EC sues Sweden over data retention
p2pnet news view | Politics:- Sweden is being sued by the European Commission for failing to implement the 2006 Data Retention Directive requiring telecom operators to store data about customers’ phone calls and emails.
“The primary objective in government data retention is traffic analysis and mass surveillance,” says the Wikipedia.
“By analysing the retained data, governments can identify the locations of individuals, an individual’s associates and the members of a group such as political opponents. These activities may or may not be lawful, depending on the constitutions and laws of each country.”
Now, “the Commission’s willingness to tolerate the Swedish government’s recalcitrance over the directive appears to have worn out, as the Commission recently decided to file a suit against Sweden in the European Court of Justice,” The Local quotes Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) as saying.
The EC, “decided to sue Sweden on April 14th, and has recently filed papers with the court to bring the suit forward,” says the story, continuing:
“According to the treaty, the Commission is responsible for starting an infraction claim when a member country doesn’t follow a decision,” said the European Commission’s spokesperson in Sweden, Eric Degerbeck, to SvD.
The Data Retention Directive was championed by former Social Democratic justice minister Thomas Bodström, but has continually lacked the support from Sweden’s current centre-right Alliance government.
On two previous occasions, the Commission has questioned why Sweden delayed implementing the law, with the government claiming it was too busy working on the Treaty of Lisbon to turn its attention toward the directive.
According to the current Minister of Justice Beatrice Ask, “Legislative work is ongoing. Our ambition is to present a bill before the summer and the Commission knows that.”
Cases at the European Court of Justice take time, “and Ask hopes that Sweden may avoid having to pay any fines,” says the story.
The Local – Sweden sued over EU data directive inaction, May 26, 2009
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May 27th, 2009 at 10:43 am
Learn from The Pirate Bay, damnit! Don’t pay any fines whatsoever.
May 27th, 2009 at 10:52 am
Ahahha
Learn from The Pirate Bay: don’t store private info.
May 27th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
The EU is a combination of the Holy Roman Empire and the Fourth Reich waiting to happen. All it needs is a powerful German leader and Catholic sanction/blessing. Their constitution runs to many thousands of pages and is an unreadable mess. They are incredibly evil and stealthily so. Even to speak out against the EU can get you hauled into court, if you are an EU citizen.
May 28th, 2009 at 2:34 am
Fuck the EU. Data retetion is a useless idea that costa a whole bunch of money. Data retention can be usefull if every nation in the world would implement it but if someone doesn’t it has already failed. Start a server in the country with no retention and make a tunnel, violá no problemo.
EU = Well paid idiots make useless laws about useless shit that costs it’s citizens top euro. i’m sorry but I thought we were making a better place not a police state.
June 10th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
The pirates have it right, this is a privacy issue great video here: http://www.newsy.com/videos/ahoy_european_parliament_sees_pirates_and_the_right