ABSTRACT
Less than two kilometres from the event which accelerated the introduction of surveillance laws, the attack on the Twin Towers in Manhattan, the PEN American Center – a literary and human rights organisation – published extensive research into the effect of surveillance on writers four months after Snowden's exposures. Titled: 'Chilling Effects: NSA surveillance drives writers to self-censor' the report said that in human rights and free expression communities it was a widely shared assumption that the 'explosive growth and proliferating' of surveillance technologies must be harmful – to intellectual freedom, to creativity and to social discourse. The report found that the chilling effects stand out most starkly in the case of reporting on the intelligence community, national security and law enforcement – 'all areas of legitimate – indeed, extremely important – public concern.' Freedom of expression was under threat and, as a result, freedom of information was imperilled as well.
