WASHINGTON: The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists launched a petition campaign on Monday to prevent digital surveillance and intimidation of the media.

The campaign — “Right to Report in the Digital Age” — followed revelations that the United States and other Western democracies have used the Internet to monitor journalists.

“The surveillance, intimidation, and exploitation of the press have raised unsettling questions about whether the US and other Western democracies risk undermining journalists’ ability to report in the digital age,” CPJ observed.

More than 45 CPJ partners, including the Associated Press, Getty Images, Bloomberg News, The Huffington Post, First Look Media, Slate, Global Voices Advocacy, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, support the campaign.

CPJ argued that the monitor also gave ammunition to repressive governments seeking to tighten restrictions on media and the Internet.

“When journalists believe they might be targeted by government surveillance systems, pulled into an overbroad criminal investigation, or searched and interrogated about their work at the US border, their ability to inform the public is eroded,” said CPJ Advocacy Director Courtney Radsch.

“So too is the US government’s credibility on key issues such as press freedom and other human rights, Internet governance, and the rule of law”.

Published in Dawn, September 9th, 2014