PressCoverage

right up there with China are we? that's awesome...

U.S. seen internationally as an ‘Endemic Surveillance Society.’
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In the recently released annual survey of worldwide privacy rights by Privacy International and EPIC, the United States has been downgraded from “Extensive Surveillance Society” to “Endemic Surveillance Society.” As Glenn Greenwald notes, this is “the worst possible category there is for privacy protections, the category also occupied by countries such as China, Russia, Singapore and Malaysia.” In general, “the 2007 rankings indicate an overall worsening of privacy protection across the world, reflecting an increase in surveillance and a declining performance of privacy safeguards.”

PressCoverage

a few of their criteria from that link...

Criteria

Constitutional protection

• Does a constitution exist and does it, even within the shadows of other rights, protect privacy?
• Does the constitutional court have jurisprudence on privacy protection, and if so, is it a strong history of protection?
• If a country is part of the council of Europe, the European convention on human rights plays an essential role.

Statutory protection

• Are there laws protecting the right to privacy against governments and companies?
• Are there sectoral laws, e.g. medical privacy, workplace privacy, financial privacy?
• Are these laws useful in pursuing action?

Privacy enforcement

• Is there a regulatory body with sufficient powers to investigate privacy infractions? Can this regulator act proactively?
• Does this regulatory act in an effective way? Have cases been taken through the administrative and legal systems?

IcyPatriot

Good Find ... the stronger the country (militarily) the lower the score.
Technology has strengthened terrorist orginizations and weakend personal privacies. On a personal note ... every time I'm driving at night I see someone with one of those navigation screens in their car. Well, a person can easily be followed by tracking their cellphone but how about cellphone and navigation system together ... ouch. Orwell just had the date wrong IMO.

Fogbuster

.

If anyone thinks it's bad in the U.S., you need to go to Britain, which has more closed circuit TV monitors than any other nation in the world(!!).

Or, you could try China, North Korea, Russia, or any of the other communist/quasi-communist states, which have extensive low-tech "snitch" networks, folks who surveil as volunteer government agents.

With America's gargantuan ACLU, there is more to worry about criminals getting out of deserved sentences and harming innocents than there is for any government agency taking away any civil liberties.


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"All that is required for evil to triumph is for good to do nothing."

Harry Boy

If your sitting in a room with somebody that hates your guts you better keep an eye on them or they'll sneak up behind you and cut your head off.

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Harry Boy (Genius)

In The Absence Of Law And Order Society Will Surely Destroy Itself

wistahpatsfan

The problem is that you're the one who let that guy in.

Harry Boy

Oh no, the Looney Liberals did that, they didn't want to offend him, he snuck across the room border Bush helped him do that while the Lefty's looked the other way, when it comes to letting your enemy into the room Bush is right up there with the "Pelosi Gang".

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Harry Boy (Genius)

In The Absence Of Law And Order Society Will Surely Destroy Itself

wistahpatsfan

That's what I meant...not you personally...the government. Reagan, Bush Clinton, Bush and whoever's next. The companies who need cheap labor and the politicians who need votes both found common ground

wistahpatsfan

Don't forget the highway toll transponders. Time stamping your every trip from entrance to exit. The day's coming when we'll see un-manned "toll booths" mounted in guardrails, overhead signs and the road itself that will not even be noticeable tracking a chip in the license plate. The tolls will be on every interstate and the rates will vary based on the time of day and day of the week. You will get a bill every month that will be deducted from your bank account. Pay or your registration will be suspended and you will be charged a re-instatement fee.

Pardon me while I go fix my tin-foil hat, but you heard it here first...or I might have seen it in a movie.

Fogbuster

Oh, no tinfoil necessary. You make perfect sense.

As long as some wise-guys think they will outsmart the system, and rip everybody else off, there will be ways created to reign them in. Omnipresent surveillance is oppressive, but I'd rather have enforcible over-sight than to see the bad guys ripping off the public at every opportunity, as it is now.

Just saw a program on National Geographic channel about the "Big Dig". A $2 billion project that spiralled out into a $14+ billion rip-off that America is still paying for. Who benefitted??? A tiny few: construction companies (where's the oversight on them???), unions (again, where's the oversight???), and of course the pols who made it happen. Reagan was right in 1984: the "Big Dig" was going to be the "Biggest Rip-off" ever foisted onto the public, and signed into law. 100% sickening. The evil few living high on the hog off the poor schlub public, John Doe.


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"All that is required for evil to triumph is for good to do nothing."