Almost two years have passed since Edward Snowden exposed the USA’s and UK’s global mass surveillance programmes. What we thought belonged to science fiction was in fact reality: Our intelligence agencies are indiscriminately intercepting the emails, phone calls, Internet searches and social media messages of hundreds of millions of people.
If we do nothing now, George Orwell’s 1984 will seem like an understated vision of the future. Our #UnfollowMe campaign (see pages 6-9) sends a clear message to world leaders: ban mass surveillance now!
Also in Wire: Somali refugees in Kenya; The struggle for abortion in Ireland; #OpenToSyria; Torture in Uzbekistan’s prisons; 10 ways Nigeria’s new president can improve human rights; Mediterranean shipwrecks; compensation for oil spills in Bodo, Nigeria.
