Canada has always tried harder.
Here, with very little effort, we runner-up the world in the protection of individual privacy. Other, less fortunate and more Orwellian countries such as Latvia(#13), Slovenia(#26), Thailand(#30), the United States(#31) and the United Kingdom(#33), could learn from us: appoint a career alcoholic to be in charge of your privacy commission and his staff will ensure that privacy is protected and that he’s passed out long before he can answer government requests to loosen restrictions.
Stolen from Let’s Go Everywhere, which stole it from the Canadian Press.
LONDON — Germany and Canada are the best defenders of privacy, and Malaysia and China the worst, an international rights group said in a report released Wednesday (Oct 31).
Britain was rated as an endemic surveillance society, at No. 33, just above Russia and Singapore on a ranking of 37 countries’ privacy protections by London-based Privacy International.The United States did only slightly better, at No. 30, ranked between Israel and Thailand, with few safeguards and widespread surveillance, the group said…
Best Protectors of Civilian Privacy
1. Germany
2. Canada
3. Belgium
3. Austria
5. Greece
6. Argentina
6. Hungary
8. France
8. Poland
8. Portugal
8. Cyprus
12. Finland
13. Italy
13. Luxembourg
13. Latvia
13. Estonia
13. Malta
18. Denmark
18. Czech Republic
18. Ireland
18. Lithuania
18. New Zealand
18. Slovakia
24. Australia
24. Spain
26. Slovenia
26. Netherlands
28. Israel
28. Sweden
30. United States
31. Thailand
31. Philippines
33. Britain
34. Singapore
34. Russia
36. Malaysia
36. China
raincoaster 
Yeah we suck these days. Since 9/11 we’ve just pretty much said – the hell with privacy.
I can’t believe how much stuff goes by without a peep. Last spring a high school said it was going to start disciplining kids for their myspace behavior and only one parent had protested.
We’re just handing over our rights these days.
Well in fairness to the school, if the infractions of school rules took place on school property, I say go for it. Myspace is NOT private. It astonishes me the number of people who use the most powerful communication tool the world has ever seen only to pretend that is “private.”
But truly private IS private, and should be respected. I’m with Pierre Trudeau (now as always) who said, “The government has no business in the bedrooms of the nation.”
It may not be private, but to be scouring myspace looking for ways in which to discipline kids is not the job of the school. The point is that they want to be able to expel them for school or kick them off clubs for things that they do off campus.
I don’t think it would fly if back in my day the teacher’s organized to scope out McGreevies (teen juice bar back in the day) to see if they could catch us smoking or kissing or dressing inappropriately. Just wouldn’t have cut it then, shouldn’t cut it now.
School is trying to be the parent as well. That’s my job.
I was also surprised that Canada did so well in the rankings. Spy cameras and government access to personal information — files of which are occasionally lost in well-publicised scandals — feels excessive when you’re there.
Then you go and live in another country, like Vietnam, where the concept of civilian privacy or even individual rights just don’t exist yet in practice.
That being said, how about the Philippines ranking above the UK?! The Philippines is basically a banana republic where journalists and opposition politicians face death on a day-to-day basis. That news must have been a real kick in the pants for old Fat Tony Blair.
Tony Blair doesn’t read newspapers and, I’m sure, fires anyone who does and tells him what they say.
A friend of mine is a judge and he’s the one who essentially made speed cameras useless by agreeing that their images presuppose guilt; it’s currently at the Supreme Court level of appeals, if I recall aright. But it’s true that, while most levels of government in Canada will gather info on you, they won’t give it to other levels of government. The tax people, ferinstance, won’t tell the provinces about what you filed without your permission (which you’d be an eedjut to give, of course) because if they did nobody would tell them ANYTHING.
Samaha, I agree with you about parenting. I don’t know why the schools are wasting time and effort on trying to police non-school behaviour when they’re not even doing a creditable job of teaching the kids to read!
I demand a recount! Australia is in a completely false position at 24. 48 would be nearer the truth. I wish I had said the following; “Just remember this the next time some politician says that terrorists are threatening our freedoms: not a single freedom has been taken away from us by terrorists – they have been taken away by our elected officials.”
But Australia started out as a panopticon prison; it’s a matter of dropping surveillance, not adding surveillance to a free culture! You’re doing very well, and will soon surpass Lithuania, of that I am sure.
I love that quote: who did say it?