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."

Comments

Yes ... and?

[Colin Smith]

The software to encrypt your information is free. If you don't use it you have to assume that people are reading your information...

Re:Yes ... and?

[mastershake_phd]

The software to encrypt your information is free. If you don't use it you have to assume that people are reading your information...

Yes, but using such software can bring unwanted attention. Especially if the government is looking for stuff like that as I am sure the Swedish government is.

Re:Yes ... and?

[Zenaku]

Yes! The people of Sweden should have hidden the evidence that they were even making a phone calls! By prearranging a secret means of communication with each and every party they might ever conceivable want to contact! But they didn't! They were asking for it!

strange

[mastershake_phd]

Strange country they got there. On one hand they have the Pirate Bay, wich runs with impunity, on the other this.

Hooray

[alx5000]

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"...

Hee hee hee

[argStyopa]

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!

Re:Hee hee hee

[Rycross]

Option four: Be just as outraged at the Swedish government's wiretapping.

There's no need for there to be a logical inconsistency.

Re:Hee hee hee

[daigu]

Your post is a logical fallacy. Easy enough to demonstrate that there is at least a fourth option - defining "better" so it includes a wide variety of societial measures, which is what is typically done when one is comparing countries. While I wait for your next post that will provide a comparison of the relative levels of domestic surveillance in Sweden as compared to the United States, I'll provide some of the more traditional metrics that are used to make country comparisons.

                                    Sweden           U.S
Infant mortality rate               2.76/1,000       6.43/1,000
HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate   .1%              .6%
Income distribution - Gini index    25               45
Inflation rate                      1.4%             2.5%
Public Debt                         46.4% of GDP     64.7% of GDP
Life expectancy at birth            80.51 years      77.85 years

Source: CIA Factbook

The CIA Factbook isn't a particularly controversial source, and I can think of others ranging from the UNICEF to the UN.

I know it is fun to pretend that people you don't agree with are in a logically inconsistent position. But, it actually reflects poorly on you when you pretend it is the case when it isn't. 

Not Surprised

[segedunum]

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.

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 ;-). 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.