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.
Police state UK (Score:4, Insightful)
Is this for real? (Score:5, Insightful)
I am sorry, but if you are claiming something to be a report on "national rankings" of "The Electronic Police State", you should at a very least have a clue.
A few hints to the fact that this report is a bunch of crap (no offense to a good name of real crap) is clear lack of understanding of legal concepts, imprecise and not legally or scientifically accepted definitions and simply errors in basic terms and grammar.
It is spelled "habeAs corpus". You do not start a paper that you want to be taken seriously with cheap usenet flame references to "Nazi Germany or Stalin's USSR".
It is not a "criminal evidence" (what the hell is "criminal evidence" anyway?), unless it is admissible in court and no information as collected is admissible on its own merits. And how do you compare countries with completely different legal systems?
I could go on and on, but really it isn't worth the time. This report should not be on a first page of "idle", much less on /. Really, editors - get a clue.
So this is a comprehensive set of rankings (Score:3, Insightful)
with no information on how it was compiled
good job
Next up, we'll publish a list of the top 50 mutual funds to invest in...with no mention of the criteria for generating the list.
Re:USA (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have nothing to hide, government surveillance would not matter at all.
Just stop using the Internet, driving a car, visiting public places, using credit cards, signing up for lists at major US retailers, enrolling in any public organization or institution, talking on a cell phone, renting videos, or getting cable television. This should ensure your basic expectations of privacy are respected.
M
Re:What is freedom? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What is freedom? (Score:2, Insightful)
Perhaps then an anarchy like Somalia would be more preferable to you than an oppressive nanny state like England?
RE: Police state UK (Score:5, Insightful)
I think they have most of it dont they?
Phone Logs - Check
Email Logs - Check
ISP Logs - Check
Tracking domestic flights - Check
Web Usage - Check
Subscriber Information - Check
Banking Records - Check
Number Plate Tracking - Check
Facebook friends list - Pending
Are you serious? (Score:5, Insightful)
The government inspection is not nearly as bad as employer/school policing of your online activities.
My apologies, but I am always shocked when people make the claim that potentially nefarious activities are somehow "more evil" when performed by private actors as opposed by government. What is the basis for your argument?
The government has an absolute monopoly on force. A corporation, no matter how evil, cannot lawfully detain you, lock you in a cage or kill you. The government can do all of those things and more. Your school cannot deprive you of your income, restrict your movements or require that your name be entered on a list of proscribed persons. The government does these things as a matter of course.
Perhaps you feel more in control of your government than you do your employer or school? Good luck with that. You can find another job. You can study elsewhere. Your government is inescapable.
Re:What is freedom? (Score:3, Insightful)
*Ahem.* Somalia is more like a conglomeration of warring mini-states than an anarchy. The problem isn't that there are no rulers (an-archos), it's that there's too many, and they fight each other.
Re:Is this for real? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Is this for real? (Score:5, Insightful)
The document might be crap - the rise and spread of "Electronic Police State" is quite real.
Re:Is this for real? (Score:2, Insightful)
Legal systems? Wtf? Like many Slashdotters I live in Germany, and at the moment our politicians are very busy to adapt our legal system to make it fit the needs of a police state. I think the only one who has no clue is you.
Re:Are you serious? (Score:5, Insightful)
Immigrate.
You know it isn't nearly as simple as that. Especially since many governments are enacting this, there seems to be no safe-haven from restrictions on freedom, unless we want to move to a law-less place like Sudan. We want a place with a stable government that cares about its population, is truly democratic, and cares about freedom, and not the money it gets from lobby groups. And most of all, has fast internet. ;)
Re:Is this for real? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Are you serious? (Score:5, Insightful)
My apologies, but I am always shocked when people make the claim that potentially nefarious activities are somehow "more evil" when performed by private actors as opposed by government. What is the basis for your argument?
I guess I was being vague when I said "bad" and there are multiple interpretations. Sorry for shocking you with that, here I was talking about numbers of those affected. I was also vague about where I was referring to, I meant the US which the AC was talking about.
What I meant was far, FAR more people in the US have been affected by employers and schools imposing and enforcing their own restrictions on citizens' online activities. The government isn't going to care if you post pictures of yourself drinking beer to your facebook profile, your school or employer might though.
I realize that when the government steps in, it's much bigger penalties than getting fired. But that's not the only way to measure impact of electronic policing, and I'd argue that typically, the restrictions your employer or school places on your online behavior is a lot more arbitrary and vague than the government's. Generally.
You can change schools, jobs, whatever, but there are pretty significant consequences to that. They do pale in comparison to what your government can do to you, but you are more likely to get fired, lose your house and career because of something your boss saw you posted online than the government, plus the government is usually better about telling you what they won't tolerate.
Perhaps you feel like losing your job or getting kicked out of school is insignificant because it's not the government executing you? I guess that's one way of looking at things.
Re:Are you serious? (Score:3, Insightful)
or if that doesn't work, emigrate!
Re:Are you serious? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll agree the government has the potential to be worse, but at the moment, I've not heard of the government pulling insane BS like blocking everything but port 80 and 443 the way many college dorms do, or requiring that people give the government systematic access to their machines so they can check up on them (a common practice in law schools).
Re:USA (Score:4, Insightful)
You forgot to mention traveling on an airplane, traveling on a coach, traveling on Amtrak, holding a bank account, gambling at a casino (they have to take your details so they can tell the IRS if you win and need to pay income tax on that win IIRC) or owning a firearm.
What about NOT the USA? (Score:5, Insightful)
This technology is available to the next Pol Pot, or Idi Amin, or Saddam Hussein. As a dictator, cost is little if any problem - you just tell people to set up the surveillance, and report to you. Not to mention, the US comes awfully close locking up political prisoners sometimes. Remember McCarthy? Just think if HE had access to all this newfangled monitoring equipment. The next George W. Bush may whisk you off to Guantanamo, based on some comment you made online, or in an email. And, people who notice you gone will say, "Well, if he had nothing to hide, he wouldn't have gone missing!"
Re: Police state UK (Score:1, Insightful)
FB friends list (ROFL). You just need to look at anyone who plays any web games on FB. You might have 100's of "friends" who you want only for their clan presence. Anyone using that for tracking should be looking at Garbage in Garbage out as a guiding principal.
Re: Police state UK (Score:2, Insightful)
1 in 31 people in the U.S in .... (Score:3, Insightful)
1 in 31 people in the U.S. are in prison, on parole or on probation.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29469360/
The U.S. has more people in prison that the Peoples Republic of China.
It doesn't really matter if it is an electronic Police state or not.
Re:Police state UK (Score:1, Insightful)
Other countries on the list will do the same but have you shot or imprisoned if you complain about it.
Ah yes, like the Scandinavian countries who are renowned for butchering their own populace whenever complaints are raised.
Seriously, where does the idea come from that the world is divided into the US, the UK and Here-be-dragons savage states? To some of us, it is your countries who look increasingly like gilded cages wherein the citizens are losing rights we still have.
Re:Are you serious? (Score:5, Insightful)
And most of all, has fast internet. ;)
I know you meant that tongue-in-cheek, but you bring up an interesting concept. If you move to a place you feel is more free, it's nice if it's a place that has a standard of living that is as good--or better--than you're used to.
On the other hand, there is a point where the luxuries aren't worth the cost of principles. When that happens, you end up with things like rebellions, successions, and other transitions. People will forfeit plumbing, transit systems, electricity, and even food for the chance to govern themselves as they see fit, if the situation feels dire enough. The world can beat them, or join them--either way, it makes little difference in that situation, because the right to rule or be ruled as they believe, and thereby control their futures, becomes the first, and most basic need.
The food, the water, the electricity, medicine, fuel: to a desperate person, those things lose their worth. They're all tethers binding them to something they hate. Time and time, again, it's shown that the people will abandon or destroy them before allowing those things to hold them any longer.
Re:Which was done using the powers of government . (Score:3, Insightful)
The RIAA haven't undertaken raids on their own authority, nor have they used their own forces. In these cases, they are influencing government (police SWATs) to use its monopoly on force to "enforce the law". Maybe it's a fine line, but it is a line.
No, it's a blurred line. Corporations write the laws the government enforces, even if not directly.
Re:What is freedom? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it too much to ask for a limited government that is by the people and for the people?
Surveillance should be in the opposite direction. We should be able to see what our elected officials are doing 24/7. Have microphone on them at all times to make sure they arent being bought by lobbists and taking bribes and what not.
Re:USA (Score:1, Insightful)
If you have nothing to hide, government surveillance would not matter at all.
Everybody's got something to hide and it's none of the government's business.
England is a very curious case (Score:5, Insightful)
England is a very curious case. In law its in a situation in which any authoritarian government, having got itself elected, would never need to call another election. There are a host of measures which have been passed in the last ten years which would permit the suspension of Parliament and rule by decree. The terrorism legislation would allow such a government to imprison anyone it liked for any or no reason. Then there is the surveillance, which is on a scale only previously found in science fiction. All travel, all communication (including this post) are logged. Henry Porter's articles in the Guardian and Vanity Fair detail the whole thing. Recently an opposition Member of Parliament was arrested, on Parliament premises, on suspicion of 'conspiring to encourage misconduct in public office'. Well.
Yet, it is obvious that England is a far pleasanter and freer place to live than the countries it is being compared to. Its also obviously, if you look at the recent deep embarrassment of its politicians over expenses, ruled by people who feel accountable to public opinion in a way that none of the true authoritarian states do. You will still find vigorous debate in the media. Only today, for example, Polly Toynbee in the Guardian runs up one side of the Prime Minister and down the other, and calls on the Party to get rid of him in the next three weeks. There will shortly be elections, relatively properly run, and the goverment will take a huge hit, and will accept it.
What has happened is that a genuinely democratic party, elected admittedly on a flawed and not particularly representative electoral system with a minority of the vote, one which consists of pleasant and well meaning people, has gradually without realizing what it is doing, passed legislation which would enable the British National Party, should it ever take power, to be as unrestrained by legislative limits on its powers as the Nazi Party in Germany 1933.
At the moment what stands between the English and either left or right authoritarianism is tradition, an independent judiciary, and the goodwill of the ruling party. We are effectively Weimar, with all the legal framework any future government will need to turn us at will either into Nazi Germany or the GDR.
We just have to hope that the wrong people don't get elected. If they do, its all over.
Re:Are you serious? (Score:1, Insightful)
You probably mean "emigrate", but that isn't as easy as you appear to think it is. Emigration (getting out of your country) is necessarily coupled with immigration (moving to another country), and what makes you think any other country is actually interested in allowing you in?
Believe it or not, you might well end up as an unwanted social pariah, rather like a Mexican trying to immigrate into the USA.
So while it's technically true that your government isn't entirely inescapable (although some governments certainly restrict whether you're able to emigrate, both legally and in practice), emigration isn't actually easy, and may well be impossible.
Bullshit (Score:1, Insightful)
In their "Raw Data" list Russia is ranked #13, but in the report it shows up as being #4.
This is not a serious research, rather a "geek-made" wikipedia-based crap.
Re:What about NOT the USA? Inverse polarity (Score:2, Insightful)