US, UK = Russia, PRC
As surveillance-rating group fails to tell the difference. Here’s your world:  Â
 
Surveillance, privacy violations apparently take place in a vacuum as this survey by the US-based Electronic Privacy Information Center and the UK-based Privacy International details how supposedly free societies have trampled human rights with public surveillance cameras, fingerprint checks at borders, monitoring of money movement, etc. Survey notes this is in part due to efforts to oppress migrant masses yearning to make megabucks. Touches briefly on institutional suppression of political rights in Russia and PRC, skirts that touchy political prisoner, murder of opposition thing. Neglects to mention repeatedly demonstrated threat of terrorism in formerly free world.
Hold on, under the “Rationale for 2007 Rankings,” United States entry, two centuries of constitutional democracy and an ongoing state of war get a nod:
Democratic safeguards tend to be strong but new Congress and political dynamics show that immigration and terrorism continue to leave politicians scared and without principle.
Unclear whether all that free world blackness  includes supermarkets’ monitoring of your shopping habits via insidious shopper privilege card. Results “do not intend to comprehensively reflect the state of democracy or the full extent of legal or parliamentary health or dysfunction in these countries,”  though that might also be critical to understanding the health of one’s privacy and aid in the coloring/shading choices made on maps. The survey’s “aim is not to humiliate the worst ranking nations, but to demonstrate that it is possible to maintain a healthy respect for privacy within a secure and fully functional democracy” though I didn’t notice any helpful suggestions re endemic terrorism, controlling the flow of jihadi and drug money, massive illegal border crossing.
The clear implication of the map and findings below is that nations such as the United States, Great Britain and Australia should endeavor to be more like Greece, Romania, Slovenia, South Africa and Argentina. Though the gray blankness that is Africa, the Middle East, Central America and Central Asia is attractive.
Key findings:
The 2007 rankings indicate an overall worsening of privacy protection across the world, reflecting an increase in surveillance and a declining performance o privacy safeguards.
Concern over immigration and border control dominated the world agenda in 2007. Countries have moved swiftly to implement database, identity and fingerprinting systems, often without regard to the privacy implications for their own citizens
The 2007 rankings show an increasing trend amongst governments to archive data on the geographic, communications and financial records of all their citizens and residents. This trend leads to the conclusion that all citizens, regardless of legal status, are under suspicion.
The privacy trends have been fueled by the emergence of a profitable surveillance industry dominated by global IT companies and the creation of numerous international treaties that frequently operate outside judicial or democratic processes.
Despite political shifts in the US Congress, surveillance initiatives in the US continue to expand, affecting visitors and citizens alike.
Surveillance initiatives initiated by Brussels have caused a substantial decline in privacy across Europe, eroding protections even in those countries that have shown a traditionally high regard for privacy.
The privacy performance of older democracies in Europe is generally failing, while the performance of newer democracies is becoming generally stronger.
The lowest ranking countries in the survey continue to be Malaysia, Russia and China. The highest-ranking countries in 2007 are Greece, Romania and Canada.
The 2006 leader, Germany, slipped significantly in the 2007 rankings, dropping from 1st to 7th place behind Portugal and Slovenia.
In terms of statutory protections and privacy enforcement, the US is the worst ranking country in the democratic world. In terms of overall privacy protection the United States has performed very poorly, being out-ranked by both India and the Philippines and falling into the “black” category, denoting endemic surveillance.
The worst ranking EU country is the United Kingdom, which again fell into the “black” category along with Russia and Singapore. However for the first time Scotland has been given its own ranking score and performed significantly better than England & Wales.
Argentina scored higher than 18 of the 27 EU countries.
Australia ranks higher than Slovakia but lower than South Africa and New Zealand.
Guess who else has trouble telling the difference.
Newshog Libby, adding a link to the industrial-military complex’s growing use of unmanned aircraft, hears the wop-wop-wop of a black helicopter approaching:Â
This pretty much puts state of our nation in perspective. Not only do we have the largest prison gulag in the world, we rank at rock bottom for citizen privacy.
… How difficult do you think it would be to use this technology in America in the event the White House ‘decided’ we have a national emergency that requires the tracking of the citizenry? No habe. No posse comitatus. It all begins to add up, doesn’t it?
Andrew Sullivan, still struggling to see what is in front of his nose, chimera disdainful:
… countries with the proudest histories of individual privacy and freedom have been among those most desperate to abolish privacy for the chimera of security.
Topics: BS, Britain, China, GWOT, Russia, USA
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:50 am Comments (13) on Wednesday, January 2, 2008
13 Responses to “US, UK = Russia, PRC”
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January 2nd, 2008 at 11:17 am
Web Reconnaissance for 01/02/2008
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.
January 2nd, 2008 at 11:20 am
Sometimes I despair for the notion of privacy, but it is technology, not governmental snoopery, that is doing us in. I note on that list that the least intrusive countries are also the least technologically advanced. Wait until they catch up. In a technologically advanced world, we just may have to redefine what privacy means, rather than try to protect what was probably not all that secure anyway.
In other words, I don’t really care if every tomdick&harry marketing company is spying on my viewing and buying habits as long as I can continue to ignore their efforts to attract my attention. And I feel more secure in parking garages where muggers know they’ll be caught on camera.
January 2nd, 2008 at 11:27 am
Yeah, maybe. Still doesn’t explain why most 3rd worlders are trying to get here though does it?
Look for this rating to change significantly with a Dem administration. Nothing else will change. Just the rating.
January 2nd, 2008 at 11:31 am
Sometimes I despair for the notion of privacy, but it is technology, not governmental snoopery, that is doing us in. I note on your list that the least intrusive countries are also the least technologically advanced countries. Wait until they catch up. In a technological world, we may just have to redefine what privacy means, instead of trying to protect what was probably not all that secure to begin with.
In other words, I don’t care what marketing companies are spying on my viewing and buying habits, as long as I can continue to ignore their efforts to attract my attention. And I feel more secure in a parking garage where muggers know they’ll be caught on camera.
January 2nd, 2008 at 12:40 pm
It is a defining characteristic of the current leftist mindset that they scream about government surveillance propensities and yet, at the same time, want government to control and contain every aspect of your individual existence.
Liberal Fascism (thank you Jonah Goldberg) at its most astonishingly contradictory.
(maybe it’s just a function of which stripe of gov’t, Democrat or Republican, is doing the surveilling)
I guess cameras make the bureaucrats feel more in control. (Maybe chips under the skin, scanning the eye’s iris and access to “your” private medical information might make them feel more in control, as well.)
Welcome to the Brave New World.
But if civilized society is crumbling, all the cameras in the world aren’t going to stem the tide. London is, reportedly, the most surveilled city in the world, but there has not been any concomitant decline in violent crime.
January 2nd, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Why don’t we redefine freedom while we’re at it. Guns don’t shoot people and technology doesn’t spy on people. If the desire wasn’t there, the technology wouldn’t be there either.
Knowing someone is going to see me getting mugged makes me feel better too. I figure I’ll make UTube at the least and, if the mugging is really spectacular, I might make network news. The mugger will get a big kick out of this too. So, it’s win, win.
Actually, I would rather have security guards wandering around the parking lot instead of sitting in an office some place watching videos and drinking coffee.
January 2nd, 2008 at 4:29 pm
I agree that it is people who are doing the watching. It is the existing philosophy that allows the growing Nanny state (a logical outgrowth of the welfare state). We hand them all the tax money they need, and we allow them to pass laws that abrogates our liberty with barely a shrug (remember McCain-Feingold and the almost total, and now legal, denial of property rights of individuals by the EPA, the Parks Department, and greedy town councils, among other examples?). We’ve allowed the Climate Change folks to determine the conversation, with the result that we cannot watch even the most innocuous sitcom without being preached to, and our politicians in both state and federal houses are busy writing laws that further empower them at the expense of our liberty, freedoms, and life.
Orwell would recognize the tools of our oppression.
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:06 am
http://www.ejectejecteject.com/archives/000169.html#comments
The post at that link does a real good job of demonstrating the irreconcilable differences between the two primary mind-sets dominating today’s discussions.
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:42 am
Grimmy, I didn’t say that we live in a fascist society. I’ve read that bunch of claptrap that B.W. was answering some time ago, and answered it pretty much as he did. Of course, unlike Bill, I usually hide all evidence of my big, giant brain. Candle under a bush, or whatever. I would only disagree that the Bill of Rights is a rock hard guarantee of our rights. They’ve already set a precedent with McCain-Feingold, which is a blatant instance of government censorship of political speech, which law was written and passed by Congress, signed by Bush, and passed muster with the Supreme Court. I would say three strikes and we’re out. The government never sets a precedent without further actions based on that precedent.
If things were different, if individual rights were still considered a sacred thing by the citizens of this country, I wouldn’t worry. But that is not the case.
The time to pay attention is always. There are always those who are ready to take advantage of power over people. Remember about eternal vigilance? I know you’ve paid attention to what has happened to Britain, with their long history of constitutional freedoms. They’ve accepted ideas that have completely disarmed them. Most of them, from what I’ve read, don’t recognize that they’ve given up their liberty for nothing. They even managed to rationalize the terrorists among them. I should think that Rational Man would know to learn from them before it is too late for us.
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:36 am
saltydog:
The point I was attempting, rather sloppily, to drive at is…
The differences between “left” and “right” in this world go way way past disagreement and well into the realm of completely different realities. There is no place of common ground from which honest discussion can proceed.
The differences are down almost to the level of alphabet. The words may sound the same but dont even mean the same things when used by either side any more.
This doesn’t not mean I’m implying some sort of moral equivalences bullshit either. The left’s ideals are totally dependent upon the destruction of everything the US has ever stood for. Honest leftists will openly and proudly admit this.
Leftists are every bit as much a blood enemy of the US as are the jihadi filth currently following their convictions into the fight against us. The only difference with leftists is that they are, by their vary nature, too cowardly and passive aggressive oriented to actually man up and put their blood where their mouths are.
Eventually that will change. We’ll see a rebirth of such groups as the Red Brigades, Weathermen Underground, Red Army Faction, etc etc soon enough.
And of course, anyone attempting to stand up against the betrayals, degeneracies, intellectual inbreeding, disinformation, black propagandizing, etc etc of the left is automatically slandered with the fascist label.
To your average leftist, a fascist is anyone that disagrees with them in any way, to any degree on any subject, including breakfast cereal choices.
Racist is used in exactly the same way by those enemy of reality.
The biggest delusion going these days is that there is any real possibility that this rend in our social fabric can ever be peacefully mended.
War is coming. And as usual in such cases, it will be war of the must uncivil sort.
January 3rd, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Where are our courts taking us ?
In light of absurdities such as these.
http://pajamasmedia.com/2008/01/sharia_libel_law_now_applies_i.php
January 3rd, 2008 at 9:23 pm
tanstaafl, “London is, reportedly, the most surveilled city in the world, but there has not been any concomitant decline in violent crime.”
The problem is that the laws have taken the impetus away from the police to do anything. Why worry about rushing to the scene of a home invasion that’s on camera if the law requires the victim to vacate the premises.
If the criminal gets stabbed then the resident is at fault so why worry about cameras if you’re the perp.
January 4th, 2008 at 10:51 am
I did recall that the CCTV (closed circuit TV) in the London tube caught pictures of those subway bombers and led to their arrest.
And Mohammed Atta on camera checking in at the Boston airport, neatly trimmed hair, trustworthy blue oxford cloth shirt.