I’m not a fan of recent laws in the US that grants the government more control in monitoring citizens, but the idea that “liberal” countries that encourage nanny state-ism are more free than the US is absurd.

My critique of the study was not disputing the fact that it MAY be true. Just seeing what some private corporations have achieved in terms of data collection, storage and indexing (i.e. Google) is scary. Who knows what goes on in the back alleys of government.

What I DO have a beef with is this pseudo-science. What this company has done is create a study that LOOKS as though real research has been done even though no real evidence is supplied. The reason people like Roger here believe it is because it is based on popularly held fears, i.e. the “evil other” such as China, North Korea, “the man”.

But this practice is nothing new. Companies have been using Spin Doctors for decades in order to move product. I was merely trying to point out that this “study” shouldn’t be taken seriously because there is no evidence or sources supplied. And before you flame me go take a look for yourself. Their “data” is just a simple excel spread sheet with the numbers 1 to 5 sprinkled throughout the categories and no explanation as to how they arrived at their conclusions.

http://blip.tv/file/1883559

I thought Japan would be higher up on the list because living there I felt I was in Trumans World where every single move I took was monitored. Shibuya is one of the most surveillenced areas on this planet. Not only does the government have hundreds of secret cameras to monitor us you they also have these devices where they send subtle light sound frequencies to numb your brains. Basically the people in the Shibuya crossing is being used as test rats for the government.

US and UK are good examples of how so-called democratic countries are on par with the worst kind of authoritarian states when it comes to electronic surveillence police states. Let’s agree to a fact. America is not a free country. American freedom is fake freedom. EU is following in US’s footsteps. Japan will also follow in USA’s footsteps.

There are so many examples and facts that I can bring up, I am suprised to hear the response from SayWhat? Seems you live in a rural place with no internet connection but no need to worry the US government knows every single detail about your computer habits.

The FBI developed the computer programs “Magic Lantern” and CIPAV, which they can remotely install on a computer system, in order to monitor a person’s computer activity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance

The one reason I can come to think of why Japan is only at number 19 is not because the Japanese govenrment respects human rights more than US or UK, infact they don’t. Japan is a pseudo fascist police state where useless cops in kobans like to stop random gaijins and other “weird looking” people and try to arrest them so that it looks good on the records. The reasons I can come to think of is, many people in the Japanese government are old geezers and useless. They don’t know anything about computers. The cops are useless. Despite Japan being a higly technological advanced country many people in Japan do not know anything about electronics and computers. But with time the Japanese government will try to find out every single detail about you from what sox you wear to how many times a week you watch porn on the internet. The other reason I can come to think of is that Japan is still a cash society unlike in Europe and US where everything is Visa/master cards. This makes it easier to trace where and how we spent our money.

Japan can now plant fake evidence on you if they want to jack up the stats for unresolved cases if it’s suits them.

No sources, no evidence…seems like a bogus study designed to incite fear and move product to me.