Sweden’s new Big Brother spy law
p2pnet news Politics:- | Freedom:- Sweden, once heralded as a country where people’s rights were not only respected, but protected, has passed a law which would make China’s rulers green with envy.
The government now has carte blanche to spy on all SMS, email and other data traffic.
“Bloggers, newspapers, unionists and even the former head of the country’s security police, Anders Eriksson, have taken up arms against the Bill, saying that it did not provide sufficient safeguards against state intrusion,” says Times Online.
“This law is fundamentally flawed and needs to be completely rewritten,” it has him saying, “this is not just a matter of including a few checks and balances.”
It echoes the Bush administration’s, “controversial surveillance measures which side-stepped the laws in the name of combating terrorism,” said Radio Sweden just before the law went through, stating >>>
The major criticism is that the proposal would give the military the green light to search through incoming phone and e-mail information even where there are no suspicions against the subject.
The Swedish journalists’ union said the bill constituted the “final nail in the coffin of democracy,” says the story.
The, “changing nature of security threats, terrorism, international crime and the specter of cyber warfare” were enough to, “push through the law which hands intelligence agencies far-ranging powers to snoop on citizens’ personal data,” says Deutsche Welle, adding:
“Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt [right] first failed to get the backing of its own four-party coalition in his push for wide-ranging monitoring of cross-border Internet data and taps on international telephone calls to discover what he ahs [sic] called “dangers from abroad” more quickly,
“But after the committee required that the center-right government safeguard individual rights further in an annex to the law to be voted on in the autumn, the bill narrowly passed with 143 votes in favor, 138 opposed and one parliamentarian abstaining.”
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.Stumble It!
Times Online – Sweden’s contentious ‘Big Brother’ law gets the go-ahead, June 19, 2008
Radio Sweden – Criticism Mounts Against Swedish Surveillance Proposal, June 17, 2008
Deutsche Welle – Swedish Government Clears Hurdles to Pass Surveillance Bill, June 19, 2008
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June 20th, 2008 at 10:07 am
Me still wants to know what badge that is that their ministerpresiden tis wearing in that (+) picture.
It looks a bit like the CIA one (-) , but me is not sure. Can someone elaborate?
(+) http://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/bilder/reinfeldt2_v-gross4×3.jpg
(-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:CIA.svg
June 20th, 2008 at 11:18 am
They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.
June 20th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
To think that Sweden used to be a country where the Prime Minister felt safe enough to walk the streets at night without even a bodyguard.
June 20th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
There’s not a peep from the mainstream press on this.
June 21st, 2008 at 1:26 am
But much more than a peep from the internet ‘press’. Discussion forums and chatrooms have been on fire. I’m just a bit surprised that amid all the internet buzz, 2 days passed before the news appeared here.
I like that poster
June 21st, 2008 at 1:55 am
Reader’s Write Says:
June 20th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
don’t be so sure that this was the case!
Keyword: Olof Palme
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olof_Palme
June 21st, 2008 at 2:09 am
thats one is more on point
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olof_Palme_assassination
and while this is a freedom song from germany even a bit older then those swedish traitors in power at the moment -1848 to be exact- it seems the climate in old europe is rapidly heading towards such old revolution times again.
http://www.box.net/shared/oue5eoku88
June 21st, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Can anyone imagine George Bush & wife walking the streets of Washington D.C. alone and completely unguarded? You can just imagine how long it would take before something highly unpleasant happens (quite possibly the first person they cross paths with).
The fact that Swedish P.M. Palme was able to live more or less like an ordinary citizen says a lot about Sweden, or at least how Sweden used to be.
it’s likely that Sweden’s new spy law has a lot to do with US pressure. For one thing, Sweden has become home to quite a few Iraqi refugees, something that the US has been determined not to become itself, on the basis that all Arabs are the violent Jew-killing people depicted in Hollywood movies.