Slashdot Mirror
The Electronic Police State
gerddie writes "Cryptohippie has published what may be called a first attempt to describe the 'electronic police state' (PDF). Based on information available from different organizations such as Electronic Privacy Information Center, Reporters Without Borders, and Freedom House, countries were rated on 17 criteria with regard to how close they are already to an electronic police state. The rankings are for 2008. Not too surprisingly, one finds China, North Korea, Belarus, and Russia at the top of the list. But the next slots are occupied by the UK (England and Wales), the US, Singapore, Israel, France, and Germany." This is a good start, but it would be good to see details of their methodology. They do provide the raw data (in XLS format), but no indication of the weightings they apply to the elements of "electronic police state" behavior they are scoring.
The usual image of a âoepolice stateâ includes secret police dragging people out of their homes at night, with scenes out of Nazi Germany or Stalinâ(TM)s USSR. The problem with these images is that they are horribly outdated. Thatâ(TM)s how things worked during your grandfatherâ(TM)s war â" that is not how things work now.
Seems like a perfectly reasonable statement to me. Context matters, people. It won't stop everyone shouting 'Godwin!' and giggling like imbeciles but it is actually a very good metaphor to use when talking about how the imagery people associate with police states is outdated.