The court says that there are implied limitations on the power of the Parliament to change this - which means that these features cannot be undone, no matter what law is passed by Parliament. It includes federalism, separation of powers, an independent judiciary, parliamentary democracy and much more. This structure isn’t basic merely to the book, but to the nation itself.
The Supreme Court has, in multiple judgments, spelt out what the ‘basic structure’ of a Constitution is.
ANDHA KANOON VIETNAMESE SOFTWARE
The ability of the government of a country to use a software like Pegasus against its own citizens means the end of that country. There is a third danger, and I will try to express it in the simplest terms. I have spelt out two dangers thus far - invasion of what is private but true to us, and being framed by what has been planted on us maliciously. Multiple reports tell us that this has been done in the case of the Bhima Koregaon accused. When governments acquire software like Pegasus, they acquire the ability not only to invade us, but to plant files of all kinds that they want to. It is an invasion of our minds, our homes, our loved ones. It is recording your children, your partners in all their emotional and physical states, it is listening to every breath you take. If you’re taking your phone to the toilet, it is recording you there. If this isn’t horrifying enough, it also controls our cameras and the mic in the phone. Basically every single thing that happens on our phone.
Surveillance software like Pegasus copies all our photographs from our phones, records every key stroke we touch, every message we write, even if we don’t send it. Apple has recently made changes so that now we know which app is looking at which data. Governments and activists across the world continue to demand that Big Tech protect our privacy. Even if none of it is criminal in any way. We live in the belief that a part of us - even the part which finds expression on our phones - will remain hidden from the world. We don’t say to ourselves, let me go ahead and publish this, Google and Facebook will see it anyway. We don’t publish our texts - those that we type and send and those that we type but never send - on Instagram or Twitter. We don’t publish our search history on our Facebook feed. While Big Tech may well be getting access to all of it there is a reason that we don’t put every photograph we have on our Facebook feed. Privacy attaches to the person since it is an essential facet of the dignity of the human being.” - Supreme Court of India in Justice K.S. While the legitimate expectation of privacy may vary from the intimate zone to the private zone and from the private to the public arenas, it is important to underscore that privacy is not lost or surrendered merely because the individual is in a public place. Privacy protects heterogeneity and recognises the plurality and diversity of our culture. Personal choices governing a way of life are intrinsic to privacy. Privacy safeguards individual autonomy and recognises the ability of the individual to control vital aspects of his or her life. Privacy also connotes a right to be left alone.
“ Privacy includes at its core the preservation of personal intimacies, the sanctity of family life, marriage, procreation, the home and sexual orientation. The smartphone is also our private diary, an album of photographs of everyone we know - our partners, our children. We can click on an image, enlarge it and spend four seconds looking at it - it could be something we would feel embarrassed about even if it was in our closest or our most intimate friend knew about. We may feel fear or desire which we want to read more about on the internet. Over the past decade the ‘smartphone’ has, in a way, become an extension of our internal dialogue. I have many thoughts that I would like to keep to myself I’m sure you do too. Our internal dialogue is perhaps the most private part of our ‘self’. If the use of such technology was put to vote, how would you vote? Many seemingly-persuasive excuses can be offered: Crime control, national security and so on. Imagine if in your lifetime, the government acquired such technology and mandated that every citizen’s brain be linked to it. Not just to sense an emotion, such as euphoria/despair/anxiety, but specifically read thoughts such as ‘I would like to eat an apple’ or ‘I feel sexually attracted to my friend’s husband Ramesh’. Scientists of various affiliations (independent, corporate, government) continue to research technology that could one day read our mind.
0 kommentar(er)
