A/HRC/23/40 Law, Telecommunications Law and the Corruption Law all contain communications surveillance components. In the United Kingdom, over 200 agencies, police forces and prison authorities are authorized to acquire communications data under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, 2000. As a result, it is difficult for individuals to foresee when and by which State agency they might be subjected to surveillance. 57. In many States, communication service providers are being compelled to modify their infrastructure to enable direct surveillance, eliminating the opportunity for judicial oversight. For example, in 2012 the Colombian Ministries of Justice, and Information and Communication Technologies, issued a decree that required telecommunication service providers to put in place infrastructure allowing direct access to communications by judicial police, without an order from the Attorney General. 35 The above-mentioned Uganda’s Regulation of Interception of Communications Act 2010 (s3) provides for the establishment of a monitoring centre and mandates that telecommunications providers ensure that intercepted communications are transmitted to the monitoring centre (s8(1)(f)). The Government of India is proposing to install a Centralized Monitoring System that will route all communications to the central Government, allowing security agencies to bypass interaction with the service provider.36 Such arrangements take communications surveillance out of the realm of judicial authorization and allow unregulated, secret surveillance, eliminating any transparency or accountability on the part of the State. B. National security exceptions 58. Vague and unspecified notions of “national security” have become an acceptable justification for the interception of and access to communications in many countries. In India, for example, the Information Technology Act of 2008 allows interception of communications in the interest of, inter alia, “the sovereignty, integrity, or defense of India, friendly relations with foreign States, public order and the investigation of any offence” (section 69). 59. In many cases, national intelligence agencies also enjoy blanket exceptions to the requirement for judicial authorization. For example, in the United States, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act empowers the National Security Agency to intercept communications without judicial authorization where one party to the communication is located outside the United States, and one participant is reasonably believed to a member of a State-designated terrorist organization. German law allows warrantless automated wiretaps of domestic and international communications by the State’s intelligence services for the purposes of protecting the free democratic order, existence or security of the State. 37 In Sweden, the Law on Signals Intelligence in Defense Operations authorizes the Swedish intelligence agency to intercept without any warrant or court order all telephone and Internet traffic that take place within Sweden’s borders. In the United Republic of Tanzania, the Intelligence and Security Service Act 1996 enables the country’s intelligence services to conduct any investigations and investigate any person or body which it has reasonable cause to consider a risk or a source of risk or a threat to the State security. 60. The use of an amorphous concept of national security to justify invasive limitations on the enjoyment of human rights is of serious concern. 38 The concept is broadly defined 35 36 37 38 Ministries of Justice and ICTs Decree 1704. Rooted in the Criminal Procedure Code of 2004. Department of Communications. Government of India. Annual Report 2011-2012 pg. 58 – http://www.dot.gov.in/annualreport/AR%20Englsih%2011-12.pdf. G-10 law. Counter-terrorism Human Rights Council resolutions. 15