Global Chilling: The Impact of Mass Surveillance on International Writers
'Global Chilling: The Impact of Mass Surveillance on International Writers' (pdf) is a new report by the PEN America Center demonstrating the damaging impact of surveillance by the United States and other governments on free expression and creative freedom around the world.
The Fritt Ord Foundation has provided USD 50 000 in support for the international survey and subsequent report.
The report is based on a survey of nearly 800 writers living in 50 countries, conducted in Fall 2014. The findings are alarming: concern about surveillance is now nearly as high among writers living in liberal democracies (75%) as among those living in non-democracies (80%). The levels of self-censorship reported by writers living in liberal democratic countries (34%) is substantial, even when compared to the levels reported by writers living in authoritarian or semi-democratic countries (61% and 44%, respectively). And more than half (53%) of the writers worldwide who responded to PEN’s survey think that mass surveillance has significantly damaged U.S. credibility as a global champion of free expression for the long term.
Global Chilling provides an international perspective on the concerns documented in PEN’s 2013 Chilling Effects report showing that one in six American writers had begun self-censoring just months after revelations of the United States’ sweeping surveillance programs. That report provided the first concrete piece of evidence of the harms of mass surveillance on free expression.
