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Global Privacy Rankings Released
djmurdoch writes to alert us to the release of Privacy International's privacy ranking of 37 nations. This came out of PI and EPIC's annual Privacy and Human Rights global study, which this year runs to 1,200 pages. From a Globe and Mail article on the rankings: "Germany and Canada are the best defenders of privacy, and Malaysia and China the worst, an international rights group said in a report released Wednesday. Britain was rated as an endemic surveillance society, at No. 33, just above Russia and Singapore... The United States did only slightly better, at No. 30, ranked between Israel and Thailand, with few safeguards and widespread surveillance." PI's study coincided with a report from Britain's information commissioner warning that the UK could "sleep-walk into a surveillance society". The nation now has one CCTV camera for every 14 people.
more funniest hidden videos. Right?
China's the worst? Really?
have you read the Moderation Guidelines Addendum?
Woot!
Congrats to Deutschland also.
Never thought we'd rank so high on the list.
-b
They gave out a single 5 in any category. You think your scale might be a bit tight. I also have to greatly disagree with some of the assessment, but hey...whatever
Since the United States is pretty good at surveillance we should monitor Canada's citizens for them because they can't seem too, I bet we would get bonus points for that. Maybe even the high score.
In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
And no-one gives a shit.
Privacy activist: "Hey! I don't like the look of these CCTV cameras/ID cards/vehicle tracking/databases of everything that you do."
Everyone else: "Meh. Doesn't affect me."
...and the US is near the bottom?
Hello, America! Talk about Britain sleep walking into a surveillance society, the U.S. seems to have already done it.
Time to get on the ball now that the elections are up. Vote out the incuments!
"They that would trade essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither." -- Benjamin Franklin
My blog
Really. You should have no concerns about the safeguarding of your most intimate secrets. What you SHOULD be concerned about is your unhealthy attraction to midgets in furry costumes. Sicko.
"He's sees you when you're sleeping
He knows if you're awake
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness' sake
Oh, you better watch out..."
Where were you when the voynix came?
Let me tell you that Privacy is an illusion... I have had firsthand experience with the RCMP in Canada.
* They have moles (aka spies) in cities and townships and schools
* Wealthy corporations hire criminals or corrupt officials, military men, "ex-spies", etc to spy on populations in "democractic" nations.
* Governments co-operate to spy on their own people to manage dissent and document instabilities, people, etc.
* Many internet providers and other internet businesses are subsidiaries of larger parent companies that collect as much data as they can, illegally or legally, either directly through their own company or through shell companies (i.e. contractors, foreign businesses, etc).
* Free email services are not private
* Web boards and google, many people on the internet "anonymously" post the intimate details of their personal and professional life to web-boards around the internet to get answers, or whatever they are looking for (sympathy, cheer oneself up, the intellectual stimulation, etc).
* Data mining and Crawlers that crawl the internet and hack into sites (backdoors) or directly but do no damage, they just want to match the data with IP addresses and any other relevant information.
Lastly satellite technology and 3D mapping make privacy a thing of the past. Computational power will make tracking all objects on the ground fuck-shit easy.
Go see maps.google.com and go get a small taste then imagine what the real intelligence agencies must have.
You can hardly say that British people aren't aware, given that you can't even turn around without seeing a 'CC surveillance in this area' sign.
Let's face it - most people don't care. 'sleepwalking into' is a nice and idealistic frame of reference, but not very applicable.
I'm not particularly bothered either, the arguments against surveillance outside private homes never seemed extremely compelling. It all appears to come down to that "if we ever get a military coup or fascist government that abandons the election process, they will have the tools of oppression laid out for them". Is this so that without cameras we could form underground resistances with tunnell networks? To be fair I can't really see the difference - any such government would need to have a large mass of people behind it, whether military or popular - and the first thing to happen would be that a lot more would join, and there would be patrols on the streets, with lots of shootings of random dissidents, checkpoints with identity papers at transit points and workplaces, and cameras rapidly introduced. This type of dictatorial society would not appear to be significantly aided by the current set of cameras, especially since the number also includes a great deal that aren't linked to any central system. Besides, such a government couldn't arise without the aforementioned support of either the population or they army, which can be seen a long time before it happens, and Britain is very far off the mark.
Of course, you could envision a different kind of government - where there are still elections, but where cameras are used to track and kill dissidents and troublesome political opposition. Many countries in the world has seen this kind of government, and it has pretty much been both very well-known at the time and dealt with.
Where are countries like Japan, Singapore, South Korea? Where are countries like Iran? Were a lot of these countries left off because adding them in will skew results, showing data that the organisers don't want us to see?
To suggest Britain is sleep-walking into a surveillance society fails to address a key factor: Many people welcome or even demand the increased surveillance and lack of privacy.
I don't know whether it's due to perceived reductions in crime associated with invasive surveillance, the results of Government spinning to sell the idea of perpetual monitoring or the FUD coming from the print media.
There is a significant minority in the UK that greatly dislikes the direction we're going in, that is aware of the steady decrease in privacy, and that is getting ignored by the bulk of the population who feel that if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear.
I'm struggling to comprehend how the current direction can be reversed, given a Government bent on introducing new totalitarian measures and constantly pushing the boundaries of the Human Rights Act with the tacit support of the majority of the voting public.
as the days go by and technology advances, we get closer and closer to waking up in 1984. Lets just hope we know how to check the calendar and change the day huh?
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
I live in Canada and I am kind of bored with it. I've always wanted to live somewhere else. I guess it's that whole, "the grass is always greener" thing. But everytime I look at another country to move to there is always something glaringly wrong.
I had considered living and working in England. My grandfather was from there and claiming UK ancestory seemed my most likely option for gaining entry. But the UK is becoming more and more like Orwell's 1984. Surveillance cameras everywhere. Granted I have nothing to hide but the amount of surveillance is disturbing.
I have also considered living and working in the US. Unfortunately the sector I work in has been decimated by layoffs, cutbacks and outsourcing overseas. Top that off with the current "anti-immigration" mentality that seems to exist (I see a lot of job posting that say "No H1Bs or No visa sponsorship") as well as the current government's move towards eroding freedoms and I am uncomfortable visiting as a tourist not to mention living and working there.
I have also considered working in Japan. But with recent events in North Korea, that option is quickly becoming undesirable.
I guess that other saying is right too, "there's no place like home".
Canada & Germany both have evolved strong privacy laws because they have strong, competant governmental and business entities which might use the information prejudicially. The US has far more checks-and-balances with weaker (but larger), less competant (but more likely malicious) governmental and business entities. Privacy appears less valued in the US due to increased mobility/competition.
Societies differ. Or do you actually want homogeneity -- One World Government?
Is this any less stupid than the "Freedom of Speech" list in which they pick various arcane criteria with which to rate countries?
The same kind of list that people bring up every time some debate about how evil the US has become gets going?
Oh Look the US came in 38th on the Puppies list!! Haa haa, stupid America, even Chile has more puppies!
I'm going to come up with my own list, it will be called the "Green Grass list" and will rank countries based on where people would most like to move to. Speaking as someone who has lived in Europe for several years, and have faced the "why did you leave America?!" question a thousand times, I have a sneaking suspicion that the US of A would top that list.
I'm an American, and I've lived in Europe for several years,
Greece ranks way above US across the board???
Come on, wasn't Greek just trashed as barely being above China in this regard just last Tuesday by everyone on Slashdot?
Greek Blog Aggregator Arrested
This survey is a joke. I just don't know exactly what the agenda is, but it is far from accurate or fair.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying US should be number one (or even close), just that the E.U. rates too high given the spotty track record of many of its members.
Letter To Iran
What scares me is not really the lack of privacy (hey, if your looking to go blind, go ahead and spy on some of my activities!) but rather what gets done with the information. So long as we work to maintain a firm grasp on the kind of people who are in charge of the info, I'm alright. Sadly, I am not alright right now. Our grip over those who watch us is slippery if even existant; we need better congressional oversight and that'll require better citizen oversight. I'm very meticulous when I choose my votes; I look into just about everything, especially the Library of Congress' records on ledgislation (and who voted for them) but I know plenty of people who don't either because they have a them-or-us attitude or they simply don't have the time. And that's what gets the wrong people watching us; that's what scares me.
Demented But Determined.
To Americans who believe that Canada is just like you guys except colder.
- we know we're doing better than many countries when it comes to human rights but we are not happy and most likely never will be.
- we don't have a ton of people chanting patriot nonsense on national television. Most of the time we make fun of politicians regardless of affiliation.
- one of the biggest reasons why we are doing so good is because we have you guys just south of us. We look at what you are doing and point out why it isn't right, then model something different to use as our policies.
Thank you for being so obviously wrong.
televisions watch you!
One swallow does not a fellatrix make
Big deal, its endemic, I say there still isn't enough cameras and all the camera's are in public places anyway. I'm being watched every day by somebody as it is and I think its fear mongering by this study group. It isn't 1984 yet nor are they being used to the detriment of our society. As long as they are not in our homes and there are no secret police who pick you off the street KGB style (that work with relation to the public cameras) I'm okay with it. In fact thinking about it while writing this paragraph, I want the secret police as well. It'll put fear back into the delinquent children running amok in this country. If we take away some basic freedoms and restrict the public, they might realise and appreciate what freedoms they had and they won't be as apathetic as they already are. If we stop thinking about how poorly other countries have it and stop pretending to be smug about our own state of affairs, once we KNOW they're gone, this country will be a better place.
Jonathanjk.com
Warning: parent post contains a site that is run by an organization which uses your data to commit identity theft against you. However, it's an excellent example of what to avoid given the privacy nature of this topic.
It seems to me that most of the local ISP's have clauses stating that they may covertly monitor and log your internet activity. There was a bit of a discussion on /. about that at some time, I believe, as several ISP's had sneaky policy changes implemented
A dutch minister got into hot water when he said that when 2/3 of the dutch voters wanted to introduce sharia (muslim) law in the netherland then this is possible. This is absolutly true because that is the amount of votes needed to change the "grond wet" the ground law of the netherlands.
2/3 sounds a lot like when you consider that ALL foreigners even counting second and third generation imigrants still don't even make up 10% of the dutch population.
But still, it scared the hell out of some people while it is in fact merely the logical result of a democracy. If the majority decides police then you end up with policy decided by the majority.
You can not just say, oh but I think the majority is wrong and therefore we should not listen to them. That is the way of the more classic minority dictatorship.
What was strangly missing from this argument was the far more likely 2/3 majority vote of say having all minorities deported and gassed. While the germans took away the right to vote on the dutch holocaust the sad fact is that holland seemed all to eager to please and is one of the worst offending occupied nations. Italy an axis nation did a lot better in preventing the holocaust (wich thank you steven spielberg did not just affect jews).
So now that we got the old nazi's in, what about privacy. Well, the simple fact is that the majority of people just don't give a fuck unless it is in an area that directly affects them. Speed camera's. Oh they are evil and invade privacy of speeders, but the same people that are anti-speed camera want to put lots and lots of surveillance on people on public transport because they do not want their taxes to be wasted on people riding buses/trains without paying.
Frankly for the majority of people it doesn't really matter, just as 60 years ago it did not matter to most dutch people that their religion or sexual preference or political leanings were know to the german occupiers. The fast majority of them were "in the clear" and why should they care about homosexual communist jews?
Neither will the majority of people be swayed by the typical privacy advocate because the avarage privacy advocate belongs in a straight jacket. They usually start of sensible but tend to slide off into lala-land of consipiracy theories (complex conspiracy theories involving secret goverments are hard to sell on a majority that would be only to happy to accept a fiendishly cunning overlord type of goverment because anything is better then the bumbling baffoons we got now).
Yes loss of privacy might be something to worry about but you are going to have to be pretty clear on how it affects the majority of people in ways they care about. Frankly most privacy advocates just don't do that. How exactly does a CCTV affect me unless I am breaking the law? Yes, most people do believe that those who are innocent have nothing to fear from the police. You cannot help but believe that when the only people who object to speeding camera's are speeders. The only people that object to soccer transportation restrictions are hooligans, etc etc.
The best thing privacy advocates could do is make sure to distance themselves from these people as far as possible and focus on the majority of people that are affected by law breakers and think increased surveillance will help them.
Human rights, eh, I don't know. But privacy? It's not a big issue here in Beijing, where I've happened to live for the last year and a half. First and foremost, there are almost no contracts that you must agree to. You anonymously buy prepaid cards for your anonymously purchased SIM card that you put in your anonymously purchased phone. Online purchases are done using phone credits that you purchased anonymously. Most rental agreements are done directly with the landlord to avoid paying taxes. A good portion of the vehicles on the road are unregistered. Many of the citizens are not even registered as existing. Gas and electricity are purchased anonymously through smart cards and recharged in the home. You pay for water anonymously to a lady that comes to your door to collect. International credit cards are accepted almost no where, and the one national credit card is not used very much. Everything is in cash. The country is too busy building up it's economy and bringing the poor into the fold to mess around putting surveilance everywhere. Airport security is less strict that PRE-9/11 US airports.
In retrospect, it looks like most of the stuff I just mentioned is in regards to corporations and their respect of privacy. People in the US (I'm a US citizen) seem to think it's OK for corporations to keep all this data on you, because you supposedly agreed to it. But is there any other way to not live like a caveman other than to give up your privacy? And who believes that the government and the public corporations aren't already one entity anyway? How many senators and congressmen take money from corps? How many of them are actually investors and on the board of directors for these corps?
It's ironic that you have a far greater level of privacy in China than in the US.
At the government level privacy in China a different story, but even then it's not so bad. Internet and other communication are monitored, but that is easily circumvented with the use of SSL. They are monitored in every other country in the world as well. In fact, China may be more honest here for at least admitting it publicly.
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
Reminds me of a recent clip I saw of Bill Maher saying it's time for a America to stop bragging about being #1 and start acting like it.
No sig.
Is this any less stupid than the "Freedom of Speech" list in which they pick various arcane criteria with which to rate countries?
The same kind of list that people bring up every time some debate about how evil the US has become gets going?
Oh Look the US came in 38th on the Puppies list!! Haa haa, stupid America, even Chile has more puppies!
I'm going to come up with my own list, it will be called the "Green Grass list" and will rank countries based on where people would most like to move to. Speaking as someone who has lived in Europe for several years, and have faced the "why did you leave America?!" question a thousand times, I have a sneaking suspicion that the US of A would top that list.
Trying again without the extraneous text at the bottom, oops
Your font is annoying
If you prefer pictures and charts
Sent from my desktop computer
Years of keen observation have shown that Americans prefer the aggressively jingoistic Arial 12 point, so admirably, he's made his adjustments.
Net results from the study, for all you who don't want to RTF[PDF]A.
GERMANY 3.9
CANADA 3.6
BELGIUM 3.2
AUSTRIA 3.2
GREECE 3.1
HUNGARY 3
ARGENTINA 3
FRANCE 2.9
POLAND 2.9
PORTUGAL 2.9
CYPRUS 2.9
FINLAND 2.7
ITALY 2.6
LUXEMBOURG 2.6
LATVIA 2.6
ESTONIA 2.6
MALTA 2.6
DENMARK 2.5
CZECH REP. 2.5
IRELAND 2.5
SLOVAKIA 2.5
LITHUANIA 2.5
NEWZEALAND 2.5
SPAIN 2.4
AUSTRALIA 2.4
SLOVENIA 2.3
NETHERLANDS 2.3
SWEDEN 2.2
ISRAEL 2.2
US 2
THAILAND 1.9
PHILIPPINES 1.9
UK 1.5
SINGAPORE 1.4
RUSSIA 1.4
MALAYSIA 1.3
CHINA 1.3
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
Farnsworth : Now, that evil robot Santa can't get to us here, unless any of us are stupid enough to leave this house. In a related matter, you'll all be delivering a sack of children's letters directly to Santa at his death fortress on Neptune.
They're there affecting their effect.
Cameras in public places? I'm all for that. My workplace is a lot friendlier for it - we don't lock the doors, just have a camera on the approach to them. Members of the public can and do wander in. It's nice.
:)
However, I don't use loyalty cards, pay cash for any purchase even slightly out of the ordinary (books, etc), have protested against the proposed ID cards, keep my phone turned off when in not use (which may not help), take computer security seriously, and had a lot of fun trying to poison Echelon by emailing probable keywords around. Basically, I'm a privacy fan.
Cameras would only be a problem for me if they were joined together in some kind of global tracking system using something like face recognition. An IT project I'm happy to say is vastly out of the UK government's league
This is fucking idiotic. Privacy my ass.
Everybody in Germany is required by law to register with the Polizei who must always be kept informed of your current address (Polizeiliche Anmeldung.) - something completely unimaginable in USA.
Another "ranking" that makes no sense whatsoever.
Good point. I'd love to see some kind of foundation create a framework for describing comprehensive agendas with priority-balanced interests and strategies for change. Ideally it wouldn't be restricted to a single political camp or philosophy, but could accommodate multiple self-selected groups (or "parties," for lack of a better term).
The salient measure of these things is "where do people rank this issue's importance and urgency within the context their total list of socio-political concerns," not "how many people are buzzing about this issue right this minute?".
What people think should be *done* about the issue is just another dimension on things.
Pi Ran Out
International survey Published!
US Sucks!
Film at 11:00!
next!
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
here it is.
P.S.
When I have the money, I promise to buy The Complete Calvin and Hobbes. Arr.
... AND we use Courier up here, not Times New Roman or Arial or any of those pansy kerning fonts. Equal space for all letters; that's how you can tell we're Canadian, eh?
On the sidewalk, some guy asks me for 50 cents while I'm bicycling past. Hassles me for ignoring him.
Etiquitte favors norm deviants over norm enforcers. As long as this "politically correct" inversion of the past is true, then UK will slap cameras and gov't Anti-Social Behavior Orders everywhere. A "study by the Institute for Public Policy Research suggests Britain's youth are among the most badly behaved in Europe." bbc.
Ultimately I blame the Prussian education model unlike the summation in the BBC article. Counter-culture has won against the sheeple model! I say let it go, let school vouchers allow schools that aren't constantly sued safety labelled politically correct rebel factories.
If you need text styles to communicate then you don't have a message.
It's hard to compare between countries but for those of you getting a sense that Canada is so great for privacy ... just like the USA, we have our own government and police spying on citizens. The RCMP arrested a Canadian engineer (Maher Arar, Canadian citizen), presumably after monitoring him covertly, and collaborated with the US Government. The RCMP handed him over to the USA, who then sent him to Syria. He was tortured and detained there.
After returning to Canada, the RCMP continued a smear campaign and tried to identify the man as a terrorist, even though recent documents (from a government inquiry) show that there was no evidence to this effect. The national police did not take measures to clear the man's name, either with the USA or domestically.
Just remember that, next time you think you have freedom and privacy typing away at your office. It's quite possible the national police or spy agency is monitoring your activities, and who knows maybe you too can be labeled a terrorist
Tony Blair has called for all innocent citizens to be forcibly DNA swabbed. Since the Govt stated they would link the police databases to the National Identity Register (pg 5), this would mean our DNA, our tax/benefits records and detailed tracking of our car movements via ANPR will be cross-indexed into a single surveillance dossier.
Furthermore, you will be denied a new passport unless you give up this information, according to the ID Cards Act.
This comes two months after Gordon Brown was reported to be "planning a massive expansion of the ID cards project that would widen surveillance of everyday life by allowing high-street businesses to share confidential information with police databases."
He described how "police could be alerted as soon as a wanted person used a biometric-enabled cash card or even entered a building via an iris-scan door."
More details of how the National Identity Register will be the hub of Britain's Surveillance State
Germany and Canada were not mentioned in the investigation of the 9-11 attacks ... oh wait
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
I really doubt there is as much digital privacy in Canada. The lines between these two countries gets blurred as internet traffic travels between routers north and south of the border. We know the US Government actively monitors all internet traffic with a huge data mining effort on the part of the NSA.
Doing this, the US government is also able to learn an unbelievable amount of info about Canadian citizens, and the government. Many Canadians have their physical servers located in the USA (myself included). There are firms in the USA who are even contracted to do jobs for the Canadian government. There is no doubt that lots of private Canadian citizens data is made available to US authorities by virtue of the fact that it is processed by service industries located in the USA.
Hell, if I did a traceroute to most of my friends' destination MX hosts I would find traffic going through the USA. There is virtually no digital privacy in Canada
So if a KGB official killed a little girl, he can be exposed. But if he molested her before killing her, then he can live out a comfortable state-provided retirement at his country daca, secure in the knowledge that's he's protected by EU perverse privacy laws.
We really should get over the illusion that Western Europe, particularly Germany and France, provide any sort of model for us, in privacy laws, in economic policies or in foreign affairs.
The study focuses on the laws and such in the countries, and sets a grade according to those. The actual enforcement of those laws are not 100% equal in all countries. Therefore it only lists the theoretical freedom, not the actual.
Our politicians in the UK don't give a rat's ass about anything except knocking the opposition in the chambers. *NOTHING* else matters. Absolutely nothing.
... as a fully owned vassal state of the US government. Every US President always comes and gives us a nice little pat on the back and if we've been good obedient poodles, a nice candy. Our politicians are of course over the moon when that happens, it fully justifies all the blood spilled everywhere across the globe.
I think that even the US model of politicians being in the pockets of the corps is preferable to ours, at least it shows some interest in something, ie. money. Our politicians are just simply morons. They're so clinically stupid that we're *GLAD* when one of them goes beyond mere moronhood into something that shows initiative, like corruption.
Both parties are at each others' throats without cease, yet they say exactly the same things on alternative days, the manifestos have zero relationship to what they do when in power, no promises are EVER kept, except possibly by interpreting them in reverse. They make everything more complicated by the day, with huge reams of additional laws but nothing ever removed from the books. Voting has no purpose, since both parties just say the same things using different words, and the electoral system is rigged against a third party getting into power.
On the international front, our leaders are stalwart defenders of our unalienable sovereignty
Our civil services have all the information on everything we do, yet *WE* are supposed to fill in our tax assessments ourselves. And then they have the gall to charge us for the fact that we've done the work. And then they fine us if we get it wrong, since they knew all the actual details anyway. Christ.
We used to be just a mild nanny state. Now we've become a complete police state, papers requested everywhere like in pre-war Germany --- my Dad actually fought in the war to keep our freedom, but we've been invaded and imprisoned anyway, by our own government. Surveillance is everywhere, the Union Jack should really have a CCTV camera painted on it to reflect the state of the country. And at the same time as a police state, the nanny state has now gone totally barmy, with everything that is interestingly risky but not taxable or licensed being disallowed.
Speed controls are everywhere, not just the old max speed cameras but average speed checks now too, plus speed bumps all over residential areas (no, they won't pay for broken suspensions). Plus they're now placing the most incredibly dangerous 2-point chicanes in the middle of nice straight roads so that you have to reduce speed to 15mph or else you crash into the chicaned oncoming traffic -- so mind-numbingly idiotic that they must have trawled the mental institutions to come up with that one.
It's just no bloody good. But WTF can we do?
I am also a privacy activist. While it is true that you seem to take more care than others in preserving your privacy, your methods are inadequate for protect yourself against the British government.
You must remember that any information that uniquely identifies you can and will be used against you. You must never drop your guard. For example, since the government started putting RFID tags inside banknotes, I pay for items using only £1 and £2 coins. I keep them sealed in a lead container for obvious reasons. Also, I do not use a bank. Instead, I keep my savings in my basement in gold bullion. This also means my savings can still be accessed after bank closing hours.
Our address is registered as abandoned and several hundred meters below sea level. Our mailing address is actually a post office box several towns away maintained under a fake identity.
Our employers hold no correct information about us and pay us only in precious metals and stones.
Paying for items with cash (coins only) only is a wise step toward protecting yourself, but I also remove all book covers and replace them with blank cardboard sheets so that no one can see what I'm reading (and to shed any tracking/monitoring equipment embedded in the cover).
I do not own a telephone (land line or cellular) and use only public (street) telephones to call others. We keep a list of public telephone boxes in our area and cycle through them randomly for each phone call we need to make. When speaking on the phone, we use special callsigns to identify one another and only speak in pig latin.
When leaving the house, my wife always wears a burka and we both wear flat soled shoes (with no grips or other markings) at least 3 sizes to large, but stuffed with filling to make up the difference. To remain inconspicuous and unidentifiable, I wear a suit, bowler hat, and face-sized Granny Smith apple mask at all times. Behind the eye sockets, I wear heavily tinted sunglasses and colored contact lenses.
We both shave all hair from our bodies, wear tissues over our fingertips, and ensure none of our skin is exposed. In case we cut ourselves and accidentally leave a bloodstain, we carry a bag containing blood from several other people, which we then use to cover the stain.
Lastly, we never use computers or the internet.
Oh, crap.
Mentioned without comment: Echelon and UKUSA.
I'm here EdgeKeep Inc.
Your question got straight to the heart of the matter and its something I've noticed. In the US, our society seems to demand very little in the way of protections from Corporate snooping into our lives, but we get very angry when we learn of Government's monitoring of our lives. This contrasts with much of the rest of the world, where governments are not automatically assumed to be evil, but corporations are. Particularly in Germany, there is a sense that the Government is there to protect people from invasion of people's rights by the Corporations. They have very good laws to keep corporations out of everyone's private life. The question needs to be raised, "Which is worse, corporate or government monitoring of civiliians?" I feel the answer is that neither is worse, they are both subject to abuse. Take the US for example, where the government has simply sidestepped the provisions we have against it monitoring our lives and started using private corporations, data-miners, to gather the exact same information they could have had they been allowed to carry out the task themselves. It really doesn't matter if the government or a corporation is collecting records of every financial transaction, every home address, every phone call, or every television program one watches. The end result, in the US, is that the government gets the information anyway by contracting the services of the data-miners. --Dave
-- I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous
No, we have the Internet for that, as you have so helpfully demonstrated.
Seriously, the U.S. scares me these days. But Canada's smaller and less powerful, so we have less scope to screw things up. Give us half a chance and I doubt we'd be so superior.
Most people just want to live their lives, not fight for some political ideal. Things have to get pretty bad before the average person is willing to make any direct sacrifices in order to try to correct a problem in the political environment. The appearance that "People want fascism" is an emergent property of behaviors and tradeoffs made in a much smaller context.
The old claim about Mussolini making the trains run on time captures this point. A basic requirement for most people is that the basic services they rely on should be dependable and affordable. That requires government to have a certain minimal level of administrative efficacy. One reason people don't vote Libertarian, or Green, etc. is that they have something of a comfort factor that the major parties have a "machine" which "knows" how to run things. Run them badly, perhaps, but the "better the devil you know" effect is at work here, too.
Look at the situation in Iraq: they've been freed of a dictator who did indeed metaphorically "make the trains run on time". Many Iraqis now complain because the quality of their lives has deteriorated in so many visible ways. Even Iraqis who strongly support the removal of Saddam recognize that the country is probably ruined for at least a generation, while they recover and rebuild. There are many people in that sacrificed generation who understandably don't like that tradeoff. They would have preferred to live a more comfortable life under a dictator, where the risks are well-known and avoidable (i.e. don't piss off those in power), as opposed to an uncomfortable life in an environment with unpredictable risks (roadside bombs). That doesn't mean they "want fascism", although it might appear that way.
i)ave wrote:Particularly in Germany, there is a sense that the Government is there to protect people from invasion of people's rights by the Corporations
Interesting: in the years leading up to the 2nd World War, both German and Italy were experimenting with giving the corporations more say in government, with representatives from, for example, the oil and gas industry, elected by their companies to committees officially advising on the creation of legislation. This was formally called "corporatism". In Italy, corporatism was conventionally called "fascism", the name of the main corporatist party.
These same corporation were later castigated for their gleeful support of going to war, in both the first and second world wars, and for the governments with which they associated.
You might imagine the Italians and especially the Germans would distrust anything and anyone who contributed to their hell-ride into WWII.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
It is sad that the US is not closer to the top of defending privacy.
I was reading an article today on Foxnews (link as of 11.02.06 4:45 pm). On the surface it just sounds like cops doing their jobs. Until I read this line:
Those totals represent a fraction of doors knocked on, liquor store drive-bys, construction site surveillances and tips chased down by agents during the weeklong sweep.
To me, sounds very gestapo. Can't even go get a beer now without risk of being stopped by a cop. Bad news imo....
Go eat French Fries and Gravy.
:-)
Woohoo! Are you buyin'?!
I thought you could tell by their beady little black eyes and the way their heads flop around when they talk.
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
Russia? Worse than Britain in surveillance? Gimme a friggin' break! Looks like this so-called "research" is based mostly on the presumtion that everything works as the laws say it should.
True, every ISP in Russia has to provide access to its data to the law enforcement (but so does, for example, Australia). In practice, all the law enforcement do with their accounts is accessing Internet for free (and accessing porn "is not unheard of"). True, you have to register with the police at the place where you live. In practice, people register some address but live wherever they will. Yes, in Russia there's a national ID ("internal passport"; made of paper, with no "biometric data" stuff), but if you need, you're able to obtain (albeit illegally, of course) an absolutely new ID, printed on the official blank and by an official.
Yes, there are much stricter laws regarding the bank accounts, operations, etc., but in fact a lot of business transactions are still done using the briefcases of cash.
Heck, most people in Russia don't even pay the taxes the government say they should - their salary often has the "official", "white" part - something like $50 or $100 a month, and the "unofficial", "black" part (the rest of it, paid by cash inserted in an envelope).
And many more such things. In short, it's much easier and cheaper to be invisible in Russia than in any of the so-called "Western" or "civilized" countries.
Libertarians want freedom to do whatever they want so long as it doesn't infringe upon the equal freedom of others.
Anarchists want freedom to do whatever they want without regard to the freedoms of others.
At least that's how I understand it. Could be wrong.
A case in point. Look at all the data thefts that have occured over the past few years of unprotected government databases.
. htm
One or two look like an "oops."
But hundreds? Either there is a disregard for public records, or perhaps the Government WANTS the data released -- so that a private sector company can do what they can't with the data, and there is plausible deny ability about the source.
http://attrition.org/dataloss/
http://www.gcn.com/online/vol1_no1/40840-1.html
but when you look at the civil sector, it's not much better;
http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/ChronDataBreaches
Of course, ChoicePoint is a part of the BushCo government. They helped rig elections in Florida and more recently in Mexico.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
To make their country look better.
Lets face it, we can all look better if we stand near someone uglier. It is not a good thing to be better by default, Stalin was better than Hitler by default but would you like to live under either of them. I would rather be better by choice (half full/half empty?).
BTW I am an Australian and we would have scored better a few years ago before Howard got his hands on workers rights and basically raped them six ways from Sunday.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
If you want a SIM that lets you call outside China (even to Hong Kong), you have to sign an agreement that is a long way from anonymous.
I have seen several of these contracts my coworkers signed and brought back.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I can't remember who said it, but I thought it summed up the major difference between Canada and the U.S. rather well...
"Americans hate government but love politicians. Canadians hate politicians but love government."
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Congrats to Deutschland also.
Never thought we'd rank so high on the list.
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Yeah, you guys are über alles.
L