Saturday, September 25, 2004
Wiretapping by the Numbers
The Korea Times reported that the National Intelligence Service, the police and the military have collectively bugged 880 people this year.
Various cops in the US bugged close to 3165 people in 2003 (the last year that we have full figures on).
In a country of 280 million this equates to roughly .001% of the population.
South Korea, with a population of roughly 50 million, has bugged .002% of its inhabitants.
(Some may want to note two very large simplifying assumptions in these numbers. First, wiretap figures actually report "cases" not people...I assume - probably incorrectly - that each case equals one person. Second, the percentages assume that only tallied population - and not guests/visitors are tapped - again, easy to imagine that this is not the case. However, it's probably roughly true that if you spend time in South Korea, you are twice as likely to be bugged as when you spend time in the US. But then Canada isn't quite the kind of neighbor that North Korea is...)
Various cops in the US bugged close to 3165 people in 2003 (the last year that we have full figures on).
In a country of 280 million this equates to roughly .001% of the population.
South Korea, with a population of roughly 50 million, has bugged .002% of its inhabitants.
(Some may want to note two very large simplifying assumptions in these numbers. First, wiretap figures actually report "cases" not people...I assume - probably incorrectly - that each case equals one person. Second, the percentages assume that only tallied population - and not guests/visitors are tapped - again, easy to imagine that this is not the case. However, it's probably roughly true that if you spend time in South Korea, you are twice as likely to be bugged as when you spend time in the US. But then Canada isn't quite the kind of neighbor that North Korea is...)
# posted by AmandaWelsh @ 2:34 PM 
