Top surveilance societies
I came across this article on wired magazine that lists the World's top surveilance societies. I was very impressed to see that Greece is the only country in the world that has adequate safeguards, on paper at least, compared to the likes of Canada, Germany, Argentina, Italy and a couple of other new states that offer some safeguards but weakened protection. This comes from Privacy international, a UK based group, and the US based Electronic privacy information centre.
I was also interested to see the UK and the US, the champions of democratic freedom, being lumped together with Russia, China, Myanmar and a few others as endemic surveilance societies. Some additional facts of interest to me were:
I did not look at the figures behind these statements nor did I look at the methodology of the study, but it does hit a spot where I can not fail to agree on the basis of my personal experiences. I think that the main motivations for all this surveilance activity which is supposed to counter terrorist threats and/or prevent crime, is in my opinion primarily motivated by economics and population control. It means that states will be able to slowly build up the capability where eventualy most of what happens can be recorded and any form of dissent of civil unrest can be tracked back to its originators.
More importantly, I am curious to know how often certain companies have been able to pre-emptively react to a given market situation/change. What I mean by that is lets say there is a bid for a project in Nigeria and 10 companies are trying to get the contract. How beneficial it would be to have access to intercepted calls between the upper management of the other companies and hear what they have to say about the bid and what they are able to offer. Or perhaps listen in on private conversations of the Nigerian state employees involved in the bid and find out that one high level official has has been trying to get his daughter/son into a highly regarded school in the US but has been having visa problems. How much easier the process would be if one could use this information.
I am curious how feasible it would be to stop most of these surveilance activities, I mean, how many people would be out of a job if the US or UK Goverments was to suddenly reduce them to 10%. In the present climate I would think they would want to hire more people. Imagine a world where most of us are employed to watch on the each other. Oh wait, in 1948 someone wrote a book about this scenario ;-)
I was also interested to see the UK and the US, the champions of democratic freedom, being lumped together with Russia, China, Myanmar and a few others as endemic surveilance societies. Some additional facts of interest to me were:
- ...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 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.
I did not look at the figures behind these statements nor did I look at the methodology of the study, but it does hit a spot where I can not fail to agree on the basis of my personal experiences. I think that the main motivations for all this surveilance activity which is supposed to counter terrorist threats and/or prevent crime, is in my opinion primarily motivated by economics and population control. It means that states will be able to slowly build up the capability where eventualy most of what happens can be recorded and any form of dissent of civil unrest can be tracked back to its originators.
More importantly, I am curious to know how often certain companies have been able to pre-emptively react to a given market situation/change. What I mean by that is lets say there is a bid for a project in Nigeria and 10 companies are trying to get the contract. How beneficial it would be to have access to intercepted calls between the upper management of the other companies and hear what they have to say about the bid and what they are able to offer. Or perhaps listen in on private conversations of the Nigerian state employees involved in the bid and find out that one high level official has has been trying to get his daughter/son into a highly regarded school in the US but has been having visa problems. How much easier the process would be if one could use this information.
I am curious how feasible it would be to stop most of these surveilance activities, I mean, how many people would be out of a job if the US or UK Goverments was to suddenly reduce them to 10%. In the present climate I would think they would want to hire more people. Imagine a world where most of us are employed to watch on the each other. Oh wait, in 1948 someone wrote a book about this scenario ;-)
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