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213. List of countries by income equality
214. List of countries by distribution of wealth
215. The Geeks Who Leak

 List of countries by income equality

Differences in national income equality around the world as measured by the national Gini coefficient (CIA 2009).

This is a list of countries or dependencies by income inequality metrics, including Gini coefficients, according to theUnited Nations (UN), the World Bank, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Because the underlying household surveys differ in method and in the type of data collected, the distribution data are not strictly comparable across countries.

The Gini coefficient is a number between 0 and 1, where 0 corresponds with perfect equality (where everyone has the same income) and 1 corresponds with perfect inequality (where one person has all the income—and everyone else has zero income). Income distribution can vary greatly from wealth distribution in a country. See:List of countries by distribution of wealth. Income from black market economic activity is not included and is the subject of current economic research.^[1][2]

Contents   [hide]  1 List 2 OECD countries 2.1 Gini coefficient, before taxes and transfers 2.2 Gini coefficient, after taxes and transfers 3 See also 4 References 5 Further reading 6 External links

List[edit]

Note: The table is sortable in various ways. Click the sort button  cell at the top of the column you wish to sort. Click again to reverse the order of sorting. Reload the page to reset everything to its original format.

Key:
R/P 10%: The ratio of the average income of the richest 10% to the poorest 10%
R/P 20%: The ratio of average income of the richest 20% to the poorest 20%
Gini: Gini index, a quantified representation of a nation's Lorenz curve

UN: Data from the United Nations Development Programme.
CIA: Data from the Central Intelligence Agency's The World Factbook.
GPI: Data from the Global Peace Index.

Country	UN R/P 10%[3]	UN R/P 20%[4]	World Bank Gini (%)[5]	WB Gini (year)	CIA R/P 10%[6]	Year	CIA Gini (%)[7]	CIA Gini (year)	GPI Gini (%)[8]
Afghanistan			27.8	2008			29.4	2008	60.0
Albania	7.2	4.8	34.5	2008	7.2	2004	34.5	2008
Algeria	9.6	6.1	35.3	1995	9.6	1995	35.3	1995
Angola			58.6	2000					62.0
Argentina	31.6	17.8	36.4	2012	35.0	2007 Jan.-Mar.	45.8	2009
Armenia	8.0	5.0	30.9	2008	25.8	2004	30.9	2008
Australia	12.5	7.0	30.5	2006	12.7	1994	30.5	2006
Austria	6.9	4.4	26.0	2007	6.8	2004	26.0	2007
Azerbaijan	9.7	6.0	33.7	2008	9.5	2001	33.7	2008
Bahrain									36.0
Bangladesh	7.5	4.9	32.1	2010	7.5	2000 est.	33.2	2005
Belarus	6.9	4.5	27.2	2008	6.9	2002	27.2	2008
Belgium	8.2	4.9	33.0	2000	8.3	2000	28.0	2005
Belize			53.1	1999					49.2
Benin	9.4	6.0	38.6	2003	9.4	2003	36.5	2003
Bhutan			38.1	2007					32
Bolivia	93.9	42.3	56.3	2008	157.3	2002	58.2	2009
Bosnia and Herzegovina	5.4	3.8	36.2	2007	5.5	2001	36.2	2007
Botswana	43.0	20.4	61.0	1994			63	1993
Brazil	40.6	21.8	54.7	2009	37.1	2007	50.8	2012
Bulgaria	7.0	4.4	28.2	2007	8.8	2005	45.3	2007
Burkina Faso	11.6	6.9	39.8	2009	11.5	2003	39.5	2007
Burundi	19.3	9.5	33.3	2006	19.3	1998	42.4	1998
Cambodia	12.2	7.3	37.9	2008	12.0	2004	44.4	2007 est.
Cameroon	15.7	9.1	38.9	2007	15.4	2001	44.6	2001
Canada	9.4	5.5	32.6	2000	9.5	2000	32.1	2005
Cape Verde			50.5	2002
Central African Republic	69.2	32.7	56.3	2008	68.1	1993	61.3	1993
Chad			39.8	2003					52.3
Chile	26.2	15.7	52.1	2009	32.1	2003	52.1	2009
China, People's Republic of	21.6	12.2	47.0	2007	21.8	2004	48.0	2009	46.9[9]
Colombia	60.4	25.3	55.9	2010	56.3	2008	56.0	2010
Comoros			64.3	2004
Democratic Republic of the Congo			44.4	2006					55
Congo			47.3	2005					56.2
Costa Rica	23.4	15.6	50.7	2009	37.4	2003	50.3	2009
Côte d'Ivoire	16.6	9.7	41.5	2008	17.0	2002	41.5	2008
Croatia	7.3	4.8	33.7	2008	7.2	2003 est.	27.0	2009
Cuba									30.0
Cyprus							29.0	2005
Czech Republic	5.2	3.5	26.0	2005	5.2	1996	31.0	2009
Denmark	8.1	4.3	24.0	2005	12.0	2000 est.	24.8	2011
Djibouti			40.0	2002
Dominican Republic	25.3	14.3	47.2	2010	29.4	2005	48.4	2007
Ecuador	35.2	17.3	49.3	2010	17.5	2006 Oct.[10]	47.3	2011 Jun.
Egypt	8.0	5.1	30.8	2008	8.0	2000	34.4	2001
El Salvador	38.6	20.9	48.3	2009	55.4	2002	46.9	2007
Equatorial Guinea									65
Estonia	10.8	6.4	36.0	2004	11.0	2003	31.3	2010
Ethiopia	6.6	4.3	29.8	2005	6.5	2000	30.0	2000
European Union							30.4	2009 est.
Fiji			42.8	2009
Finland	5.6	3.8	26.9	2000	5.7	2000	26.8	2008
France	9.1	5.6	32.7	2008	8.3	2004	32.7	2008
Gabon			41.5	2005					60
The Gambia	20.2	11.2	47.3	2003	20.6	1998	50.2	1998
Georgia	15.4	8.3	41.3	2008	15.2	2003	40.8	2009
Germany	6.9	4.3	28.3	2000	6.9	2000	27.0	2006
Ghana	14.1	8.4	42.8	2006	13.7	1999	39.4	2005–2006
Greece	10.2	6.2	34.3	2000	10.4	2000 est.	33.0	2005
Guatemala	33.9	20.3	55.9	2006	48.2	2002	55.1	2007
Guinea	10.5	6.6	39.4	2007	21.6	2006	39.4	2007
Guinea-Bissau	19.0	10.3	35.5	2002	84.8	1991
Guyana			44.5	1998	26.0	1999	43.2	1999
Haiti	54.4	26.6	59.2	2001	68.1	2001	59.2	2001
Honduras	59.4	17.2	57.0	2009	35.2	2003	57.7	2007
Hong Kong	17.8	9.7	53.3	2007			53.7	2011
Hungary	5.5	3.8	31.2	2007	5.6	2002	24.7	2009
Iceland							28.0	2006
India	8.6	5.6	33.4	2005	8.6	2004	36.8	2004
Indonesia	7.8	5.2	34.0	2005	7.9	2002	36.8	2009
Iran	17.2	9.7	38.3	2005	16.9	1998	44.5	2006	38.3[11]
Iraq			30.9	2007					42
Ireland	9.4	5.6	34.3	2000	9.4	2000	33.9	2010
Israel	13.4	7.9	39.2	2001	11.8	2005	39.2	2008
Italy	11.6	6.5	36.0	2000	11.7	2000	32.0	2006
Jamaica	17.3	9.8	45.5	2004	17.0	2004	45.5	2004
Japan	4.5	3.4	38.1	2002	4.5	1993	37.6	2008
Jordan	11.3	6.9	35.4	2010	11.3	2003	39.7	2007
Kazakhstan	8.5	5.6	29.0	2009	8.0	2004 est.	26.7	2009
Kenya	13.6	8.2	47.7	2005	18.6	2000	42.5	2008 est.
North Korea									31.0
South Korea	7.8	4.7	31.3	2007	8.6	2005 est.	31.0	2010
Kuwait									30
Kyrgyzstan	6.4	4.4	36.2	2009	6.4	2003	33.4	2007
Laos	8.3	5.4	36.7	2008	8.4	2002	36.7	2008
Latvia	11.6	6.8	36.6	2008	11.6	2003	35.2	2010
Lebanon									45
Lesotho	10.5	44.2	52.5	2003	48.2	2002 est.	63.2	1995
Liberia	12.8		38.2	2007			38.2	2007
Libya									36.0
Lithuania	10.4	6.3	37.6	2008	10.3	2003	35.5	2009
Luxembourg			30.8	2000	6.8	2000	26.0	2005
Macedonia	12.5	7.5	43.2	2009	12.3	2003	44.2	2008
Madagascar	19.2	11.0	44.1	2010	19.3	2001	47.5	2001
Malawi	10.9	6.7	39.0	2004	11.0	2004	39.0	2004
Malaysia	22.1	12.4	46.2	2009	28.0	2003 est.	46.2	2009
Maldives			37.4	2004
Mali	12.5	7.6	33.0	2010	12.6	2001	40.1	2001
Malta							26.0	2007
Mauritania	12.0	7.4	40.5	2008	11.8	2000	39.0	2000
Mauritius							39.0	2006 est.
Mexico	21.6	12.8	48.3	2008	24.6	2004	51.7	2008
Moldova	8.2	5.3	33.0	2010	8.3	2003	38.0	2008
Mongolia	8.2	5.4	36.5	2008	8.2	2002	36.5	2008
Montenegro			30.0	2008			24.3	2010
Morocco	11.7	7.2	40.9	2007	11.9	1999	40.9	2007 est.
Mozambique	18.8	9.9	45.7	2008	18.8	2002	45.6	2008
Myanmar					11.6	1998			40
Namibia	12.8	56.1	63.9	2004	129.0	2003	70.7	2003
Nepal	15.8	9.1	32.8	2010	15.6	2004	47.2	2008
Netherlands	9.2	5.1	30.9	2007	9.2	1999	30.9	2007
New Zealand	12.4	6.8	36.2	1997			36.2	1997
Nicaragua	31.0	8.8	40.5	2005	15.4	2001	40.5	2010
Niger	46.0	20.7	34.6	2008	44.3	1995	34.0	2007
Nigeria	17.8	9.7	48.8	2010	17.5	2003	43.7	2003
Norway	6.1	3.9	25.8	2000	6.0	2000	25.0	2008
Oman									32
Pakistan	6.5	4.3	30.0	2008	6.6	2002	30.6	2007–2008
Panama	49.9	23.9	51.9	2010	61.4	2003	51.9	2010 est.
Papua New Guinea	23.8	12.6	50.9	1996	23.8	1996	50.9	1996
Paraguay	38.8	25.7	52.4	2010	65.9	2003	53.2	2009
Peru	26.1	15.2	48.1	2010	31.5	2003	46.0	2010
Philippines	15.5	9.3	43.0	2009	15.5	2003	45.8	2006
Poland	8.8	5.6	34.1	2009	8.7	2002	34.2	2008
Portugal	15.0	8.0	38.5	2007	9.2	1995 est.	38.5	2007
Qatar			41.1	2007					39
Romania	7.5	4.9	30.0	2009	7.4	2003	33.3	2010
Russia	12.7	7.6	40.1	2009	12.8	2002	42.0	2010
Rwanda	18.6	9.9	50.8	2011	18.2	2000	46.8	2000
Sao Tome and Principe			50.8	2001
Saudi Arabia									32.0
Senegal	12.3	7.4	39.2	2005	12.4	2001	41.3	2001
Serbia			27.8	2009			28.2	2008
Seychelles			65.8	2007
Sierra Leone	87.2	57.6	42.5	2003	87.2	1989	62.9	1989
Singapore	17.7	9.7	48.1	2008	17.3	1998	47.3	2011
Slovakia	6.7	4.0	26.0	2009	6.7	1996	26.0	2005
Slovenia	5.9	3.9	31.2	2004	5.9	1998	28.4	2008
Somalia									30
South Africa	33.1	17.9	63.1	2009	31.9	2000	65.0	2005
South Sudan			45.5	2009
Spain	10.3	6.0	34.7	2000	10.2	2000	32.0	2005
Sri Lanka	11.1	6.9	40.3	2007	36.1	2003/04 fiscal year	49.0	2009
St. Lucia			42.6	1995
Sudan			35.3	2009					51
Suriname			52.9	1999
Swaziland	25.1	13.0	51.5	2010	25.4	2001	50.4	2001
Sweden	6.2	4.0	25.0	2000	6.2	2000	23.0	2005
Switzerland	9.0	5.5	33.7	2000	8.9	2000	33.7	2008
Syria			35.8	2004					42.0
Taiwan					6.1	2002 est.	32.6	2000
Tajikistan	7.8	5.2	30.8	2009	7.8	2003	32.6	2006
Tanzania	9.2	5.8	37.6	2007	9.3	2000	37.6	2007
Thailand	12.6	7.7	40.0	2009	12.4	2002	53.6	2009
Timor-Leste			31.9	2007			31.9	2007 est.
Togo			34.4	2006
Trinidad and Tobago	12.9	7.6	40.3	1992
Tunisia	13.4	7.9	41.4	2005	13.7	2000	40.0	2005 est.
Turkey	6.6	4.6	39.0	2008	17.1	2003	40.2	2010
Turkmenistan	12.3	7.7	40.8	1998	12.2	1998	40.8	1998
Uganda	16.6	9.2	44.3	2009	16.4	2002	44.3	2009
Ukraine	5.9	4.1	26.4	2009	7.6	2006	27.5	2008
United Arab Emirates									31
United Kingdom	13.8	7.2	34.0	2005	13.6	1999	34.0	2005
United States	15.9	8.4	45	2007	15.0	2007 est.	45.0	2007
Uruguay	20.1	10.2	45.3	2010	17.9	2003	45.3	2010
Uzbekistan	10.6	6.2	36.7	2003	10.6	2003	36.8	2003
Venezuela	18.8	16.0	44.8	2006	50.3	2003	39.0	2011
Vietnam	6.9	4.9	35.6	2008	10.0	2004	37.6	2008
West Bank and Gaza			35.5	2009
Yemen	8.6	5.6	37.7	2005	8.6	2003	37.7	2005
Zambia			54.6	2006			50.8	2004
Zimbabwe			50.1	1995			50.1	2006
World					12.0	2002 est.	39	2007

OECD countries[edit]

Gini coefficient, before taxes and transfers[edit]

Gini coefficient, before taxes and transfers^[12]

Country	mid-70s	mid-80s	around 1990	mid-90s	around 2000	mid-2000s	Late 2000s
Australia				0.467	0.476	0.465	0.468
Austria						0.433	0.472
Belgium		0.449		0.472	0.464	0.494	0.469
Canada	0.385	0.395	0.403	0.430	0.440	0.436	0.441
Chile				0.541		0.514	0.526
Czech Republic				0.442	0.472	0.474	0.444
Denmark		0.373	0.396	0.417	0.415	0.417	0.416
Estonia						0.504	0.458
Finland	0.343	0.387		0.479	0.478	0.483	0.465
France		0.380	0.370	0.473	0.490	0.485	0.483
Germany		0.439	0.429	0.459	0.471	0.499	0.504
Greece	0.448	0.426		0.446	0.466	0.454	0.436
Hungary			0.452	0.496	0.463	0.497	0.466
Iceland						0.365	0.382
Ireland
Israel		0.472	0.476	0.494	0.504	0.513	0.498
Italy		0.420	0.437	0.508	0.516	0.557	0.534
Japan		0.345		0.403	0.432	0.443	0.462
South Korea						0.331	0.344
Luxembourg		0.383		0.427	0.421	0.454	0.482
Mexico		0.453		0.532	0.517	0.491	0.494
Netherlands	0.426	0.473	0.474	0.484	0.424	0.426	0.426
New Zealand		0.408	0.468	0.488	0.484	0.473	0.455
Norway		0.351		0.404	0.426	0.447	0.410
Poland						0.542	0.470
Portugal	0.457		0.436	0.490	0.479	0.542	0.521
Slovak Republic						0.458	0.416
Slovenia						0.452	0.423
Spain							0.461
Sweden	0.389	0.404	0.408	0.438	0.446	0.432	0.426
Switzerland							0.409
Turkey							0.470
United Kingdom	0.338	0.419	0.439	0.453	0.458	0.445	0.456
United States	0.406	0.436	0.450	0.477	0.476	0.486	0.486

Gini coefficient, after taxes and transfers[edit]

Gini coefficient, after taxes and transfers^[12]

Country	mid-70s	mid-80s	around 1990	mid-90s	around 2000	mid-2000s	Late 2000s
Australia				0.309	0.317	0.315	0.336
Austria		0.236		0.238	0.252	0.265	0.261
Belgium		0.274		0.287	0.289	0.271	0.259
Canada	0.304	0.293	0.287	0.289	0.318	0.317	0.324
Chile				0.527		0.503	0.494
Czech Republic			0.232	0.257	0.260	0.268	0.256
Denmark		0.221	0.226	0.215	0.226	0.232	0.248
Estonia						0.349	0.315
Finland	0.235	0.209		0.218	0.247	0.254	0.259
France		0.300	0.290	0.277	0.287	0.288	0.293
Germany		0.251	0.256	0.266	0.264	0.285	0.295
Greece	0.413	0.336		0.336	0.345	0.321	0.307
Hungary			0.273	0.294	0.293	0.291	0.272
Iceland						0.257	0.301
Ireland		0.331		0.324	0.304	0.314	0.293
Israel		0.326	0.329	0.338	0.347	0.378	0.371
Italy		0.309	0.297	0.348	0.343	0.352	0.337
Japan		0.304		0.323	0.337	0.321	0.329
South Korea						0.306	0.315
Luxembourg		0.247		0.259	0.261	0.258	0.288
Mexico		0.452		0.519	0.507	0.474	0.476
Netherlands	0.263	0.272	0.292	0.297	0.292	0.284	0.294
New Zealand		0.271	0.318	0.335	0.339	0.335	0.330
Norway		0.222		0.243	0.261	0.276	0.250
Poland					0.316	0.349	0.305
Portugal	0.354		0.329	0.359	0.356	0.385	0.353
Slovak Republic						0.268	0.257
Slovenia						0.246	0.236
Spain		0.371	0.337	0.343	0.342	0.319	0.317
Sweden	0.212	0.198	0.209	0.211	0.243	0.234	0.259
Switzerland					0.279	0.276	0.303
Turkey		0.434		0.490		0.430	0.409
United Kingdom	0.268	0.309	0.354	0.336	0.351	0.331	0.345
United States	0.316	0.337	0.348	0.361	0.357	0.380	0.378

___________________________________

List of countries by distribution of wealth

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is a list of countries by distribution of wealth, including Gini coefficients.^[1] Wealth distribution can vary greatly from income distribution in a country. See: List of countries by income equality.

Higher Gini coefficients signify greater inequality in wealth distribution, with 1 being complete inequality and 0 being complete equality. "The top 10 per cent owned 71 per cent of world wealth, and the Gini coefficient for the global distribution of wealth is estimated to be 0.804, indicating greater inequality than that observed in the global distribution of consumption or income."^[1]

The table below is for 2000, and is based on Purchasing power parity (PPP) dollars.

Note: This list is sortable in various ways. Click the sort button  at the top of the column you wish to sort. Click again to reverse the order of sorting. The list can be displayed in numerical order by clicking the button at the top of a number column. The table can be put in forward or reverse alphabetical order by clicking the sort button at the top of the country column. Reload the page to reset everything including putting back the row of column titles every 10 or 11 rows.

Country	population (1000s)	adults (1000s)	Share of world population (%)	Share of adult population (%)	Wealth per capita	Wealth per adult	Share of world wealth (%)	GDP per capita	Share of world GDP (%)	Wealth Gini
World	6085576	3697511	100.00	100.00	26416	43494	100.00	7675	100.00	0.804
Albania	3062	1851	0.05	0.05	10574	17497	0.02	3658	0.02	0.642
Algeria	30463	16353	0.50	0.44	7320	13635	0.14	6107	0.40	0.670
Antigua and Barbuda	77	52	0.00	0.00	20944	30915	0.00	18007	0.00	0.747
Argentina	36896	23307	0.61	0.63	36740	58161	0.84	11729	0.93	0.740
Armenia	3082	1986	0.05	0.05	9480	14711	0.02	3068	0.02	0.684
Australia	19071	13690	0.31	0.37	90906	126635	1.08	27193	1.11	0.622
Austria	8096	6271	0.13	0.17	73047	94305	0.37	24836	0.43	0.646
Azerbaijan	8143	4816	0.13	0.13	6737	11391	0.03	3555	0.06	0.678
Bangladesh	128916	66483	2.12	1.80	6305	12226	0.51	1772	0.49	0.660
Barbados	266	190	0.00	0.01	102932	144376	0.02	17526	0.01	0.706
Belarus	10029	7335	0.17	0.20	14659	20043	0.09	8738	0.19	0.628
Belgium	10304	7896	0.17	0.21	86205	112492	0.55	25008	0.55	0.662
Belize	242	119	0.00	0.00	12550	25444	0.00	7170	0.00	0.763
Benin	7197	3112	0.12	0.08	3378	7812	0.02	1225	0.02	0.713
Bolivia	8317	4171	0.14	0.11	6654	13269	0.03	2934	0.05	0.762
Botswana	1754	851	0.03	0.02	15719	32401	0.02	7703	0.03	0.751
Brazil	173858	104213	2.86	2.82	19676	32825	2.13	7745	2.88	0.784
Bulgaria	7997	6192	0.13	0.17	15120	19527	0.08	6356	0.11	0.652
Burkina Faso	11292	4591	0.19	0.12	2123	5222	0.02	986	0.02	0.728
Burundi	6486	2607	0.11	0.07	1876	4668	0.01	619	0.01	0.699
Cambodia	12744	5847	0.21	0.16	4890	10658	0.04	1859	0.05	0.714
Cameroon	14856	6819	0.24	0.18	5290	11525	0.05	2301	0.07	0.711
Canada	30689	22764	0.50	0.62	89252	120326	1.70	28731	1.89	0.688
Cape Verde	451	202	0.01	0.01	10801	24144	0.00	4299	0.00	0.688
Central African Republic	3777	1738	0.06	0.05	1949	4235	0.01	1148	0.01	0.782
Chad	8216	3501	0.14	0.10	1726	4051	0.01	959	0.02	0.681
Chile	15412	9809	0.25	0.27	27536	43265	0.26	10389	0.34	0.777
China	1251788	842063	20.57	22.77	11267	16749	8.77	3844	10.30	0.550
Colombia	42120	24197	0.69	0.65	13826	24067	0.36	5796	0.52	0.765
Comoros	699	315	0.01	0.01	5182	11490	0.00	1823	0.00	0.711
Democratic Republic of the Congo	50052	21050	0.82	0.57	1400	3328	0.04	669	0.07	0.711
Republic of the Congo	3438	1468	0.06	0.04	2806	6573	0.01	2533	0.02	0.711
Costa Rica	3929	2284	0.07	0.06	14718	25319	0.04	5873	0.05	0.732
Ivory Coast	16735	7529	0.28	0.20	5212	11584	0.05	2028	0.07	0.712
Croatia	4505	3430	0.07	0.09	22021	28925	0.06	9547	0.09	0.654
Czech Republic	10267	7889	0.17	0.21	32431	42205	0.21	14844	0.33	0.626
Denmark	5340	4072	0.09	0.11	66191	86807	0.22	28539	0.33	0.808
Dominica	78	46	0.00	0.00	12717	21500	0.00	8284	0.00	0.763
Dominican Republic	8265	4462	0.14	0.12	13873	25696	0.07	5654	0.10	0.723
Ecuador	12306	6770	0.20	0.18	6758	12285	0.05	3720	0.10	0.760
Egypt	67285	35550	1.11	0.96	15541	29415	0.65	4406	0.64	0.689
El Salvador	6280	3389	0.10	0.09	18408	34115	0.07	4622	0.06	0.746
Equatorial Guinea	449	206	0.01	0.01	7404	16110	0.00	10302	0.01	0.688
Estonia	1367	1016	0.02	0.03	24556	33023	0.02	10873	0.03	0.675
Ethiopia	68525	30020	1.13	0.81	1412	3224	0.06	720	0.11	0.652
Fiji	811	453	0.01	0.01	9928	17764	0.01	4950	0.01	0.709
Finland	5177	3905	0.09	0.11	53154	70461	0.17	24416	0.27	0.615
France	59278	44358	0.97	1.20	94557	126360	3.49	23614	3.00	0.730
Gabon	1272	603	0.02	0.02	14833	31279	0.01	7780	0.02	0.784
Gambia	1316	643	0.02	0.02	3894	7964	0.00	1329	0.00	0.723
Georgia	4720	3326	0.08	0.09	12358	17537	0.04	5315	0.05	0.725
Germany	82344	64810	1.35	1.75	90768	115325	4.65	23917	4.22	0.667
Ghana	19867	9418	0.33	0.26	3903	8234	0.05	1376	0.06	0.692
Greece	10975	8568	0.18	0.23	69855	89477	0.48	15558	0.37	0.654
Grenada	102	60	0.00	0.00	15250	25782	0.00	6410	0.00	0.763
Guatemala	11166	4986	0.18	0.14	12858	28796	0.09	4335	0.10	0.779
Guinea-Bissau	1366	588	0.02	0.02	1673	3884	0.00	738	0.00	0.710
Guinea	8434	3876	0.14	0.11	7756	16877	0.04	2961	0.05	0.693
Guyana	744	433	0.01	0.01	5697	9790	0.00	4072	0.01	0.707
Haiti	7939	3745	0.13	0.10	6244	13238	0.03	1798	0.03	0.755
Honduras	6424	3025	0.11	0.08	5318	11293	0.02	2164	0.03	0.743
Hong Kong	6637	5085	0.11	0.14	188699	246307	0.78	27893	0.40	0.740
Hungary	10226	7834	0.17	0.21	31452	41055	0.20	11063	0.24	0.651
Iceland	320	194	0.01	0.01	81945	118439	0.01	26929	0.02	0.664
India	1021084	570595	16.78	15.43	6513	11655	4.14	2684	5.87	0.669
Indonesia	209174	124446	3.44	3.37	7973	13401	1.04	4035	1.81	0.764
Iran	66365	34053	1.09	0.92	16673	32494	0.69	7202	1.02	0.707
Ireland	3801	2646	0.06	0.07	91432	131367	0.22	27197	0.22	0.581
Israel	6084	3836	0.10	0.10	64633	102511	0.25	19148	0.25	0.677
Italy	57715	46416	0.95	1.26	120897	150327	4.34	22876	2.83	0.609
Jamaica	2585	1478	0.04	0.04	9601	16787	0.02	3464	0.02	0.686
Japan	127034	100933	2.09	2.73	124858	157146	9.86	25924	7.05	0.547
Jordan	4972	2474	0.08	0.07	10792	21687	0.03	4282	0.05	0.678
Kazakhstan	15033	9507	0.25	0.26	13723	21699	0.13	8331	0.27	0.655
Kenya	30689	13409	0.50	0.36	3442	7878	0.07	1316	0.09	0.699
Kyrgyzstan	4952	2706	0.08	0.07	5174	9469	0.02	3205	0.03	0.680
Latvia	2373	1770	0.04	0.05	18958	25422	0.03	8305	0.04	0.670
Lebanon	3398	2024	0.06	0.06	20560	34522	0.04	6089	0.0	0.762
Lesotho	1788	825	0.03	0.02	2876	6236	0.00	1492	0.01	0.767
Lithuania	3500	2548	0.06	0.07	21566	29626	0.05	8397	0.06	0.666
Luxembourg	435	328	0.01	0.01	185231	245479	0.05	48968	0.05	0.650
Macau	444	310	0.01	0.01	71660	102755	0.02	23118	0.02	0.580
Macedonia	2010	1398	0.03	0.04	14759	21214	0.02	5506	0.02	0.661
Madagascar	16195	7260	0.27	0.20	2226	4965	0.02	877	0.03	0.722
Malawi	11512	4970	0.19	0.13	2559	5927	0.02	808	0.02	0.736
Malaysia	22997	12944	0.38	0.35	12458	22135	0.18	9422	0.46	0.733
Mali	11647	4691	0.19	0.13	1798	4464	0.01	996	0.03	0.750
Malta	392	284	0.01	0.01	74246	102515	0.02	18256	0.02	0.664
Mauritania	2645	1225	0.04	0.03	3966	8566	0.01	1729	0.01	0.686
Mauritius	1186	779	0.02	0.02	60398	91954	0.05	14406	0.04	0.661
Mexico	100088	56132	1.65	1.52	23488	41881	1.46	9711	2.08	0.749
Moldova	4275	2894	0.07	0.08	7790	11508	0.02	2212	0.02	0.691
Morocco	29231	16167	0.48	0.44	12440	22491	0.23	4299	0.27	0.690
Mozambique	17911	8088	0.29	0.22	2820	6245	0.03	1113	0.04	0.689
Namibia	1894	874	0.03	0.02	8843	19159	0.01	6058	0.03	0.847
Netherlands	15898	12046	0.26	0.33	121165	159910	1.20	25759	0.88	0.650
New Zealand	3818	2678	0.06	0.07	55823	79585	0.13	20008	0.16	0.651
Nicaragua	4959	2279	0.08	0.06	5161	11228	0.02	1947	0.02	0.755
Niger	11782	4758	0.19	0.13	1755	4344	0.01	902	0.02	0.729
Nigeria	117608	51431	1.93	1.39	905	2070	0.07	826	0.21	0.736
Norway	4502	3337	0.07	0.09	79292	106970	0.22	32057	0.31	0.633
Pakistan	142648	67968	2.34	1.84	5987	12566	0.53	2158	0.66	0.698
Panama	2950	1731	0.05	0.05	15003	25571	0.03	6650	0.04	0.766
Papua New Guinea	5299	2544	0.09	0.07	3629	7559	0.01	2326	0.03	0.738
Paraguay	5470	2703	0.09	0.07	10879	22016	0.04	4801	0.06	0.766
Peru	25952	14348	0.43	0.39	11577	20939	0.19	4799	0.27	0.738
Philippines	75766	39206	1.25	1.06	12453	24066	0.59	4065	0.66	0.717
Poland	38649	27858	0.64	0.75	24654	34204	0.59	9661	0.80	0.657
Portugal	10225	7878	0.17	0.21	53811	69840	0.34	17089	0.37	0.667
Puerto Rico	3835	2609	0.06	0.07	77876	114475	0.19	22242	0.18	0.753
Romania	22117	16431	0.36	0.44	14806	19930	0.20	5024	0.24	0.651
Russia	146560	107493	2.41	2.91	16579	22604	1.51	9996	3.14	0.699
Rwanda	8025	3250	0.13	0.09	2955	7296	0.02	976	0.02	0.714
São Tomé and Príncipe	140	62	0.00	0.00	3235	7251	0.00	1317	0.00	0.711
Saudi Arabia	21484	10992	0.35	0.30	22025	43046	0.29	12374	0.57	0.737
Senegal	10343	4547	0.17	0.12	4309	9802	0.03	1681	0.04	0.697
Seychelles	77	43	0.00	0.00	26486	47673	0.00	11644	0.00	0.760
Sierra Leone	4509	2136	0.07	0.06	2043	4311	0.01	734	0.01	0.687
Singapore	4017	2890	0.07	0.08	113632	157942	0.28	28644	0.25	0.689
Slovakia	5400	3900	0.09	0.11	24049	33297	0.08	12619	0.15	0.629
Slovenia	1967	1521	0.03	0.04	37019	47867	0.05	16983	0.07	0.626
South Africa	45610	25480	0.75	0.69	16266	29118	0.46	8017	0.78	0.763
South Korea	46779	33242	0.77	0.90	45278	63716	1.32	14937	1.50	0.579
Spain	40717	32165	0.67	0.87	93086	117837	2.36	19037	1.66	0.570
Sri Lanka	19848	12689	0.33	0.34	10337	16168	0.13	3841	0.16	0.665
Saint Kitts and Nevis	40	24	0.00	0.00	22339	37767	0.00	14627	0.00	0.763
Saint Lucia	154	89	0.00	0.00	18013	31128	0.00	6823	0.00	0.763
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	116	64	0.00	0.00	13287	23932	0.00	7847	0.00	0.741
Swaziland	1023	444	0.02	0.01	12773	29417	0.01	5047	0.01	0.780
Sweden	8877	6735	0.15	0.18	78148	102996	0.43	24628	0.47	0.742
Switzerland	7167	5497	0.12	0.15	137549	179345	0.61	28209	0.43	0.803
Syria	16813	7920	0.28	0.21	8917	18929	0.09	4338	0.16	0.704
Taiwan	22191	15476	0.37	0.42	100009	143405	1.38	19714	0.94	0.655
Tajikistan	6159	2866	0.10	0.08	2940	6318	0.01	1380	0.02	0.664
Tanzania	34763	15569	0.57	0.42	1216	2716	0.03	490	0.04	0.676
Thailand	61438	40160	1.01	1.09	13920	21295	0.53	6715	0.88	0.710
Togo	5364	2379	0.09	0.06	2217	4999	0.01	926	0.01	0.711
Trinidad and Tobago	1285	817	0.02	0.02	51101	80369	0.04	13721	0.04	0.689
Tunisia	9563	5638	0.16	0.15	20534	34833	0.12	7130	0.15	0.693
Turkey	68234	40391	1.12	1.09	22379	37806	0.95	7414	1.08	0.718
Uganda	24309	9370	0.40	0.25	2889	7495	0.04	1030	0.05	0.723
United Kingdom	58670	43871	0.96	1.19	128959	172461	4.71	24252	3.09	0.697
Ukraine	49116	36573	0.81	0.99	9547	12821	0.29	5147	0.54	0.667
Uruguay	3342	2259	0.06	0.06	20926	30957	0.04	10285	0.07	0.708
United States	284154	202865	4.67	5.49	143727	201319	25.40	35619	21.67	0.801
Venezuela	24418	13707	0.40	0.37	14711	26206	0.22	7232	0.38	0.712
Vietnam	78671	44025	1.29	1.19	5621	10045	0.28	2012	0.34	0.682
Yemen	17937	7209	0.30	0.20	1426	3548	0.02	1293	0.05	0.613
Zambia	10702	4517	0.18	0.12	2010	4762	0.01	841	0.02	0.766
Zimbabwe	12595	5631	0.21	0.15	6104	13654	0.05	2607	0.07	0.845
	population (1000s)	adults (1000s)	Share of world population (%)	Share of adult population (%)	Wealth per capita	Wealth per adult	Share of world wealth (%)	GDP per capita	Share of world GDP (%)	Wealth Gini

_________________________________

Monday, Jun. 24, 2013

The Geeks Who Leak

By Michael Scherer

Correction Appended: June 13, 2013

The 21st century mole demands no payments for his secrets. He sees himself instead as an idealist, a believer in individual sovereignty and freedom from tyranny. Chinese and Russian spooks will not tempt him. Rather, it's the bits and bytes of an online political philosophy that attract his imagination, a hacker mentality founded on message boards in the 1980s, honed in chat rooms in the '90s and matured in recent online neighborhoods like Reddit and 4chan. He believes above all that information wants to be free, that privacy is sacred and that he has a responsibility to defend both ideas.

"The public needs to decide whether these programs and policies are right or wrong," said Edward Joseph Snowden, the 29-year-old former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor who admitted on June 6 to one of the most significant thefts of highly classified secrets in U.S. history. The documents he turned over to the press revealed a massive program to compile U.S. telephone records into a database for antiterrorism and counterintelligence investigations. Another program, called Prism, has given the NSA access to records at major online providers like Google, Facebook and Microsoft to search information on foreign suspects with court approval. The secret program has been under way for seven years.

Snowden is "no different than anybody else," he claimed. "I'm just another guy who sits there day to day in the office," he said in an interview with the Guardian, which broke the story along with the Washington Post. But Snowden, who was working as an analyst for the government contractor Booz Allen, is not just another guy. He is something new. More than 1.4 million Americans now hold top-secret security clearances in the military and the shadow world of intelligence. Most do not contact reporters and activists over encrypted e-mail in hopes of publishing secrets as civil disobedience. Few are willing to give up their house, their $122,000-a-year job, their girlfriend or their freedom to expose systems that have been approved by Congress and two Presidents, under the close monitoring of the federal courts. Snowden is different, and that difference is changing everything.

A Brave New World

The U.S. National Security infrastructure was built to protect the nation against foreign enemies and the spies they recruit. Twenty-something homegrown computer geeks like Snowden, with utopian ideas of how the world should work, scramble those assumptions. Just as antiwar protesters of the Vietnam era argued that peace, not war, was the natural state of man, this new breed of radical technophiles believes that transparency and personal privacy are the foundations of a free society. Secrecy and surveillance, therefore, are gateways to tyranny. And in the face of tyranny, the leakers believe, rebellion is noble. "There is no justice in following unjust laws," wrote Aaron Swartz, a storied computer hacker and an early employee of Reddit, in a 2008 manifesto calling for the public release of private documents. "We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with the world."

LIST: 10 Notorious Leakers and How They Fared

On the run in a Hong Kong hotel room, Snowden explained in a video interview the reasons for his actions, with pride and a hint of serenity, even as he described how he could be killed, secretly "rendered" by the CIA or kidnapped by Chinese mobsters for what he had done. He characterized the surveillance systems he exposed as "turnkey tyranny" and warned of what would happen if the safeguards now in place ever fell away. He hoped to force a public debate, to set the information free. "This is the truth. This is what is happening," he said of the documents he had stolen and released. "You should decide whether we need to be doing this."

Three years earlier, a 22-year-old Army intelligence analyst stationed in Iraq named Bradley Manning offered a nearly identical defense for a similar massive breach of military and diplomatic secrets. "I want people to see the truth, because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public," Manning wrote to a hacking friend in 2010 after he had illegally sent hundreds of thousands of classified documents to the website WikiLeaks.

Like Snowden, Manning said his worst fear was not that his actions would change the world but that they wouldn't. Both young men grew up in the wake of the security crackdown that followed the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. They had come of age online, in chat rooms and virtual communities where this new antiauthority, free-data ideology was hardening. They identified, at least in part, as libertarians, with Manning using the word to describe himself and Snowden sending checks to Ron Paul's presidential campaign. Neither appeared to believe he was betraying his country. "Information should be free," wrote Manning before his capture, later adding that he was not sure if he was a hacker, cracker, hacktivist, leaker or something else. "It belongs in the public domain."

(POLL: Support for the Leaker — and His Prosecution)

"We Are Legion"

Manning's statement is a radical one, since it directly undermines the rule of law, something both men seemed to recognize. "When you are subverting the power of government, that's a fundamentally dangerous thing to democracy," Snowden said of his actions. And in official Washington, the broad consensus is that the impulse is dead wrong and likely to cause real harm. "What this young man has done, I can say with a fair amount of certainty, is going to cost someone their lives," said Georgia Republican Saxby Chambliss, who is vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Neither the Obama White House nor the leaders of either party are much concerned about the legality or the effectiveness of the sweeping data-collection programs; both sides, however, seemed quite keen to track down Snowden and bring him to justice. The public, according to a new TIME poll, echoed that impulse, with 53% of Americans saying Snowden should be prosecuted, compared with just 28% who say he should be sent on his way.

But among Snowden and Manning's age group, from 18 to 34, the numbers are much higher, with 43% saying Snowden should not be prosecuted. That hacktivist ethos is growing around the world, driven in large part by young hackers who are increasingly disrupting all manner of institutional power with online protest and Internet theft. "That's the most optimistic thing that is happening--the radicalization of the Internet-educated youth, people who are receiving their values from the Internet," said Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, in an April interview with Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt. "This is the political education of apolitical technical people. It is extraordinary."

The stories show up in newspapers and courtrooms on a daily basis. Just as Snowden flew to Hong Kong with his stolen cache, a 28-year-old hacker named Jeremy Hammond pleaded guilty in New York City on May 28 to stealing e-mails, credit-card information and documents from Stratfor Global Intelligence Service, a private consulting company. Hammond expressed little remorse for working with a hacking and activist collective known as Anonymous to break the law. "I did this because I believe people have a right to know what governments and corporations are doing behind closed doors," he wrote on a website after pleading guilty. "I did what I believe is right."

In recent years, Anonymous has targeted companies like MasterCard and trade groups like the Motion Picture Association of America for the alleged crime of opposing openness. They have staged protests against the rapid-transit system in the San Francisco Bay Area, when authorities shut down cellular service, and staged rallies around the world against Scientology, to protest the religion's aggressive protection of its secrets. In 2011, hackers claiming to be Anonymous stole personal details of 77 million Sony PlayStation accounts, shutting down the network for a month, in apparent protest of a prohibition the company had imposed on installing certain features on the devices' firmware.

Others have targeted academia and the law. Swartz, who committed suicide at the age of 26 in January while under federal indictment for hacking an academic computer, downloaded and publicly released millions of federal court documents from a U.S. court computer system in protest of a per-page fee for access. He was arrested for trying to download huge volumes of copyrighted academic articles from the costly JSTOR database at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Those who have been locked out are not standing idly by," he had argued about the need to liberate information to the public domain.

These "free the files" protests are crimes under U.S. law, but in most cases they are not crimes of the nature the legal system was designed to prosecute. When they take the form of denial-of-service attacks, overwhelming and shutting down websites with bogus traffic, they resemble protests protected in some cases by the First Amendment. Others follow in the tradition of the country's most heralded technological revolutionaries. Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg hacked the Harvard databases of student IDs to create Facemash, the predecessor to his current multibillion-dollar site. As a teenager, Apple founder Steve Jobs sold boxes built by his friend Steve Wozniak to fool the phone company and make free long-distance calls. Microsoft's Bill Gates hacked the accounts of an early computer company to avoid having to pay to use it.

By the early 1990s, the hacktivists were organizing around larger goals, like ensuring online privacy for individuals. A hacker named Phil Zimmermann created a data-encryption program called PGP, which used a software technology that was classified as a "munition" under U.S. law and therefore banned for export. Zimmermann responded by publishing his code in a book, via MIT Press, since the export of printed matter is protected by the First Amendment. The movement that grew up around these efforts helped give birth to WikiLeaks. Today that same defiant spirit still dominates large swaths of the Internet, informing the actions of people like Snowden, Manning and Swartz. "It's a generation of kids who have been told again and again that behaviors that seem perfectly reasonable to them are criminal," says Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard law professor who was a mentor to Swartz.

Peter Ludlow, a philosophy professor at Northwestern University who has written extensively about cyberculture, says two disparate ideas have been linked in recent years. "There was always this kind of tech-hacker ethos, which was probably libertarian, which has collided with this antiauthoritarian political impulse," he said. "You put these two things together, and it's just like wildfire."

"We are legion," runs the catchphrase of Anonymous. "We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us." Now the government has to figure out how to respond.

Dawn of the Informer Age

In the days after the Snowden disclosures, a coalition of 86 groups--including online communities like 4chan, Reddit and BoingBoing--signed on to an open petition to Congress calling the NSA programs "unconstitutional surveillance." A petition filed with WhiteHouse.gov calling on Obama to pardon Snowden reached 60,000 names in three days. Sales of George Orwell's 64-year-old antitotalitarian novel 1984 have soared. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which usually raises money for liberal candidates, founded a legal-defense fund for Snowden. And a recent online video campaign--with Hollywood filmmaker Oliver Stone, actors such as Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard, and several liberal journalists--has been organizing a social-media campaign called "I am Bradley Manning," which argues Manning was nothing more than a whistle-blower who should be protected from prosecution.

Even the current corporate titans of Silicon Valley, who have long been libertarian in their politics, have not been far behind. Shortly after the Snowden leak named Google, Facebook and Microsoft as partners in the Prism program, the companies all asked the Justice Department for permission to disclose more fully their heretofore secret cooperation with the courts. The reason: they did not want to damage their brands, which have long embraced free experimentation and minimal regulation on the Internet. "Google has nothing to hide," the company's chief legal officer David Drummond announced in an open letter.

But what is accepted wisdom among the tech community is viewed with some skepticism with much of the American public. The TIME poll found that only 43% of the country thought the government should "cut back on programs that threaten privacy," while 20% said the government should be doing more, even if it invades privacy. On the question of whether they approved or disapproved of the current programs revealed by Snowden, the nation was basically split, with 48% approving and 44% disapproving.

(Forget PRISM: Global Cyberchiefs Say They Need to Pry Even Further)

The government, meanwhile, is likely to treat Snowden as if he was a Cold War spy seeking to undermine the country he still claims to serve. The Justice Department has launched an investigation into the disclosure of classified information, a prelude to a standard espionage prosecution. Even though charges may not be filed for weeks, it is likely that prosecutors will try to extradite Snowden to the U.S. for trial and seek a punishment of life in prison.

Perhaps the clearest summary of the federal response to this new online political activism can be found, appropriately enough, in a classified 2008 document from the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Center, which has been leaked and posted online by hacker activists. "Websites such asWikiLeaks.org have trust as their most important center of gravity protecting the anonymity and identity of the insider, leaker, or whistle blower," the document reads. The solution, concludes the Army, is to find, expose and punish those people who leak in an effort to "potentially damage or destroy this center of gravity and deter others considering similar actions."

Already, the government may have overinterpreted that guidance. Manning, after his arrest more than three years ago, was subjected to harsh incarceration conditions, including confinement to his cell 23 hours a day, that have raised the concerns of Amnesty International, a former U.N. human-rights investigator and even a former State Department spokesperson, Philip Crowley, who called the conditions "ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid." Crowley resigned over those comments, but a federal judge later ruled that Manning's final sentence would be reduced 112 days to compensate for harsh pretrial treatment.

Manning has already pleaded guilty to 10 counts of misusing classified information, with a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. He is now undergoing a court-martial at Fort Meade, Maryland, the same military base where the NSA is headquartered, on additional charges of aiding the enemy and violating the Espionage Act, with the possibility of life in prison. "The more I read the cables, the more I came to the conclusion this was the type of information that should become public," he has testified in his own defense.

MORE: Senators Look to Prevent Another Snowden

After the Manning leaks, the intelligence community, the State Department and the military tried to remake their procedures to ensure that another leak could not happen. New trip wires were added to detect massive downloading of classified information, monitor military workstations and better compartmentalize secret information. Clearly, more will have to be done. "There is a belief that the total revelation of information is in the public interest," said a White House official, describing the threat. The official noted that the coming changes to classified access in response to Snowden are likely to further limit information sharing, narrowing the potential of a key reform after 2001 meant to prevent further attacks.

"I think that there's a group of people, younger people who are not fighting the war, who are libertarians mostly, who feel like the government is the problem," says Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican on the Armed Services Committee who helped write the laws that govern the NSA surveillance programs. Graham says he wants more internal efforts in the intelligence community to detect such people before they go public and to punish the leakers severely. "It's imperative that we catch him," Graham said of Snowden. "I don't care what we need to do. We need to bring this guy to justice for deterrence sake."

But others who monitor the intelligence world say it will not be so easy. Snowden wasn't a government official; he was a private contractor, the kind of hired help the U.S. intelligence system has come to rely on by the thousands since 9/11. And the punishment of Manning did not dissuade Snowden, after all. If anything, it cleared the path to future celebrity and martyrdom for other, like-minded activists. "It's going to be a challenge to the intelligence community to figure out how to defend against this," says Senator Chambliss. "I don't know that you always can."

In the meantime, the threat of more leaks is likely to grow as young people come of age in the defiant culture of the Internet and new, principled martyrs like Snowden seize the popular imagination. "These backlashes usually do provoke political mobilization and a deepening of commitments," says Gabriella Coleman, a professor at McGill University in Montreal, who is finishing a book on Anonymous. "I kind of feel we are at the dawn of it."