This channel operates as an independent civilian intake for individuals who are being harmed by a state, intelligence, or security body acting outside the law — not merely observed or contacted, but harmed: injury to livelihood, liberty, reputation, health, family life, or physical safety. Surveillance, harassment, and retaliation matter here because of the damage they do; concrete, demonstrable harm is what this channel documents, and it is what the courts and oversight bodies listed in Annex A are able to act on. Its mandate begins with the paradigm case — a government acting unlawfully against its own citizens — and extends to cross-border matters: a European government acting against a person on American soil, an American agency acting against a person abroad, or any other state operating beyond its own territory. Reporting suspected state misconduct through lawful channels is a recognized and protected act of civic participation in every functioning democracy. It is not an act of disloyalty, and no legitimate legal system treats it as one.

This channel is not a means of evading lawful prosecution. A person who has broken the law and is being pursued through legitimate legal process — with due process, judicial oversight, and a right of defense — falls outside its scope. Its concern begins where the conduct of the acting body is itself unlawful or non-democratic: extrajudicial action, denial of due process, or retaliation for lawful speech or association. That scope extends to harm arising from broader unlawful state programs or operations, including conduct amounting to systemic abuse or crimes against humanity, even where no individual was specifically named as a target. The operative question is never whether a person is guilty of an offense; it is whether the power acting against them is exercising its authority lawfully.

Established democracies maintain official, independent oversight bodies built for precisely this purpose: Offices of Inspector General, ombudspersons, parliamentary oversight committees, data-protection authorities, national human-rights institutions, and statutory whistleblower frameworks such as the U.S. Whistleblower Protection Act and the EU Whistleblower Protection Directive. These domestic remedies matter for a second reason as well: most international courts and treaty bodies require that they be exhausted before a complaint becomes admissible. Where they function, they are both the best-protected first point of contact and a necessary step toward any later international claim. This channel is designed to operate alongside them, not in place of them.

The function of this channel is facilitation, in three parts. First, documentation: helping a reporting party set out their account in the structured, evidence-forward form that oversight bodies and courts are able to act on — who, what, when, where, supporting records, and possible witnesses. Second, referral: identifying which of the bodies listed in Annex A has jurisdiction over the matter and meets its admissibility requirements, and forwarding the report there with the reporting party's explicit consent. Third, preservation: maintaining each report as an independent, contemporaneous record, so that a pattern too faint to establish in any single case can still be established across many.

Unlawful targeting of civilians by state and intelligence bodies is a matter of historical record, not speculation. Each program below is documented through declassified records, congressional or judicial investigation, or credible archival reporting, and is listed solely as public reference for the class of conduct this channel exists to surface. Hover any name for its documentation status and source.