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Sweden Admits Tapping Citizens' Phones for Decades
paulraps writes "Sweden is close to implementing new surveillance legislation that will include the monitoring of emails, telephone calls and keyword searches using advanced pattern analysis. The objective is to detect 'threats such as terrorism, IT attacks or the spread of weapons of mass destruction' but the proposals have divided the country. In a misguided attempt to put people at ease, the government admitted that Sweden has been tapping its citizens' phones for decades anyway."
The software to encrypt your information is free. If you don't use it you have to assume that people are reading your information...
Deleted
Strange country they got there. On one hand they have the Pirate Bay, wich runs with impunity, on the other this.
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
thelocal.se isn't responding. Anybody got a mirror?
Cause I'd be sooooooo relaxed if my Government tries to pass a law in favour of torture, but only if they admit they've been doing it for ages.
It's like a 7-mile-wide billboard shouting "SORRY, WE HAVE NO FUCKING SHAME"...
My 0.02 cents
Guy : Honey, I think we should start seeing other people .. SMACK
Gal : I can't believe you are saying that, I thought our relationship was strong
Guy : I don't know why you're so upset, I've been seeing others for 10 years now, hasn't bothered you yet
Gal : You've been doing WHAT?!>
Guy : Oh, uh, I mean, well, did I say 10years, I meant
Nothing like this surprises me anymore, politicians, kings, leaders, whatever you want to call them, always want to stay in power as long as they can. They will use any means to achieve that, so all this wiretapping, spying etc... is not surprising at all. People trust their government too much.
Yeah, well it's not like Sweden has a document like the US Constitution that prot....ect......s.... its um, citizens from....... Er..... Nevermind.
Revolution!
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
i'd give em to you.. SPOT ON!
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
But there was a slight wheeze from an excess of meatballs and lingenberries that gave it away.
P.S. Ikea has been embedding small microphones and night vision snoop cams in those hex thingies for just as long.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
.. that data mining doesn't work.
I can't read the article, so I put this to Slashdotters who can: could this be another bad writeup? I mean, the government could be referring to wiretaps that occurred with valid due-process. I'm not sure about due-process in Sweden, but I'm assuming they have something analogous to warrants there. Or is it good-old US-style warrant-less wiretapping?
It's not like Sweden is alone. UK + NA have had http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON for quite a while.
So all the people who regularly point out how much "better" a society Sweden is than the US, either have to:
- entirely backtrack
- agree that domestic surveillance really ISN'T that big a deal
- just be hypocrites.
(grabs some popcorn)
OK, let's start discussing!
-Styopa
I live in the UK, and we are the surveillance capital of the world. The fact that phones have been tapped for years in other countries as well doesn't surprise me at all.
;-). The fall of the Soviet Union, as it once was, has always puzzled me in that I wonder whether many security services organisations could actually see what was coming.
With the internet I now have the option of securing my communications if I so wish, which isn't really a problem for surveillance at all for legitimate purposes, but this quite clearly scares the security services here and elsewhere because they want to feel like they're in control. Crucially, the security services in many countries now have to give themselves a reason for being, wasting taxpayers money and continuing the old boy's network - which is where the exagerrated levels of terrorism and foreign threats come from. We've had a ton of these arguments in the UK, and none of them stand up to scrutiny or evidence. Apparently, we're facing threats that are even graver than anything seen in World War 2, and yes there are terrorist groups out there in the world, but this is quite obviously ludicrous to any sane person.
However, I don't think that telling citizens that their phones have been unknowingly tapped for decades anyway, so there's nothing to worry about, is exactly the wisest of moves. These security services organisations are so out of their depth now it isn't even funny, especially regarding internet communications. If they wanted to keep themselves in a job then they should have worked harder to keep Communism and the Soviet Union intact
FRA has always been listening to "international" traffic (radio, satellite etc), not cable/telephone. Most countries do that. Olofsson doesn't really know what she is talking about.
^^
You might want to add the following item to your list...
In case of fire, do not use elevator. Use water!
One would think their government would be more secure than their banks are.
And when a government doesn't need a warrant to tap a phone, then you're well on the road to fascism.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Erhm... at the risk of being whoosed... Sweden != Switzerland (Land of teh Blond vs. Land of teh Chocolate)
My 0.02 cents
a nigger.
Yeah, because "better" means the same thing as "perfect" - how did this total idiocy get modded up? I regularly see such obvious logical fallacies getting modded up, especially when they server someones political agenda.
Sweden is clearly better than the US, even if they have some of the same dumb shit as we do like a national security apparatus that violates citizens rights, or politicians willing to whore themselves to the entertainment industry.
But with the level of organization involved with "large-scale" terror attacks, isn't tapping public lines just more of a minor hassle for them than a trap? When we openly hand this over, IMO - we are 20x more inconvenienced and effected then the terrorists this is supposed to protect us from.
Maybe Sweden had the right idea. Listen in, get information and don't tell us you're doing it. In 10 or 20 years, our lives are going to be exponentially more public then they are now anyway. By the time the dust settles, the paperwork of what is being monitored and what is private is going to be very detailed (and very public). At that point, we built the minefield and flagged it for them.
That's why they spy on them.
Everyone knows what they've been saying on the phone: endless variants on "B0rk b0rk b0rk!"
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
I'm a Swede and judging from the major news sources FRA (Military radio surveillance agency, basically) has only been allowed to monitor radio based sources (primarily the Russians) and not e.g. cable channels. They have certainly not been sanctioned to wiretap phones which is a police matter and requires a warrant. This is what they want to do, but there's been a massive uproar against this, since they say they want to "only" surveill international communications and technically they cannot distinguish between national and international communications (IP-traffic).
:-)
In fact, they don't wish to at all guarantee that people who've been wiretapped should know about it afterwards - in other words, this is a very sloppy proposal and they are receiving a lot of critisism for it.
They way they say that "this has been going on for ages and we are now just passing a law for it" is nothing but BS, which purpose is to make the matter seem less drastic.
Most likely, the law will be delayed for a year, debated and more restrictions as to what they may surveill be specified. Expect to see protests here any day soon.
Fight for your digital freedom, join the EFF *now*: http://www.eff.org/support/
Switzerland != Sweden
Well, Phill Zimmerman not only gave a heads up in 1991, he gave to the tools to use to do something about it. According to even a slow beast as the European Parliament, you should already be encrypting your e-mail. It's warning is from 2001, read and weep:
29. Urges the Commission and Member States to devise appropriate measures to promote, develop and manufacture European encryption technology and software and above all to support projects aimed at developing user-friendly open-source encryption software; 30. Calls on the Commission and Member States to promote software projects whose source text is made public (open-source software), as this is the only way of guaranteeing that no backdoors are built into programmes; 31. Calls on the Commission to lay down a standard for the level of security of e-mail software packages, placing those packages whose source code has not been made public in the "least reliable" category; 32. Calls on the European institutions and the public administrations of the Member States systematically to encrypt e-mails, so that ultimately encryption becomes the norm; 33. Calls on the Community institutions and the public administrations of the Member States to provide training for their staff and make their staff familiar with new encryption technologies and techniques by means of the necessary practical training and courses; — from European Parliament resolution on the existence of a global system for the interception of private and commercial communications (ECHELON interception system) (2001/2098(INI))Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
"And when a government doesn't need a warrant to tap a phone, then you're well on the road to fascism."
You mean just like in the US?
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
In my country we have a constitution that protects our rights from invasion by the government. I could say wahtever I wanted to about President Bush and suffer no consequences at all.
I for one would never say anything bad about President Bush though, even though I know the FBI/CIA/Whaterver aren't listening to me. That would just be silly.
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
i mean.. OH NO.. terrorists will get carte blanche to shop in our malls and go to wal-mart.
seriously.. theyre CRIMINALS..
theyll do it weather or not you "allow" them, and tapping the phones is irrelevant, especially when you make it public knowledge that you do it.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
If I were here a little earlier, I'd say "cue the apologists" but apparently they've already started...
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
You know the world's in bad shape when the US of today is the slow-poke on that road.
You have tried to support your argument with faulty reasoning! Go directly to jail; do not pass Go, do not collect $200!
For example 90% of internet traffic from Finland to international destinations goes through Sweden. Which means that Swedes may be able to spy on Finnish traffic as well.
This causes problems because in Finland your mailbox (and of course e-mail traveling to it) is protected by legislation to be your private space. For example your employer has no right to go and look at its contents without your permission even if they own the equipment and the disk space and it contains valuable company information. Of course there are provisions for accessing your e-mail if you happen to be run over by a truck, but in that case the employer has to document when the mailbox was opened, who were present, what was read/removed etc. This applies to e-mail logs to some extent as well.
Sooooo, if you are a company offering e-mail to your employees in Finland but hosting the e-mail servers in Sweden, this Swedish initiative may mean that you are in violation of Finnish laws because outsiders can get access to the mail traffic. The Finnish authorities have taken the view that if this becomes reality, the e-mail servers for Finns need to be moved to Finland.
Long live Nordic co-operation!
The objective is to detect 'threats such as terrorism, IT attacks or the spread of weapons of mass destruction'
IT Attacks?
muwahahahahaaaa.......
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
poolreps vreetes "Svedee is cluse-a tu implementing noo soorfeeellunce-a legeesleshun thet veell incloode-a zee muneeturing ooff imeeels, telephune-a cells und keyvurd seerches useeng edfunced pettern unelysees. Zee oobjectife-a is tu detect 'threets sooch es terrureesm, IT ettecks oor zee spreed ooff veepuns ooff mess destroocshun' boot zee prupusels hefe-a deefided zee cuoontry. In a meesgooided ettempt tu poot peuple-a et iese-a, zee gufernment edmeetted thet Svedee hes beee teppeeng its ceetizens' phunes fur decedes unyvey."
If a government is prohibited from tapping phone calls originating from their country, then once a terrorist gets into the country, they have carte blanche. It's beyond stupid.
Hell yeah. Can't let those towelheads get their hands on our cellph^H^H^H WMDs.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
>And when a government doesn't need a warrant to tap a phone, then you're well on the road to fascism.
How very ironic you are posting this in a thread about a country that has been chiding the US for its policy on this very issue for years. Always posing as the civilized bastion of liberty looking with disdain on US policy for tracking terrorists, and in many cases harboring known terrorists from extradition.
As long as there are legal prohibitions against use of this information to catch petty drug crimes etc, the march to fascism is pretty much stalled in its tracks.
But do come back and share your thoughts when the airplanes hit your buildings.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Yeah, they're only spying on terrorists. Although, honestly, what they should do is just not give the terrorists phones in the first place. I guess you have to be Swedish to understand.
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
That's not ironic. Ironic is their making a statement that they've been tapping people's phones all along in an attempt to make people feel better.
I live in the US, so the airplanes already hit my buildings. And I also live in a country well on its way to fascism. I don't need to live in a utopia to point out the failings of repressive and overreaching governments.
And the simple fact is that if we hadn't been using the Taleban to achieve our goals in Afghanistan, they would never have been in a position to do what they did. In fact they probably never would have ended up deciding that we were the great satan or what have you.
Throughout history, terrorism has tended to occur most when there actually is a wrong that needs righting. I'm not sure whether or not doing wrong is a valid response to doing wrong; frankly I have a hard time making that judgment call because I've never been in their shoes. I've never been part of an organization that was trained and equipped by the US, then abandoned and left to die when we were no longer useful.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
For all the talk here, every single one of those in power in Sweden in obliged to abide by the laws of Sweden & Europe. If you don't like what they're doing or have done, don't complain here, go after them. They broke the laws they are liable to arrest, prosecution, prison.
m
b by.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
2 97-45CD-942F-A3D6E18B05D2.htm
Software patents are dead, your voices did that. Compulsory DRM is dead, you voices did that. You would be surprised at how powerful the voices of pissed off people are.
Britain doesn't like it's Prime Minister?
He's being investigated in cash for peerages scandal.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4812822.st
US thinks Bush lied?
His people are being arrested one by one, libby being the latest.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/07/washington/07li
Israel moderates thinks it's prime minister planned the 'surprise' Lebanon war ahead of time?
Investigation into his government are ripping his story apart.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/BF690E95-D
Voices no different from yours or mine did that. If you don't like what Sweden are doing, every single one of those politicians is vulnerable. So go after them.
I've had one of the more famous professors in data mining directly tell us how stupid it is to try and find "terrorism" in these sorts of data sets. There are too few training data points (actual terrorists) and too much data with a lot of variability. In essence false positives alone would make it all worthless. Now of course some people in the field disagree but those are also usually the ones who stand to make a pretty penny if governments do go this route.
So soon we may no longer have many freedoms but at least I'll have guaranteed employment.
On one hand they realize that copyright infringement is not very dangerous. On the other they realize that the easiest was to deal with a national threat is to stop it before it happens.
Just so you know, just about every country in the world with the technology to do so monitors communication of its citizens. Very few are ever stupid enough to admit to it.
I think wiretapping is pretty much done by all police forces, without any restrictions. The whole legal process for getting wiretaps has to do with using information collected during a wiretap as evidence in court. But if the police tap phones and they don't plan to make the evidence collected known outside their small internal group, no one will ever be the wiser. It is like requiring people to have a warrant in order to have oral sex: yeah, good luck enforcing that!
For example, if the police want to determine if person x is engaged in some criminal activity, they don't need a warrant (technically, according to the law they might need a warrant, but not in reality). They just tap the phone line - If they hear via the phone that the person is engaged in some criminal activity, they then claim they recieved "an anonymous tip", get a search warrent, and collect further evidence, and just keep the information collected from the illegal phone tap off the books. If the phone tap doesn't turn anything up, then everyone is none-the-wiser anyway, no big deal.
The only time that a warrant is nessicary, is if you plan on using recordings of phone conversations as evidence. In those cases, then yes they must get a warrant.
Sweden, like every government on the planet, engages in widespread wiretapping. All states are police states, and engage in police state tactics to the extent that they have the resources to do so. The only way to prevent police state tactics is to limit the size and scope of government itself, something that very few people want to do.
What good does this do them anyways? It's not like there's anything going on in those conversations besides BORK BORK BORK BORK BORK BORK BORK.
How very ironic you are posting this in a thread about a country that has been chiding the US for its policy on this very issue for years.
Got any sources for that statement?
2. Fundamental Rights and Freedoms
Live simply, that others may simply live. -Gandhi
Is that a reference to Lucky Number Slevin?
Good movie.
.. the target of terrorist attacks or under threat from WMD's?
Gurdie.
Being a /.er they should allow you in (assuming you have high tech skills).
Don't let the door hit you on the ass as you leave.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Things are pretty rough if a country that doesn't even suffer from the /illusion/ of terrorist threat* can go to such lengths to violate their people's privacy in the name of security. Makes one think that maybe it's a part of human nature to overreact, or something.
Random statistics from the internet, demonstrating I at least made a half-assed attempt to research this comment: Terrorist "Incidents" in the past 40 years. Sweden is way down at #60, U.S. at #15. Interestingly, per-capita stats place Sweden at the same rank, but the U.S. way down at #93. Of course, this statistic may be entirely meaningless - but I guess it does show something, in terms of the tax base supporting the respective anti-terrorism efforts vs. actual risk.
* - (such as the illusion of threat we have in the U.S. At least people hate us here. Who hates the Swedes? The Finns, I guess... Or the Geats.)
You can be better and still suck. I hear news like this and get feelings of disgust, but I'd still rather live in Sweden than here in the USA.
And how much would Sweden have to suck before it stars being worse than the USA? The exercise goes like this: Start taking away (alleged) Swedish liberties one by one, and raise your hand when the liberty removed breaches the threshold and causes living in the USA to be preferable to Sweden.
If you run that exersie through your mind and discover that you still feel disgust and disdain for the USA no matter how many (alleged) Swedish liberties you remove, then voila: you're an anti-American. It means that you define the USA as the evil enemy. It means that all the prattle about rights and liberties and "police state" is rhetoric. In other words, you don't really give a shit about rights or liberties. It means that you care about weakening or destroying that which you have defined, regardless of any evidence, as evil to begin with: the USA.
Does this apply to you? That question is not only for the parent poster. It's for anyone who is reading this.
I remember debating with my fully-"progressive" sister who because zealotized when she moved to the UK. In one conversation, she blurted out at me, "The United States has the WORST human rights record!" In response, I asked her, "Really? Worse than North Korea?"
I got a deer-in-the-headlights look that I'll remember fondly for the rest of my life. However, her inability to answer merely showed weakness in her resolve. If she were fully committed to the anti-American cause, then she would have revved up the engine that robotically bleats out, "All of the information you've been told by the Imperial and Greedy Western Media about the glorious People's State of North Korea is LIES! They can feed all of their citizens if not for Western Greed and Imperialism! They need nuclear weapons to defend themselves against Greedy Capitalist Imperialist pigs from the West!"
That's the litany of the anti-American zealot. And that type of zealotry is just like all other types of zealotry: full devotion to the cause (whatever it may be) is of prime importance. All other concerns, including facts, logic, human life, happiness, etc, are secondary. It sounds an awful lot like Ash on the Nostromo, doesn't it? Robotic, cruel, and stupid.
But you can't call it unprincipled. And that's precisely why it's attractive.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
This is another example why when you call overseas there is no expectation of privacy. You can't expect a call from the US to Sweden will go unmonitored, and you damn well better not believe your call to Mohammed Al Muhammed in Iran isn't being listened to by MULTIPLE countries' security agentcies.
This is was clearly prompted by the US government many years ago as revenge for giving us ABBA.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Sweden has a "proud" tradition of big-brotherism.
Bewteen 1936 and 1978 we had the IB (information bureau, it held a few other names through it's existence but IB is the one most used to refer to them), a vast network of informers in every major workplace in Sweden. When they were exposed to the world in the seventies, a law was made saying that the state cannot register the political opinions of the citizens. This was obviously just window dressing, and the SÄPO (Security police) essentially continued the work of the disbanded IB (as you can read in the annual report of the security police at their website), if without their extensive network of informers.
The pirate bay is of very little political importance and of no risk to "national security" (as opposed to political opposition) and therefore the Swedish state does not care very much about them.
Since the dawn of telecommunications (e.g., the telegraph) governments have been monitoring communications and almost always lying about it. England's invovlment in such scheme's is well documented. Anyone who doesn't assume that their government is watching, is IMHO, maintaining a rather distorted view of how government functions.
That Sweden is admitting this, is really at least a breath of fresh air...
not that it makes the practice any better, at least their can be public debate..
http://www.hawknest.com/
Just because something becomes technologically possible (i.e. mass screening of emails) does not suddenly make it ok. No-one would have accepted such things in the days of snail nail. Can you imagine a democratic leader in the 80s explaining why everyone's letters needed to be steamed open and photocopied to counter the threat of the Soviet Union?
You're much more likely to be killed in a violent mugging than by terrorists. Does that mean we should allow mass email screening to identify muggers? Would they be stupid enough to discuss mugging people in emails if they knew everything was being screened? Of course not, and terrorists aren't stupid enough to discuss terrorism either.
Even if it did catch a few terrorists it's not worth giving up your freedoms for anymore that it would be worth giving them up for the possibility of catching a few more violent criminals. It doesn't take much for a democratic system to lurch towards tyranny and it is the height of stupidity to provide the facilities that make it possible.
Its a waste of time and money not like anybody hates Sweden that much anyway. I mean sweden so neutral I doubt they come up on any terrorist radar for attacks I'd like to see if this has ever done any good at all the past spying I mean. I don't see why you would be so worried I mean terrisiom is never the talk in Sweden as far as I know its always about "bad" companies and political partys promising to make companies pay more in taxes to provide better unemployment checks or something.
so it's just a scheme to get rid of some money acquired via insane taxation...
record, repl^H^H^H^H erase, repeat
surveillance budget spent: check
Throughout history, terrorism has tended to occur most when there actually is a wrong that needs righting. I'm not sure whether or not doing wrong is a valid response to doing wrong; frankly I have a hard time making that judgment call because I've never been in their shoes. I've never been part of an organization that was trained and equipped by the US, then abandoned and left to die when we were no longer useful.
The US funded the insurgency against the soviet invasion of afganistahn. Had we done nothing, it'd be a soviet state at this point. When the soviets were no longer a threat, we lost interest, the country didn't have enough infrastructure to govern itself and it became overrun with religious fundamentalists.
You could argue that Iraq is also at this pivotal turning point (which was our doing). If we leave right now, it'll devolve to the same mess. If we stay, there's a chance it becomes a democracy.
Now, if you are wondering how we got to the current mess in Iraq, watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePb6H-j51xE
The Taleban was created after the USSR left, and was, at best, only distantly related to the organizations which fought the Russians. It was a Pakistani import after the war ended, and the country became split between the warlords. I should also note that radical Islamic circles don't really like any nation which can be considered Western, and had the same attitude long before the (USSR-)Afghanistan war.
(sarcasm)
Throughout history, "questionable" US actions has tended to occur most when there actually is a wrong that needs righting. I'm not sure whether or not doing wrong is a valid response to doing wrong; frankly I have a hard time making that judgment call because I'm not an American.
(/sarcasm)
You're just justifying achieving goals that you ideologically like by any means possible. When your political opponents do the same thing you accuse them of being Facist. I suggest you look at the mirror.
"Divided the country"? Sure, with the government on one side, and the opposition, the media, and 90% of the population on the other.
The search for terrorists have gone way to far, governments all over the world are only helping the terrorists to achieve their goals, to terrify the population. The terrorist problem is not solved by oppressing the people.
It is no wonder countries like India have made VOIP illegal. They don't have a way to snoop it effectively yet; nothing to do with the economic monopolies held by their state governments, that's just a good excuse.
There has never been a terrorist action in Sweden.
There has never seen a weapon of mass destruction in Sweden.
So fucking annoying when the government wants wiretap the citizens and talk about TEH ZOMG TERRARISISTS!
Bubba cops to tappin' that sweet young white boy ass for years...
In Soviet Russia you graduate school!
Nice setup, thanks.
This is especially interesting considering that Sweden was recently indexed as the world's #1 democracy (http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/DEMOCRACY_INDE X_2007_v3.pdf) and scored a 100% in the civil liberties category.
We want our provinces back, Sweden! We are coming to get them back!
Just being Christian and democratic is enough for Islamist terrorists to attack. Besides what do they know about Sweden? Bin Laden has already ordered attacks on Norway for some reason - but Denmark has troops in Iraq. Go figure? Anyway - Sweden has thousands upon thousands of Muslim immigrants from Somalia and Iraq. Two somalis with Swedish passports were just arrested in Somalia fighting for the Islamists (Islamic Courts). Who are they going to attack next? Lots of infidels in Sweden they can attack at will.
Just remember you are a racist, rapist, abuser
We are winning the War Against Men.
Make sure your hate is politically correct hate.
I think Bush should sell his survelence programs as "more European". After all, that is the Democrats mantra. How could they object?
Nööööööööööööööööööööööööööööööö, it's the öne with döts ön it!!!!!!
... cause you're fat anyway...
I have a feeling I will be so modded down...
As an American living in Sweden for the past few years, I can say that when a Swede says "Arab," they are usually talking about Iranians, Kurds, Syrians/Assyrians, Turkmen, or any of a number of white Middle Easterners. There are actually relatively few Arabs in Sweden, even though many immigrants come to Sweden from officially Arabic-speaking countries.
Breaking news today, Britons will be denied a passport if they don't submit to the world's most intrusive mass-surveillance system
People who refuse to give up their bank records, tax records & details of any benefits they've claimed and the records of their car movements for the last year, or refuse to submit to an interrogation on whether they are the same person that this mountain of data belongs to will be denied passports from March 26th.
The Blair Govt has already admitted that this and other data will be cross-linked so that the Home Office and other officials can spy on the everyday lives of innocent Britons.
Britons were already the most spied upon nation in Western Europe. Data-mining through this unprecedented level of mass-surveillance allows any future British govt to leapfrog even countries like China and North Korea.
The Soviet Union ended some 16 years ago.
Dumbass fuck
In essence false positives alone would make it all worthless.
Yeah, but even a false positive could be considered "just cause" to conduct further investigation and surveillance, if you twist things enough. Which means more happily employed government agents, higher budgets, and a higher number of "successfully concluded terrorism investigations" for the politicians to trumpet.
And if they, through pure chance, come across, say, a drug dealer or tax dodger...well, that wasn't a false positive at all, now, was it?
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
Somebody forgot to tell all these muslim "women" I see shuffling around in their habibs/burquas. (I put that in quotes, because, with a full face mask, who knows what's under there?) Most states have laws against wearing hoods/masks in public. Balaclavas, habibs, Klan hoods, etc are all prohibited (for the public good, I might add) however political correctness (read: cowardice) has exempted the Muslims and their leftist fellow travelers I see trumpeting their stupidity at "war protests."
By the way, a number of AlQueda terrorist suspects have been caught in the UK wearing habibs during their attempt to flee authorities. And at least one jewelry store heist was accomplished by theives hiding their weapons (and faces) under the hoods.
Straying just a bit off topic, I just want to know where are the feminists are... you know the ones who burned their brassieres in the '60's because they were viewed as an societal-imposed limit upon their freedom courtesy of Mr. Man. (Gotta say I never really understood that argument. As if having saggy tits and hairy pits makes you free? Whatever.) However, feminists are conveniently turning blind eyes towards Muslim women being forced by their men to shuffle around in a black sack and have their clitoris hacked off with a scalpel at puberty is somehow acceptable in a modern society. I think the word I'm looking for here is "Hypocrites."
Whoa. Somebody has been taking their prescribed dosage of network news!
Propaganda is BAD for you.
-FL
Okay. The problem is that systems like Echelon and similar are working full time and we knew nothing about them until somebody slipped up. And I think it is safe to assume, (and I believe it has been stated), that analogous systems exist in all the major Western nations.
Echelon doesn't come with permission slips. It's functioning full-time, and nobody has been issued a warrant. It's just there. And since federal agencies need permission to spy on the public, then who is using it during all the times when permission slips have not been issued? --Because you don't put a system like that in place and then not use it. If it's there, it's being used all the time. Simple as that. But who is doing the listening? I'd guess it's not the same people who are worrying about obtaining search warrants.
Which means there is a layer of people who don't have to worry about legislation. And if such people can afford giant systems like Echelon, what else can they afford to do? (Well, pretty much whatever they want, if the accounts are to be believed.)
And do they care about 'terrorism'? Sure. But only in how the idea of terrorist can be used as a piece of propaganda to perform social engineering. They would almost certainly know about any terrorist plot well in advance, probably because they engineer or at the very least stage-manage any plot. But to what end?
I think that has been answered in other forums.
The point is that such systems of "Always Listening" show the hand of the Secret Government.
-FL
And because you seem to think what I said is conjecture I would like to tell you about what is happening in Norway - which just happens to be next to Sweden. In fact the [few] extremists amongst our Muslim immigrant population have begun physically attacking our Jewish minority on the streets. At cultural events in the Jewish community we have to have secret police protection both inside and outside the buildings. Just a few months ago one group attacked the Synagogue in Oslo, shooting at it with automatic weapons, because they "sympathized" with their Muslim brethren. Their next target was bombing the American embassy. They were arrested afterwards. And we have had the pleasure of hosting numerous international terrorists responsible for attacks in Spain etc. Thank God, our Secret Service is very active and has stopped numerous attacks and kept tabs on the extremists.
Norway is a much better target because we actually participate in both NATO operations, Afghanistan and at one time in Iraq. So we really are "crusaders" in the eyes of the militants. But do they really care where they attack? Some of the Jihadis even believe in that Dar al-Harb rubbish.
My point was that Sweden needs to be vigilant and it only takes a few nut jobs in the Muslim community to attack innocent people. Muslims as a whole represent no threat - but the propaganda the violent Islamists broadcast can easily turn young minds into monsters.
Yes, it's sad that propaganda works both ways. But it doesn't mean that it's not propaganda or that people should believe in it to the point where they thank god for the Secret Police. --Because that's the prize ticket. That's the goal; getting people to accept severely limited freedoms and crushing government control measures.
I'm very sorry to hear that the seeds of truth for the propaganda are being planted in your neighborhood. (Who starts the violence, I wonder? In America, there have been instances of police sending trouble-makers into crowds of demonstrators to initiate violence so that the police can justify using force to clear an area. It works well and not just in this country.)
Resist it. Do not hate, do not fear and communicate openly. One of my room mates is a Muslim woman. She's married to a practicing Catholic. They're two of the most reasonable and respected people in my town; they condemn violence, bear no ill will toward anybody and openly talk about and deride all the precepts upon which religious violence is based. They have done more to defuse irrational hatred and fear in my community regarding Islam than anybody I've ever seen, and they do it simply by being open and honest; talking to anybody who asks questions.
This kind of effort has a ripple effect, and upon each person where the ripple touches, new ripples propagate outward, touching ever more people.
You can help too, but only by putting fear aside and by talking, listening and making contact with the people you don't understand. The ripples you make will be beautiful and strong and they will touch countless others in ways you cannot even begin to imagine.
-FL
.... Unless you live in a democracy, where the state answers to the people and not the other way around.
Not that Sweden was ever the model of democracy or freedom it pretended to be, but what we have now is the decaying remains of freedoms. Up to a certain point they were gradually extended (we had no decisive shift to democracy here, having no democratic revolution; rights were granted at a pace decided on by the state and originally also the king) now they are steadily being terminated or turned into legal window-dressing.
Everyone seems to be equating democracy with the right to vote. But the right to vote is pointless without the freedom to associate. The freedom to associate is pointless without the freedom of speach and press - freedoms who are in turn pointless if the publishers or speakers are constantly supervised and subject to arbitrary justice (as in terrorist laws) of the state they would be in opposition to.
So we do not need any border guards, beacause as long as the government can listen to the phones of every illegal immigrant we are totally safe?
Remember this is a very different society than America. We are only 4.5 million people, and Oslo only has about 450.000 inhabitants. A wealthy, educated and content society. A country where religion is for the few, Christianity is a rarely observed. When something happens it is not because of some government or police conspiracy.
The violence I described was not a large group of immigrants - quite the contrary - just three young Pakistani men who observed a Jew walking past. The attack on the Synagogue was no coincidence either - the group of four planned this and many other attacks. They just did not get to complete more than the first. The Secret Service fortunately had wire taps on them.
I have nothing against Muslims per se, my best friend is a Muslim woman. Living in a part of Oslo where there are many immigrants has not made me any less friendly towards them. And there is no reason to fear them as a group - but understanding the potential threat from extremist elements is another matter. I do not advocate violence towards anyone - but being prepared for threats internal and external means we have to be vigilant.
Being a law student I understand the ramifications of giving the Police more authority. However I also accept that this is a new threat to our society. Muslims have only recently arrived in Norway - and they bring with them their culture and views. And especially in our homogenous and very tolerant Scandinavian society their views are often at odds with ours. Not understanding our culture and vice versa leads to conflict.
Unfortunately, Sweden has a principle called "free trial of evidence" (fri bevisprövning) that explicitly says that any material gathered through any means, including surplus surveillance material and illegaly gathered surveillance material, is fully admissible in court.
Now, I am no fan of the PATRIOT Act, starting with its Orwellian title, but I am also sick and tired of being lectured by supercilious Euro-trash. Especially when it is obvious they know nothing about their own internal affairs, much less ours.
All of the countries of Europe have some areas in which they are more free than the US, and some in which they are decidedly less free. They need to get over their conceit that they are somehow better than us in every sphere. It ain't so.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
"Got any sources for that statement? "
Apparently he doesn't.
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY