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Privacy International ranks U.S. as an “also ran” in the art of “Police State-Ism”
For those of us who still have our heads in the sand, will we accept the objective view of those on the outside looking in?
From The International Herald-Tribune (AP):
Individual privacy under threat in Europe and U.S., report says
LONDON: Individual privacy is under threat in the United States and across the European Union as governments introduce sweeping surveillance and information-gathering measures in the name of security and controlling borders, an international rights group has said in a report.
Greece, Romania and Canada had the best privacy records of 47 countries surveyed by Privacy International, which is based in London. Malaysia, Russia and China were ranked worst.
Both Britain and the United States fell into the lowest-performing group of “endemic surveillance societies.” …
(Snip!)
“… In the United States, the administration of President George W. Bush has come under fire from civil liberties groups for its domestic wiretapping program, which allows monitoring, without a warrant, of international phone calls and e-mail messages involving people suspected of having terrorist links.
“The last five years has seen a litany of surveillance initiatives,” Davies said.
He said little had changed since the Democrats took control of Congress a year ago.
“We would expect the cancellation of some programs, the review of others, but this hasn’t occurred,” Davies said. …”
(Snip!)
“… The report said the trends had 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.” …
Of course, most folks know I’ve been ranting and raving about the trend of these United States toward a GOP-style Police State under the rule of President King “Surge” W. Bush for years, so I’m not surprised.
To be fair, let’s look to our so-called “Co-President of the 90′s”; former Wal-Mart Director and former Republican activist for the Barry Goldwater campaign; Sir Hillary Rodham Clinton; for her “War On Drugs”, too, for HER share of the blame. In fact, since both she and her husband, Bill, claim she were “Co-Presidents” during his terms, I suppose we can blame Hillary Clinton herself for steering us down the road toward her festering, stinking Police State we now reside in today. King George II’s only claim to fame in this category is his ramming of triple exclamation points onto the Police State!!! original crafted by the Presidents Clinton.
My questions are — how long before Americans begin to flee; to seek political asylum by crossing the pond and the borders of Greece and Romania? And will we be welcomed when we arrive? Or will they refuse our entry out of fear we are coming to eventually erect cameras on every one of their street corners… place national ID cards with RFID chips in all of their wallets… toss millions of them into prisons for committing “crimes” with no actual “victims”… listen in on all of their phone conversations… read all of their private emails and snail-mail… monitor their bank transactions… ?
I just don’t think we’d be very welcome, do you? And SHOULD we be? After all, by our apathy, WE have created this stinking, oligarchical Police -slash- Nanny State of ours. And it’s probably a fact, indeed, that we should be held accountable to endure our own self-quarrantine until we wise up and tear down those walls — not the ones intended to keep illegals out — the ones intended to keep us IN.
THINK.
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UPDATE — January 2, 2008:
Looks like Andrew Sullivan of The Daily Dish is finally taking notice — H/T to both MemeOrandum (again) and Wired.
Maybe THIS time, this IMPORTANT topic will grow the “legs” it deserves… (?)
We thank MemeOrandum for (originally) linking in — blogger roundup on the (original) breaking news here…
There is absolutely no doubt in my ate-up mind that freedom in the USA should be on the endangered species list. We have been surrendering our freedom a tiny piece at a time for at least the last 40 years thus enabling the huge chunks we are losing now.