US and UK have become “endemic” surveillance societies

Take a look at the map below. It shows privacy rights around the world; the brighter the color, the better for privacy. If you live in the US or UK, you might (or might not, depending on your politics) be surprised to find both countries painted black, just like Russia, China, and Malaysia. A new report out from Privacy International (UK) and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (US) claims that both countries now feature “endemic” surveillance. [more at link]

LRB · Ben Anderson: Diary

30 June. We were all chatting over a cup of tea outside the Naafi last night when a soldier sat down next to me and introduced himself. He asked what we were talking about, but didn’t listen to my answer. His eyes were glazed and he was swaying slightly, struggling to keep upright. I thought he was stoned or drunk and looking to start a confrontation. But instead he just said: ‘I’m scared.’ I told him he’d be lying if he said otherwise, or mad. But my words had no impact. Then he said that on the last big operation, he and a friend were lying next to each other when his friend got shot through the eye and died instantly. The Taliban attack was so heavy that no one could move, so for an entire hour he just had to lie there next to his dead friend.

‘I hate my job, I can’t function, can’t sleep and I’m totally scared about this big op coming up.’

He has just turned 18 and this is his first tour. One of his superiors reluctantly agreed to let him see a psychiatrist, but said that if he’s lying he’ll be crawling around the camp until he’s bleeding from his hands and knees. He’s praying for malaria or a bullet in the foot so that he can go home.

read it

Remarks on Pakistan Are Tailing Huckabee – New York Times:

Explaining statements he made suggesting that the instability in Pakistan should remind Americans to tighten security on the southern border of the United States, Mr. Huckabee said Friday that “we have more Pakistani illegals coming across our border than all other nationalities, except those immediately south of the border.”

Asked to justify the statement, he later cited a March 2006 article in The Denver Post reporting that from 2002 to 2005, Pakistanis were the most numerous non-Latin Americans caught entering the United States illegally. According to The Post, 660 Pakistanis were detained in that period.

A recent report from the Department of Homeland Security, however, concluded that, over all, illegal immigrants from the Philippines, India, Korea, China and Vietnam were all far more numerous than those from Pakistan.

In a separate interview on Friday on MSNBC, Mr. Huckabee, a Republican, said that the Pakistani government “does not have enough control of those eastern borders near Afghanistan to be able go after the terrorists.” Those borders are on the western side of Pakistan, not the eastern side.

Further, he offered an Orlando crowd his “apologies for what has happened in Pakistan.” His aides said later that he meant to say “sympathies.”

OK, let’s pretend he did offer the “Orlando crowd” his “sympathies.” What the hell is he talking about? Was it a largely Pakistani crowd? Had he managed to corral them behind a fence?

Here

Mitt Romney … America’s first clip-art presidential candidate …

The rest of the article is sophomoric in the labored lad mag vein and not worth reading, but that nails the creep. I knew I’d seen him somewhere.