative power of the internet to both empower and infringe on human rights has not been lost on states. As a relatively new domain, the policies in cyberspace remain in their trial periods. Each state is implementing, redacting, and implementing again policies affecting their citizens’ rights in order to strike a balance between national security and collective and individual rights. Several influential leaders in cyberspace have emerged for different reasons: the United States, Russia, China, and Germany. Each state places various degrees of emphasis on human rights affected by the internet. On one end of the spectrum, Germany aims to protect its citizens’ data and privacy, while on the opposite end China enforces stringent censorship. The goal of this thesis is to provide a comparative analysis of the state of digital rights in these four states across the human rights spectrum in order to help predict the causalities, obstacles, and potential directions of the dissemination of digital rights norms

Power Tangled in the Web: Assessing the Democratizing Power of Information and Communication Technologies

This thesis questions the universality of information and communication technologies (ICTs) as “liberation technology” and whether they enhance the political power of citizens in some capacities. Can ICTs be forces of democratization? To what degree are grassroots efforts empowered or stymied by a government\u27s use of ICTs? By examining four case studies, this thesis aims to explore the disguised forms of control embedded in ICTs and how its uses vary

China\u27s New Cybersecurity Law and U.S-China Cybersecurity Issues

China\u27s New Cybersecurity Law and U.S-China Cybersecurity Issue

EU, China, and the Concept of Human Rights: from a Cultural Relativism Perspective

Human rights have become one of the most sensitive issues between EU and China, and it has brought a substantial impact on the bilateral relation. The EU’s persistent criticism on the Chinese human rights situation has not only provoked strong reaction from the Chinese government, but also led to a wide antipathy towards the EU’s external human rights policy among ordinary Chinese people. Adopting cultural relativism as the theoretical framework, this master thesis explores the different views of Europe and China on the issue of human rights. It discusses how the characteristics of Chinese culture have influenced the implication of human rights to Chinese. Also, it elaborates how the Chinese understanding of human rights is related to the current Chinese position on a series of specific human rights issues. To demonstrate the validity of the analysis, the thesis overviews three typical issues in European Parliament's resolutions regarding Chinese human rights situation: the death penalty, the Tibet problem and freedom of expression, and illustrates the standpoints of both sides. It can be seen that culture is an effective factor in explaining the discrepancy. The study gets to the conclusion that EU fails to provoke sympathy among Chinese on its human rights position because Chinese hold a different view on the content of the notion. Concerning different aspects of human rights, Chinese give strong priorities to collective interests over individual rights. Meanwhile, the domestic demand for civil and political rights remains relatively low, since economic rights are seen as more essential rights

The Rationale of China’s Media Regulation Policy in the Process of the Institutional Transformation

Through its institutional transformation, China’s media policy has features of both power-regulated societies and rights-regulated societies. The development of human societies is based on three dominant variables: competition, technology, and institutions. Throughout civilized history, human societies can be categorized into two types, either power-regulated societies or rights-regulated societies. The standard of categorization is based on different forces that coerce the social order of the society. The coercing force of power-regulated societies is rooted in the regime of power, such as authoritarianism or totalitarianism. Ancient China and the former Soviet Union are typical examples of such power-regulated societies. The coercing force of rights-regulated societies is rooted in the private rights of its citizens. Democratic societies like Great Britain and the United States are typical examples of rights-regulated societies. The morality and legitimacy of power-regulated societies are to maintain order and protect the regime of power, whereas rights-regulated societies work to protect private rights of the people. Therefore, media policy and regulations are fundamentally different in the two types of societies. Power-regulated societies use a power-controlled media model, and rights-regulated societies use a free media model. Today, China’s media policy is in the process of transforming from a state-controlled media model to a free media model and show features of both a power-regulated society and a rights-regulated society. China’s institutions have been transforming since the first exposure to globalization in the mid-nineteenth century. Over the last century, China has experience three institutional transformations: during the Xinhai revolution, the Cultural Revolution, and the reform and open policy. The current institutional transformation will change not only Chinese society, but will also impact the world. The more we understand this complicated process of transformation, the better we comprehend the rationality of media regulation policy in China

Is Internet privacy dead? Recovering Internet privacy in an increasingly surveillant society.

Surveillance on the Internet is a new battleground which attracts attention from all walks of life in our society. Since the 2013 Snowden revelations, the practice of Internet surveillance has become common knowledge. This research critically examines whether or not Internet privacy is dead, with a specific focus on the technical aspects of the Internet in order to express how technology is used to enhance and to invade privacy. This sets it apart from the existing literature in the field. In this research, three jurisdictions are chosen as case studies: the US and the UK as western jurisdictions with different legal systems, and China which has extensive surveillance and limited Internet privacy. The research explores the meaning of privacy in the information society and investigates the ways in which Internet privacy is integrated in the three chosen jurisdictions are critically analysed and discussed. The research findings reveal that Internet privacy is being taken away in both the US and the UK and it is hard to be optimistic for the future in the light of the 2013 Snowden revelations and ongoing changes to legislation, particularly the Investigatory Powers Bill in the UK. Through the examination of the evolution of the Internet in China and its nascent and evolving laws relating to data protection and privacy, the research findings demonstrate that China holds a great deal of control over its Internet and has implemented technical measures of surveillance, effectively meaning that Internet privacy in China is dead. Most importantly, through the examination of these three jurisdictions, there is strong evidence to suggest that these nation states are not so different when it comes to the invasion of Internet privacy. Despite these, there is still hope and the research concludes by examining possible ways to prevent the demise of Internet privacy