Contemporary challenges to freedom of expression 2016, para. 19

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Paragraph text: Yet States often treat national security or public order as a label to legitimate any restriction. The Human Rights Council recognized this problem in 2008 in its resolution 7/36, stressing the need to ensure that invocation of national security, including counter-terrorism, is not used unjustifiably or arbitrarily to restrict the right to freedom of opinion and expression. One way to resist unjustifiable or arbitrary invocation of either justification is to insist that Governments demonstrate the risk that specific expression poses to a definite interest in national security or public order, that the measure chosen complies with necessity and proportionality and is the least restrictive means to protect the interest, and that any restriction is subject to independent oversight. In 2016, I shared with a federal judge in the United States of America how article 19 may be used to assess proposals to gain access to the content of encrypted personal digital devices. In my letter to the Court, I noted that alternative measures were available to the Government to conduct its investigation into the 2015 massacre in San Bernardino, California, and that the proposed order would implicate the security and freedom of expression of what would likely be a vast number of people (and would thus be disproportionate).

Body: Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression

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Reference: SR Freedom of Opinion, Report to the UNGA (2016), A/71/373, para. 19.