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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.
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."
"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?
Only of the 37 compared. Countries like North Korea were not considered. I guess that makes sense... why bother ranking countries about privacy if you still have a power-mongering all-controlling government? No... wait... that sounds too much like where I live (US).
Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.
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.
Yes, we help them drive out the Russians. I would not say we abandoned him, and if you think for one minute that we were alone, you got to be kidding. The Saudi's (his home country is Saudi Arabia) revoked his citizenship and wanted nothing to do with him. The Sudan wanted to throw him out to get out from under UN sanctions. Seriously, if you are trying to defend bin Laden, you might be crazier then those fanatics you say our in the US.
BTW, look at terrorist attacks in the fairly recent history. Timothy McVeigh, caught and executed, is nothing compared to other attacks. There was the first attack on the WTC, the 1993 bombing, which was carried about by non-Americans. This of course leads us to the Sept. 11 attack that destroyed the WTC and the Pentagon. Which are much more visible targets for inflicting terror then a government building in OKC.
Now, back to those fanatics you speak of. Many groups do not carry out senseless attacks against civilians. Also, unless you can show evidence to the contrary, McVeigh (and anyone else indicted or implicated in the case), are more likely lone nuts then an actual fanatic group. (There is a huge step from a militia to three idiots with a bomb.)
I am sure abolitionists were considered fanatics at one point, and I bet that civil rights groups in the mid-1900s would've been considered "domestic terror threats." Seriously, get your facts and your names right before getting all high and mighty. When did the rest of the world decided that it was hip to blame the USA for all their problems...
It measures privacy. Not openness of discourse, or human rights, or other questions. The US has weak privacy protections: this is pretty well known.
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.
If that's the case, why are only 5-10% Libertarian?
You'd think people would get the idea and stop voting for Democrats and Republicans, but that hasn't happened. The only logical conclusion is that people want fascism. People no longer really want freedom. Freedom brings too many responsibilities.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Time to get on the ball now that the elections are up. Vote out the incuments!
Don't you watch the news? Don't you read the blogs? Didn't you see the movie by that fat guy in the ballcap? Come 2008, Bush will be out of office and the U.S. will become a utopia just like it was when Clinton was President.
Enough sarcasm - you are asbolutely correct. Congress writes the laws. Congress passes the laws. The President just gets a photo-op when he signs them. If we want change in the U.S. we must focus on Congress. Want to stop the Patriot Act? Vote out the guys (both Democrat and Republican) who wrote it, voted for it, and then voted to keep it again. Want to stop the war in Iraq? Vote out the guys in Congress (both Democrat and Republican) who just this past summer voted to keep troops there at least through the end of 2007. Want to stop the deficit? Vote out the guys in Congress (both Democrat and Republican) who keep passing bills to spend more and more and more... We are in a sad situation. Congress is doing all of this and pointing their finger at the President. Stupid Americans are complaining about the President and apparently can't figure out who wrote and passed all the laws.
The previous comment is purposely vague and generalized, but all of the facts are completely true.
People no longer really want freedom.
Sure they do. They're just deluded enough to think that's what they're getting. When people accept that the government is spying on them to help keep them free, they don't go along because they want to be spied on. They do it because they're too dumb to see past the doubletalk.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
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 have a friend whose father had to flee Argentina in the middle of the night - twice.
Once upon a time when my friend complained to his father about being bored, he responded:
"You should be greatful for your bordom."
KFG
Or they could be completely orthogonal. The US (domestically) isn't terribly bad on human rights, but is bad on privacy. Germany is pretty good at both.
Human rights are usually a matter of how the executive functions, particularly in law enforcement. Privacy has more to do with legislation and the private sector: privacy regulations restrict what information about you public and private institutions (insurers, credit agencies, etc.) can distribute, and how it is distributed. It also is a question of how those institutions protect your data, such as your credit card and banking information.
All pretty much completely unrelated to questions of freedom of speech (unless you think there is a free-speech aspect to restricting whether a business can give away your private information.)
I know that they say they want freedom. But when any question of policy comes up, are their actions consistent with their professed desire?
To my eye, we still have the vestiges of our 18th-century freedom memes, enough to make us talk about freedom and feel guilty when we fail to fight for it... but it's just vestiges. As the grandparent comment said, freedom is mentally and emotionally taxing. Games and black bread require less CPU power.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
The people want the good guys to be more powerful than the bad guys. They figure that the good guys will only use that power against the bad guys. As long as they think the rogues in government are rare and under control, a powerful government seems very desirable. Most people seem to think that abuse of power, or even, bad guys masquerading as good guys until they have the power as higly unlikely. So called intelligent people find conspiracy theories to be laughable. But, people in power can keep secrets quite well.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
All of PEI is very rural. Try visiting one of the major cities such as Toronto, Montreal, or Vancouver sometime and you'll find they have densities very similar to that of the major cities in the USA.
"Since no one has blown up anything Canadian recently, you don't have to worry about that".
Perhaps what might be more instructive would be to examine why no one is blowing anything up in Canada.
"...fewer people seem to think seriously about the way lack of privacy is just a natural consequence of civilized life."
Errr, no. Fewer people seem to think seriously that a less safe environment is just a natural consequence of a fucked up foreign policy that pisses over other countries and expects zero consequences.
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
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
Because the way the political system is setup, 3rd parties have no realistic chance of gaining power, and even more important, a failed attempt ends up splitting the vote for the closest of the two 'proper' parties, resulting in a win for the worst preferred party. See Nader etc.
It is a strategic mistake to vote for the Libertarians, not until they have a realistic chance of getting 50% of the vote.
Besides, can anyone explain to me properly, what exactly is the difference between libertarianism and outright anarchy?
For the first time, I am not voting the issues on Tuesday. I'm voting for a return to government gridlock, because we are living the consequences of too much concentration of power, and hundreds of billions of dollars are being wasted, and tens of thousands of people (including thousands of Americans) are dying.
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.