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[via Boing Boing:] A new, exhaustive report from Human Rights Watch details the way the young state of modern Ethiopia has become a kind of pilot program for the abuse of “off-the-shelf” surveillance, availing itself of commercial products from the US, the UK, France, Italy and China in order to establish an abusive surveillance regime that violates human rights and suppresses legitimate political opposition under the guise of a anti-terrorism law that’s so broadly interpreted as to be meaningless. The 137 page report [from Human Rights Watch] details the technologies the Ethiopian government has acquired from several countries and uses to facilitate surveillance of perceived political opponents inside the country and among the diaspora. The government’s surveillance practices violate the rights to freedom of expression, association, and access to information. The government’s monopoly over all mobile and Internet services through its sole, state-owned telecom operator, Ethio Telecom, facilitates abuse of surveillance powers.
(tags: human-rights surveillance ethiopia spying off-the-shelf spyware big-brother hrw human-rights-watch)