Fwd: Litigating Universal Cognitive Liberty

Gunnar Larson g at xny.io
Thu May 19 10:39:38 PDT 2022


https://litigationfinancejournal.com/litigating-universal-cognitive-liberty/

Litigating Universal Cognitive Liberty

Freedom of thought is recognized by the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights (UDHR). Interestingly,, cognitive liberty is not recognized as an
international human right. Some want to change that, making the argument
that humanity has the right to be free to think whatever they want (freedom
of thought).

The Ottawa Citizen reports
<https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/military-leaders-saw-pandemic-as-unique-opportunity-to-test-propaganda-techniques-on-canadians-forces-report-says>
that
the Canadian armed forces have launched ‘psychological operations’ as an
experiment in government propaganda to counter civil disobedience.
International human rights scholars are quick to point out that the lack of
protection of cognitive liberty in such instances is due to the relative
lack of technology capable of directly interfering with mental autonomy at
the time the core human rights treaties were created.

Similar to a ransomware attack, the technology behind such operations can
be abused. Canada is said to have exploited advanced technologies without
the authority to do so. Even worse, it is alleged that Canada forcefully
abused technology in the unsanctioned production of reports that appeared
to be aimed at cognitive activities of Canadians.

   - Other reports highlight similar technologies being explored by the New
   York City Police Department.
   - In 2021
   <https://gothamist.com/news/city-settles-lawsuit-protesters-who-accused-nypd-firing-sound-cannon-them>,
   members of the National Lawyers Guild won $650,000 in litigation financed
   fees from abuse of the technology in New York.

The semantics empowering freedom of thought as a human right hold new
opportunities for modern international recognition of the right to
cognitive liberty.
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