U.S. at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to privacy

The U.S. has one of the worst privacy records in the world, and is an "endemic surveillance society," along with such countries as China and Russia, according to the group Privacy International. And things are only getting worse.

The group recently released its annual International Privacy Ranking, and the results aren't pretty. Only a handful of countries were given the worst ranking possible, "endemic surveillance societies." In the U.S. privacy deteriorated over the last year; in 2006, we were an "extensive surveillance society."

There are plenty of reasons for this ranking. Prominent among them are government-sponsored Internet spying programs. For example, the group cited "Congress-approved presidential program of spying on foreign communications over U.S. networks."

The Democrats are as culpable as the Bush administration in this; they've shown they're no friends of privacy. So don't expect things to get any better.

The group cited the U.S. as being among the worst in the world for privacy in multiple categories, including leadership, workplace monitoring, data sharing, privacy enforcement, visual surveillance, and many others.

By the way, to show just how bad things are in the U.S., even Bulgaria is better than us when it comes to privacy.