The Fight
The site "Don't Make Spying a Habit" is a joint project of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) and Breaking the Silence, and aims to raise awareness among the Israeli public about the new surveillance technologies used by the authorities against civilians in Israel and the occupied territories. This site contains information about surveillance technologies and the threats they pose to human rights, particularly the right to privacy, and urges readers to join the fight to expose the use of surveillance technology, to regulate the use of surveillance technology, and to minimize, as much as possible, the human rights violations resulting from the use of these technologies.
We are not against the use of technology or against police work. Advanced surveillance technology can help the police and contribute to public safety, but they are also extremely powerful tools and there is enormous potential for them to infringe on basic rights. The greater the power given to a public institution the greater the responsibility for its use—and the greater the need for restrictions on its use. For example, it may be right to allow the police to use real-time technological surveillance in order to identify and apprehend suspects, but that does not mean that the police then have the right to create a database that stores the movements of innocent citizens. There must be transparency, oversight, and control by the public over police use of these tools. It may seem obvious, but it still needs to be stated: in order to be effective the police must not violate the law, or the public's trust.
ACRI is the largest, oldest, and leading human rights organization in Israel, and the only one that deals with the entire spectrum of human rights: from freedom of expression to the right to housing, from the human rights of Palestinians in the occupied territories to the right to privacy, from the right to equality in education to the protection of democracy. ACRI is committed to protecting and promoting the human rights of every individual, wherever the responsibility for the violation of those rights lies with the Israeli authorities.The ultimate aim of our work is to build an egalitarian and just society in which we can communicate, think, and live in a state that protects the rights of all.
The right to privacy has always been at the core of ACRI's work. As technology has continued to develop, the challenges have multiplied and become more complex.
These are some of the topics we have addressed in recent years:
Breaking the Silence is an organization of veterans who collect testimonies from soldiers who served in the territories since the outbreak of the Second Intifada. The organization was established in 2004 by combat soldiers who served in Hebron at the height of the Second Intifada, and since then, they have interviewed more than 1,400 soldiers from a wide range of units who served, or are serving, in various locations in the territories. The organization's goal is to raise awareness about the daily reality in the occupied territories and create a public discourse about the moral cost of military control over a civilian population, with the aim of ending the occupation.
In recent years, more soldiers have begun testifying about the increasing use of invasive biometric surveillance technologies in the territories. The occupation is no longer just checkpoints, arrests, and home invasions. The use of intrusive technologies deployed against Palestinians who cannot resist them is presented as a security tool, but these technologies are actually designed to consolidate control while blatantly violating rights.
To provide testimony about your service in the territories (West Bank or Gaza), email us: edut@shovrimshtika.org
