I won the DV2013 lottery (I have about 3 months left to relocate to the US) and I remember the chances being as high as 4% in some places.

Or you just book a round trip with a few hours inside the US and you're good to go for the next 12 months in your home country.

This way you can opt for the wait-and-see approach regarding the evolution of the surveillance state trend and its ramifications.

It depends on where you are from.

So which countries are more preferable? And from where do you have this information?

People from Europe & Oceania (Australia, New Zealand, etc.) get 80% of the DV. If you're fromm elsewhere you have around a 1% or less chance of winning. (For Oceanians it's about 5%.)

Source: Wikipedia article on it.

That's not right. The chances of winning are, with the exception of Oceania, less than 2%. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity_Immigrant_Visa#Winnin... (Oceania is 5.28%). I'm not sure where you got the 80% from.