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Privacy International Releases 2007 Report
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Privacy International has released their report on privacy for 2007, which includes a color-coded world map that highlights the countries with the best privacy laws, the privacy-hostile countries being in black. While many of the overall rankings may come as no surprise, it does highlight some of the more obscure abuses. For example, Venezuela requires your fingerprints just to get a phone and South Korea requires a government registration number linked to your identity before you can post on message boards. Makes you wonder who is Number One?"
The thing that concerns me is that Americans tout "freedom" and "liberties" on a daily basis as part of often over-exaggerated patriotism or often an excuse to conduct military missions (to "protect our freedom"). Americans will often even forgive infringements and attacks on our "freedom" and "liberty" by citing the supposed fact that we have so much of both and can apparently thereby afford to let a little of it slip away here and there for causes they deem worthy.
Yet for those who are aware of the world around them, it is easy to see great chunks of freedom, liberty and privacy being wrestled from our grasps on a daily basis. Usually without much defense on our part. We just hand it over. It's like being a passenger on an ocean liner and touting the safety and reliability of the vessel even as you wade across the submerged deck, up to your hips in salt water.
What it all really means, is "I can still buy a $5 latte and my favorite sit-com with the offensively stereo-typed ethnic characters is still on television and I can still follow my favorite commercial sports team, so I *must* have an ass-load of freedom!".
I do believe Malaysia was tied with Russia and China for worst (each getting a 1.3 total score) ... Must be some type of industrialized/sweat shop Zoolanderian Dystopia.
Or maybe you just made a groundless claim?
Live according to the Categorical Imperative. If the Categorical Imperative tells you not to live by it... ignore it
I will counter your "this data can't be accurate, because these nations have huge corporations in them which have privacy regulations to adhere to!" with "this data is entirely correct, precisely because they are home to huge corporations which sometimes have privacy regulations to adhere to, but often don't bother and are often not held responsible for it and at any rate have lobbiests in their employ to legislate for their advantage against the rights and privacy of the citizens of said country".
You're probably referencing the gride below the map. Where things such as Constitutional Protection, Privacy Enforcement, Visual Surveillance and Government access to data are graded. Those items are governmental policy. Granted, your point is valid and probably related as the lobbyists influence policy decisions. The point being that this is supposed to represent policies and their enforcement by the government. If the government buckles to lobby and erodes freedoms, the result is the same as if they had taken the initiative themselves.
*shrug*
I'll believe in corporations having personhood when Texas executes one... - advocate_one
Quoting TFA:
case law on government searches has considered new technologyConsidered it to be... what?
I think they probably meant to say "exempt", but given later misstatements, it's hard to say.
# REAL-ID and biometric identification programs continue to spread without adequate oversight, research, and funding structuresHuh? I thought REAL-ID was dead in the water. What does "spread" mean? Does it actually exist somewhere? Do they mean that more research and funding of REAL-ID would enhance our privacy against government surveillance? This statement is a jumble.
# World leading in border surveillance, mandating trans-border data flowsI call FUD on that. Prove that we have more per capita surveillance of border crossings than, say, Switzerland, Singapore, Norway or Israel.
Heck, we have container ships full of every product imaginable unloading left and right, and the government doesn't have a clue what is in those things. More people cross the southern borders of the USA every year undetected than *live* in some of these countries. And our border with Canada often consists of a road sign saying "Welcome to the USA, hosers!"
plans spread for 'rings of steel' around cities to monitor movements of individualsOK, now they are just making crap up. The only relevant reference I could find about "rings of steel" referred to British security around central London. Anybody who thinks that would work in the US has never seen a freeway or a cargo train.
At best, this is a poorly edited article. At worst, it is deliberate misinformation.
they're all tagged 'endemic surveillance societies' - is the govt tapping phones without permission? watching your web traffic? got cameras all watching you in public? - that's all surveillance - seems right to me - I mean they have honking big machines in AT&T's backbones watching every packet and voice call that passes through
His point (which seems to have escaped you) is that many Americans aren't capable of even perceiving the problem.
And that's a problem.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
They are a bit unfair to the U.S., however, in that they comment that other countries' judiciaries have recognized an implied limited right to privacy in their constitutions, but they don't mention that the U.S. Supremes have recognized one as well (it being the basis for Roe v. Wade, after all).
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Actually, no. Privacy in Europe is deteriorating as well, especially in Germany and France over the last 2 years. It is just not as fast as in other countries because there are stronger oppositions and not everybody is as ready to jump into the 'Terror-thread' boat, mainly because we've been living with terror-threads for almost 40 years now.
But the changes to privacy-law's done alone in the past year in Germany is an outrage. And did you know that the police can track _any_ vehicle on highways and most larger cities automatically now? It is just not officially used..
Soon the Federal agencies will have access to internet and phone logs without the provider knowing or interfering.. now thats nice..
So no, not all is well in the state of Denmark and its countries around it...
Yeah, it's not like there are any companies in Germany or Italy or France.
Yeah, a 17-year-old international nonprofit watchdog group is probably not that reliable. Word-of-mouth that says everything is OK is good enough for me!
Uh, isn't that the point? If everybody knew the privacy concerns, they wouldn't need to exist.
Another point is that many Americans are capable of perceiving problems where there are not any problems.
And that too is a problem.
The value of "freedom" as an american ideal was a great thing and shaped the very foundations of our government. That value is long since dead. Early Americans understood the value of personal freedom. They were very diverse and many of them were immigrants from oppressive cultures. Even the strict puritans espoused a policy of letting those outside their community make choices they disapproved of.
Here's an experiment. Go find a few normal people and have a conversation with them about a few political topics. Notice that no matter what their political affiliation, the vast majority of them think it is just and ethical for them to pass laws to take choices away from others, even when those choices do not affect anyone else. Be it hunting bans or gay marriage or prohibiting heroin, nearly everyone is in favor of passing at least one law to tell other people how to live their lives. Ask them if they value freedom and they'll tell you they do, but ask them specifics and you'll see they don't mean it. They want everyone to be free so long as they don't make choices they disapprove of.
Freedom is the right of others to make choices you think are wrong and supporting freedom means supporting the right of others to make those wrong choices. Unless that value becomes important to Americans, our civil rights will continue to erode from both ends of the political spectrum and both major political parties.
No argument there, but that's not my point. Sorry if I didn't make my theory clear, but I meant that content would be classified in line with ACMA guidelines. We see something similar with the laws banning the importation of pornography. reference
When you get right down to it, access to externally published material over the net is an oddity; all content imported by any other means is either banned or subject to classification/censorship. I honestly don't believe that if we have this filtering system set up the government will be able to resist attempting to bring content published over the net in line with the rest of our censorship system. In short, while the federal ID card certainly had some issues (RFID) and arguments in favor and against, filtering provides nothing of value other than censorship. Once it's in place and demonstrated to be working at least somewhat, it's guaranteed to be extended to bring it in line with our other media classification/censorship. And from there it's most likely to be enforced by legislative and not technical means.
[clever sig]
I'm sure the people of Zimbabwe will be relieved to know they live in a country that "consistently upholds human rights standards." Seriously, who put this thing together? At least be honest and have a "we don't have a clue" color.
I concur. Although the sibling truthfully argues that these are not privacy issues, there surely are many privacy issues at stake in EU. I used to comfort myself that living in EU is a fortunate thing, at least with respect to privacy, in contrast to, e.g., the United States. Alas, in UK, you have cameras all around the country now, in Germany, they tried to make it possible for police to remotely hack into suspects' computers by means of law. And the German ban on "hacker" (security) tools? And in my country, nobody is sure who has in fact the access to all the phone call data which is required to be retained for one year or so by the service providers. And mandatory encryption key disclosure in UK, anyone? There are many more examples...
...even though I'm sure that nothing beats the open willingness of USA to kidnap foreign citizens to get them into their own jurisdiction and to try them for crimes that never happened (according to the respective laws of their home countries).
I am depressed and a bit scared of where this world might be heading. You can never overestimate the importance of public awareness. Raise these issues whenever you can, if it necessary. Our state (but not our private life) is a res publica - a public matter - and these matters should be discussed in public. This report (TFA) is an exemplary act. I don't want to sound like a pessimist, but maybe this is our only hope against the will of the power-hungry clique in office.
Ezekiel 23:20
>What it all really means, is "I can still buy a $5 latte and my favorite sit-com with the offensively stereo-typed ethnic characters is still on television and I can still follow my favorite commercial sports team, so I *must* have an ass-load of freedom!".
Personally I find this offensively stereo-typing americans.
``What it all really means, is "I can still buy a $5 latte and my favorite sit-com with the offensively stereo-typed ethnic characters is still on television and I can still follow my favorite commercial sports team, ...''
Well, actually, if that's all you care about, isn't that all that matters? I mean, life can be good even without freedom and democracy.
I know, I know. Checks on the power of government are supposed to protect us against the government making our lives miserable. But how effective are they, really? If the government crosses the line, who is going to stop them? What if there is a coup? What if the country is at war? What if there is so much misinformation that almost nobody knows what is really happening? What if it's not the government making people's lives miserable, but other groups?
Do people actually tend to be happier in countries that have good privacy checks in place?
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
By which time who will oppose them? After all, my kid's school had every child fingerprinted by an outside catering contractor with no accountability as to how that data might be used in future. Link
Of course it can't, it's a hash value. However, a given fingerprint will generate the same hash when my child is 90 years old.
``Note that the European Union seems to have protected its citizens (from terrorism) without abridging basic civil rights.''
Seems, perhaps, but hasn't. We (I live in the EU) weren't very much of a target until we went along with the USA invading Afghanistan and Iraq. But we did go along, and we got train bombings in Madrid. Perhaps the bombings in London are related, too. So I wouldn't really say the EU has protected its citizens (but it's good to note here that the EU had little to do with anything; everything I'm talking about in this post was actually decided by individual member states).
As for privacy, take into account that in many European countries, there wasn't much of that to begin with. I believe the Netherlands (where I live) is the country that spies on its citizens most, worldwide. This is not widely perceived as a problem, however. People here are far more trusting of the government than people in the USA. The government knows where I live. My Internet traffic is logged. Phones may be tracked and tapped; I don't think there is any need to get a warrant for that. Police can stop me and require me to show ID whenever they want to. There are cameras everywhere. Speeding on the highway? Picture taken; ticket is in the mail. Soon, they'll track cars to make us pay taxes depending on where we drove at what time.
Privacy? What's that? Oh, you mean these laws that companies have to adhere to, where they have to make sure data doesn't fall into other company's hands...but they have to keep it around in case the government needs it. Yeah, those laws might be enforced. There certainly seem to be fewer problems with identity fraud here than in the USA.
Don't get me wrong. Life in the EU is good. I am happy to live in the Netherlands. But let's not point and laugh at the USA before taking a look at ourselves.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Though I am inclined to classify this research as bogus, it's quite funny and intriguing that the USA, Britain, Russia and China are in the same club.
Actually, speaking as someone from the UK, I think it's just sad... and entirely, objectively accurate. Our modern surveillance state/database society in the UK would make any dictator proud.
We are rapidly moving towards a state where the government monitors, inter alia,
The government is essentially compiling databases, to be kept near enough forever, of:
in addition to all the usual financial and employment records, of course.
The only difference between the UK and certain more infamous countries is that, at least until recently, the serious damage had been only incidental and affecting a few people, while certain other governments more routinely abuse the information they collect. Then again, see my current sig for how fast the UK government is trying to catch up — and remember that's just the biggest story recently, not the only one.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Wow, you're really kind to Facebook.
Have you also noticed that their entire modus operandi is basically to get friends to provide information about each other? And that if you've ever created an account there, even if you deactivate it, they still keep your personal information around indefinitely and allow people to continue doing things like tagging you in photos?
I don't know how anyone rational can view services like Facebook as not being a serious threat to privacy.
Of course, I'm about as likely to get sympathy for that view on Slashdot as I am when I say I think Google is the greatest threat to privacy in the history of humanity. That doesn't make either statement any less true, but there you go.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
They are two different companies now, but until 1989 they were one, and in a group until 2000. It stands to reason that shareholders of one will even now (or until Enron anyway) be shareholders of the other. A company is only the sum of those who control it.
This section from wikpedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Andersen#Andersen_Consulting_and_Accenture is quite brief, and explains what happened a bit better.
Absolutely true, and the fingerprinting is only the beginning.
You would think that if such fingerprinting measures were taken at the border, any foreigner admitted to the country would be considered not to be a criminal, but in fact the Japanese government doesn't start trusting you even a bit.
All non-citizens -- even permanent residents -- are forced to carry Alien Registration Cards at all times. These cards alone contain enough information to offer any mugger the opportunity to become an identity thief: bearer's name and Japanese kanji/kana name, if there is one; date of birth; sex; place of birth; nationality; home municipality and state/province in home country; current address; name of householder at current address; passport number; date of issue of passport; date of first landing in Japan; visa type and expiration date; job title; employer's name and address, and finally, signature (if issued after early 2000s) or fingerprint (if issued earlier).
All of this is printed in plain text easily visible to the eye. This is an identity theft disaster waiting to happen, even if the data obtained forcibly by immigration inspectors hasn't been sold off to unknown organizations.
Ostensibly there are rules in place about when these cards can be demanded and who can see the data on them, but in practice police officers will ask to see them on the slightest pretext, and if you're not carrying yours, they can take you to the police station, make you sit in detention until the Ministry of Justice can verify your identity, and possibly impose a fine.
The report mentions CCTV cameras as a threat to privacy, but doesn't mention what Japan has: good old-fashioned live police officers on the streets arbitrarliy accosting people and demanding papers! I'd much rather walk past a CCTV camera than a Japanese "police box"!
The police also keep non-citizens under surveillance by using illegal "policy creep" such as getting hotels to demand these cards (and make copies!) for all foreigners staying with them, despite the law stating that only non-residents have to provice such information. Employers, real-estate agents, mobile phone companies, and even places like video stores will also demand copies of these cards as a condition of service. There are even rumors of adding chips such as RFID to these cards and setting up scanners in hotels, train stations, and other public facilities.
No one protests, because non-citizens can't vote and the average Japanese person is too busy and too apolitical to care. "Become a citizen" isn't good advice either, as it takes many years of residence to be eligible and your data doesn't get destroyed if you become Japanese (and police will hassle you on the street anyway, if you don't look Japanese).
I'm disgusted that Japan's rating was as high as it was. Japan takes only the most totalitarian parts from the US, Great Britain, and the EU, and counts on the voices of the "it's their country; they can do whatever they want" crowd to drown out civil-liberties advocates. Japan is fading into irrelevance on the world stage, I'm sad to say, and this creeping totalitarianism is one reason why.