HRW slams India's spying on online activities

An Indian government move to implement blanket eavesdropping of online activities, telephone calls and text messages is "chilling", Human Rights Watch said yesterday as controversy raged in the US about Internet surveillance.
The Central Monitoring System was announced in parliament late last year and is a so-called "single window" allowing Indian state bodies such as the National Investigation Agency or tax authorities to monitor communications.
New York-based Human Rights Watch demanded a full public debate about "the intended use of the system before proceeding" as the monitoring was created without parliamentary approval.
In December 2012, the Indian government said in a statement its monitoring system would "lawfully intercept Internet and telephone services".
A government spokesman declined to comment Wednesday on media reports that the government had begun rolling out the system.