America — an ‘endemic surveillance society’

The land of the free and the home of the brave

That, unfortunately, is the current assessment of Privacy International (via Glenn Greenwald).

What is an endemic surveillance society? It is the most intrusive kind of modern society; the lowest ranking social kind in the Privacy International table. With respect to the United States, Privacy International uses the class to refer to a society with these characteristics [copied directly from the Privacy International source]:

• No right to privacy in constitution, though search and seizure protections exist in 4th Amendment; case law on government searches has considered new technology
  
• No comprehensive privacy law, many sectoral laws; though tort of privacy
  
• FTC continues to give inadequate attention to privacy issues, though issued self-regulating privacy guidelines on advertising in 2007
  
• State-level data breach legislation has proven to be useful in identifying faults in security
  
• REAL-ID and biometric identification programs continue to spread without adequate oversight, research, and funding structures
  
• Extensive data-sharing programs across federal government and with private sector
  
• Spreading use of CCTV
  
• Congress approved presidential program of spying on foreign communications over U.S. networks, e.g. Gmail, Hotmail, etc.; and now considering immunity for telephone companies, while government claims secrecy, thus barring any legal action
  
• No data retention law as yet, but equally no data protection law
  
• World leading in border surveillance, mandating trans-border data flows
  
• Weak protections of financial and medical privacy; plans spread for 'rings of steel' around cities to monitor movements of individuals
  
• Democratic safeguards tend to be strong but new Congress and political dynamics show that immigration and terrorism continue to leave politicians scared and without principle
  
• Lack of action on data breach legislation on the federal level while REAL-ID is still compelled upon states has shown that states can make informed decisions
  
• Recent news regarding FBI biometric database raises particular concerns as this could lead to the largest database of biometrics around the world that is not protected by strong privacy law
  

The original map and a discussion of the methods used in the study and the meaning of the map can be found here.