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Sweden On Verge of Passing Sweeping Wiretap Plan
An anonymous reader writes "No one seems to have noticed that Sweden is close to passing a far-reaching wiretapping program that would greatly expand the government's spying capabilities by permitting it to monitor all email and telephone traffic coming in and out of the country. If a bill before parliament becomes law, the country's National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA) will monitor all internet traffic that passes in or out of the country. As the article notes, there's a good chance email traveling from, say, the UK to Finland would be fair game, since it's likely to traverse through Sweden before reaching its final destination. So far, there's been nary a peep from Swedish media about the plan."
Finnish telco Sonera, which is nowadays part of Swedish TeliaSonera moved recently their email servers back to Finland from Sweden because of this.
Apparently their customers were concerned enough.
There has actually been quite a lot of fuss around this law. For example, a seldomly used law paragraph enabled the social democratic minority to delay this proposal for a year, something which gained quite some attention when it happened. If that had not been done, the law would have passed a year ago. An update to what was happening during this period is available at http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.156736 (swedish only). IDG is the largest swedish news agency for technology-related news. At the national swedish radio homepage http://www.sr.se/cgi-bin/ekot/artikel.asp?Artikel=1242136 you can read about finlands protests against the law. They also published news about the growing criticism of the law at http://www.sr.se/Ekot/artikel.asp?artikel=1240436 (both links in swedish).
First: As one living in Sweden I don't recognize this description. For one, there is quite a stir in IT related, and mainstream media about this. And this have been going on for several years. The current government suggested this while in opposition a couple of years ago, and it was one of the first new legislations that they announced when they got into power 2006. It's been under debateand scrutiny in media and several governmental instances since then.
Secondly: FRA is _not_ a military organization. It's a civil autority that can be used for several other governmental organizations such as the police, secret police, military or even state owned corporations. But the name is confusing, I grant you that.
One interessting thing is that FRA operates the fifth fastest computer on the Top500 list. Most people believe that is was purchased to meet the need of this new surveillance demand.
It's hardly unknown to the public, even if most are not interessted in such matters. Swedes are pretty used to governmental control and oversight, and we acually enjoy the benefits of it. Our trust in authoroty of this kind is strong since it have served us well in the past.
- Henrik
- when the Shadows descend -
This one is almost certain to pass, a majority of parliament have already professed their coming yes-votes.
Party whips takes care of those who are critical to the law: It was up for a vote last year, but got put on a year-long hold for further debate (which, naturally, never took place). One member of parliament (Fredrick Federley) who was elected on a privacy platform, among other issues, abstained from voting and took so much heat from his party that he'll be voting yes this time around. At least according to his blog.
L'homme est né libre, et partout il est dans les fers.
Unless several MPs suddenly grow a spine, this one will pass in less than two weeks.
Money for nothing, pix for free
Money for nothing, pix for free
More on the Ubiquitous Wiretapping Bill
Swedish NSA to monitor all phones, Internet
Excerpt from first link:
The bill's name is en anpassad försvarsunderrättelseverksamhet , translating roughly to a better adapted military intelligence gathering. Key points of the bill:
The difference is that the FRA have not been spying in wire before. That is illegal, today the telcos are not allowed to give out any traffic or personal data without a specific court order, some of the data they are not even allowed to save. This bill, and the EU-dataretention bill is about to change all of that. The FRA (roughly The Defence Radio Agency) have been listening only to radio, satellites and such. But in the recent debate we have come to learn that even that practise is illegal according to swedish constitution and the european human rights. It is not allowed for the state to actively take part of private communications without a positive law support. This bill will of course change that too (and be in breach of human rights, and probably upset citizens in other cuntries since IP-traffic usually takes "the scenic route"). The base is: Citizens are allowed to do anything not forbidden, for the state it is the other way around, anything they do must be allowed by law first. This have not been the case, and the normal thing to do, is not to allow things afterwards and pretend its raining, it is to prosecute the perps. The FRA have also recently bought the 5th most powerful computer in the world (on top500.org), gee wonder why..
FRA stands for FÃrsvarets Radioanstalt, if you really want the swedish word for it.
War is one of the most horrible things a human can be exposed to. And one of the worlds largest industries.
Actually Finnish law required that.
According to Finnish law e-mail has very high level of privacy protection.
So in order not to break Finnish law they were practically forced to move the servers to Finland as they could not guarantee e-mail privacy otherwise.
From his blog: http://federley.blogspot.com/
"Vad som kommer att ske den 17 juni? Ja vem vet. Kan ju bli pÃ¥kÃrd, sjuk, vara pÃ¥ resande fot, bli gravid eller bara vara dÃr och rÃsta ja. Vem vet. Den dagen den sorgen."
Translation:
"What will happen on the 17:th of June? Well, who knows? I might be hit by a car, become ill, spend the day travelling, become pregnant or just be there and vote yes. That day, that sorrow..."
The sad fact of life is that Swedish MP:s serve almost entirely on the whim of their party leadership. If they make trouble, they get wiped off the list in the next election, and they're gone.
A English Source From Sweden
http://www.thelocal.se/12252/20080605/