The Electronic Police State: 2008 National Rankings
<https://secure.cryptohippie.com/pubs/EPS-2008.pdf>
Most of us are aware that our governments monitor nearly every form of
electronic communication. We are also aware of private companies doing
the same. This strikes most of us as slightly troubling, but very few of us
say or do much about it. There are two primary reasons for this:
1. We really don't see how it is going to hurt us. Mass surveillance is
certainly a new, odd, and perhaps an ominous thing, but we just
don't see a complete picture or a smoking gun.
2. We are constantly surrounded with messages that say, "Only crazy
people complain about the government."
However, the biggest obstacle to our understanding is this:
The usual image of a "police state" includes secret police dragging people
out of their homes at night, with scenes out of Nazi Germany or Stalin's
USSR. The problem with these images is that they are horribly outdated.
That's how things worked during your grandfather's war – that is not how
things work now.
An electronic police state is quiet, even unseen. All of its legal actions are
supported by abundant evidence. It looks pristine.
An electronic police state is characterized by this:
State use of electronic technologies to record, organize,
search and distribute forensic evidence against its
citizens.
The two crucial facts about the information gathered under an electronic
police state are these:
1. It is criminal evidence, ready for use in a trial.
2. It is gathered universally and silently, and only later organized for
use in prosecutions.
In an Electronic Police State, every surveillance camera recording, every
email you send, every Internet site you surf, every post you make, every
check you write, every credit card swipe, every cell phone ping… are all
criminal evidence, and they are held in searchable databases, for a long,
long time. Whoever holds this evidence can make you look very, very bad
whenever they care enough to do so. You can be prosecuted whenever
they feel like it – the evidence is already in their database.
Perhaps you trust that your ruler will only use his evidence archives to
hurt bad people. Will you also trust his successor? Do you also trust all of
his subordinates, every government worker and every policeman?
And, if some leader behaves badly, will you really stand up to oppose him
or her? Would you still do it if he had all the emails you sent when you
were depressed? Or if she has records of every porn site you've ever
surfed? Or if he knows every phone call you've ever made? Or if she
knows everyone you've ever sent money to? Such a person would have all
of this and more – in the form of court-ready evidence – sitting in a
database, waiting to be organized at the touch of a button.
This system hasn't yet reached its full shape, but all of the basics are in
place and it is not far from complete in some places. It is too late to
prevent this – it is here. Our purpose in producing this report is to let
people know that their liberty is in jeopardy and to help them understand
how it is being undermined.
OUR RANKINGS
Firstly, we are not measuring government censorship of Internet traffic or
police abuses, as legitimate as these issues may be. And, we are not
including evidence gathering by traditional, honest police work in any of
the categories below. (That is, searches pursuant to honestly obtained
warrants – issued by an independent judge, and only after the careful
examination of evidence.)
Our raw data may be downloaded here.
<https://secure.cryptohippie.com/pubs/EPS-2008-data.xls>
Here are the 52 states and their rankings:
1. China
2. North Korea
3. Belarus
4. Russia
5. United Kingdom: England & Wales
6. United States of America
7. Singapore
8. Israel
9. France
10.Germany
--snip--
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