The Electronic Police State 206
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.
Scores vs Rankings (Score:5, Informative)
I downloaded the raw data. Some countries are missing, and the results are quite different from the PDF:
59-China
54-United Kingdom: England & Wales
53-Singapore
53-United States of America
52-France
52-Germany
51-Malaysia
50-Ireland
49-Netherlands
49-United Kingdom: Scotland
48-Israel
48-Russia
45-Australia
45-Belgium
45-Japan
44-Austria
44-New Zealand
43-Norway
41-Italy
40-Denmark
40-Taiwan
39-Canada
39-Greece
39-Hungary
39-Switzerland
38-Finland
38-Poland
38-Slovenia
38-Sweden
37-Cyprus
37-Estonia
37-Latvia
37-Lithuania
37-Malta
36-Czech Republic
36-Iceland
36-Luxembourg
36-Portugal
36-Spain
36-South Africa
34-Argentina
33-Romania
32-Thailand
31-Bulgaria
30-Brazil
28-Philippines
27-India
Re:USA (Score:3, Informative)
Go try web browsing in North Korea, let us know if you still feel that way.
Math is hard, let's go shopping! (Score:5, Informative)
So, if you download their XLS raw data, and add up their scores, the worst 6 nations are:
1. China, with a score of 3.47
2. UK (Englad/Wales), with a score of 3.18
3. US and Singapore (tied for 3rd place), with a score of 3.12
5. France and Germany (tied for 5th place), with a score of 3.06
And as for Israel and Russia -- they are tied for 11th place, with a score of 2.82
Quite different from the top offenders list in the PDF, eh? It gets worse: North Korea and Belarus (in the top 5 according to the PDF) are not even mentioned anywhere in the raw data XLS... So not only did these "experts" pull their data out of their asses, but they managed to fail at adding up their own funny numbers!
Re:What is freedom? (Score:4, Informative)
I was thinking more along the lines of a less craven, self-serving gov't. Not sure where you got the anarchy bit from.
To get a less craven, self-serving govt. The people kinda need to actively participate in government. Choosing the lesser of two evils candidate will no bring about the end your seeking.
Re:Scores vs Rankings (Score:3, Informative)
Scotland has a different legal system from England and Wales. See here for example. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_law [wikipedia.org]
Also, historically, camera surveillance wasn't quite as omnipresent in Scotland, though that seems to be changing, based on the last time I was in Edinburgh.
I'd have to agree with some of the other comments: the data doesn't seem to add up (even accepting their evaluation criteria at face value), and there do seem to be strange omissions (e.g. the lack of looking at police surveillance cameras as an issue).
That said, this is an issue worth worrying about, and a half-broken metric is at least a start.
Re:Is this for real? (Score:5, Informative)
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.