PRIVACY LOST: America, the Surveillance Society

The Republican Party, the party that used to want to "get government off our backs" has led America to becoming one of the most intrusive governments in the world. We now rank right down with China and Russia as leading the world for surveillance of civilians, according to Privacy International. I should note that the study does not cover every nation, merely the EU and 20 non-EU nations including America.

Privacy International, based in London, was formed in 1990 by more than 100 human rights organizations to defend personal privacy. Here's what they have to say for themselves:

For almost twenty years Privacy International (PI) has vigorously defended personal privacy. We have campaigned across the world to protect people against intrusion by governments and corporations that seek to erode this fragile right. We believe that privacy forms part of the bedrock of freedoms, and our goal has always been to use every means to preserve it. Our campaigns are often controversial, but they always respect the primacy of truth and principle.

PI is the oldest surviving privacy advocacy group in the world, and was the first organisation to campaign at an international level on privacy issues. Its antecedents stretch back to 1987, at which time the organisation’s founders started to build an international network in response to mounting concern across the world over the changing nature and magnitude of privacy violations.

They rank nations based on 14 criteria to generate an overall ranking. Top of the list are Greece, Canada, Romania and Hungary as the nations with the most protected individual privacy and the least government surveillance of citizens. Honestly this surprises me somewhat since Greece, Romania and Hungary don't exactly come to mind when I consider the protection of civil liberties. But it seems when it comes to respecting the privacy of its citizens, these are the best nations of those ranked. Absolute bottom of the list are Russia, China and Malaysia. The US, along with Thailand, Taiwan and Singapore, ranks only slighly better than China, Russia and Malaysia. We may not be the bottom of the list, but clearly the US has fallen far, far behind when it comes to respecting the personal privacy of our citizens. Instead of getting government off our backs Bush and the Republicans have gotten govenment poking its nose into pretty much every aspect of our lives including our financial and medical records. And sadly, the Democrats have done little to stop or reverse the Bush-led invasion of your privacy. You have practically no privacy left anymore in America. Is this what we wanted our government to do? Is this what people voted for? We all assume it's the other guy being watched, but that is no longer true. We are all being watched by our government about as much as China is watching their citizens. How does that make you feel?

Here is the summary of the findings by Privacy International:

Summary of key findings

(Please note that "worst ranking" and "lowest ranking" denotes countries that exhibit poor privacy performance and high levels of surveillance.

* The 2007 rankings indicate an overall worsening of privacy protection across the world, reflecting an increase in surveillance and a declining performance o privacy safeguards.

* Concern over immigration and border control dominated the world agenda in 2007. Countries have moved swiftly to implement database, identity and fingerprinting systems, often without regard to the privacy implications for their own citizens

* The 2007 rankings show an increasing trend amongst governments to archive data on the geographic, communications and financial records of all their citizens and residents. This trend leads to the conclusion that all citizens, regardless of legal status, are under suspicion.

* The privacy trends have been fueled by the emergence of a profitable surveillance industry dominated by global IT companies and the creation of numerous international treaties that frequently operate outside judicial or democratic processes.

* Despite political shifts in the US Congress, surveillance initiatives in the US continue to expand, affecting visitors and citizens alike.

* Surveillance initiatives initiated by Brussels have caused a substantial decline in privacy across Europe, eroding protections even in those countries that have shown a traditionally high regard for privacy.

* The privacy performance of older democracies in Europe is generally failing, while the performance of newer democracies is becoming generally stronger.

* The lowest ranking countries in the survey continue to be Malaysia, Russia and China. The highest-ranking countries in 2007 are Greece, Romania and Canada.

* The 2006 leader, Germany, slipped significantly in the 2007 rankings, dropping from 1st to 7th place behind Portugal and Slovenia.

* In terms of statutory protections and privacy enforcement, the US is the worst ranking country in the democratic world. In terms of overall privacy protection the United States has performed very poorly, being out-ranked by both India and the Philippines and falling into the "black" category, denoting endemic surveillance.

* The worst ranking EU country is the United Kingdom, which again fell into the "black" category along with Russia and Singapore. However for the first time Scotland has been given its own ranking score and performed significantly better than England & Wales.

* Argentina scored higher than 18 of the 27 EU countries.

* Australia ranks higher than Slovakia but lower than South Africa and New Zealand.

(emphasis mine)

Pretty sickening if you ask me. Of course I wrote about one aspect of our loss of privacy in my articles about my wife possibly facing the option of signing away her rights or losing her job (here (one of Culture Kitchen's most read articles), here (including implications for homosexuals employed by the Federal Government) and here). That issue remains up in the air as a lawsuit by actual Jet Propulsion Lab scientists makes its way through the court system. But the fact is, the US has lost it's sense of the basic rights of the individual. It won't be much longer, if the Republicans remain in power, until we really are as bad as China in this way. (Note: we also rank down with Russia and China when it comes to percent of the population incarcerated (PDF)). We have become a nation of surveillance and prisons...NOT something to be proud of.