EU Sues Sweden, Demands ISP Data Retention

Death Metal writes "The EU passed the Data Retention Directive years ago, a law that demands ISPs and search engines hold onto data long enough to help the cops (but not long enough to cause privacy problems). But Sweden never passed it into national law, and the European Commission has now sued the country to make sure a bill appears."

Comments

Why?

[anonieuweling]

Sues Sweden? And what if they don't obey?
Data retention is just a Big Brother tool.
You don't catch terrorists with this, nor pedophiles.
And yes, I emailed Osama. Now what? They don't log the contents of an email.
And if I gpg/pgp the email, what then?

Re:Why?

[BESTouff]

Because if you have to take active protection measures against your government, that means it (the gov) went too far in the security-against-liberty battle. And this is presumably what they (the terrorists) want.

Re:Why?

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Since the EU is very "democratic" (meaning the -mostly appointed- ministers of foreign affairs of the EU countries make the real decisions*), Sweden has a choice : pass the law, or leave the EU (meaning switching away from the euro, no more free trade, ...)

In the EU, you only have to convince 12 non-elected commisioners to create a dictatorship. Individual member countries have long lost control over both their own law and their territorial sovereignty. They cannot legally say no to the EU.

Many Europeans (imho rightly) fear what's going to happen with this body. It's already created a segregated society in the locations where it's located : Brussels, Strasbourg, Luxenburg and Frankfurt. There is zero contact between the fonctionnaires and the local population, which is logical in a way, since they're an unelected body.

* yes they're appointed -indirectly- by an elected body, I know. Still it's not the same as a real democracy.

Re:Why?

[I cant believe its n]

Not to worry, the Swedish government parties simply do not want to lose more votes in the EU-parliament elections that take place on the 7:th of june.

For this reason there is no 99-page government proposal for the implementation of the Data Retention Directive, but for some reason you can already download the proposal through the highly dependable Wikileaks network:

Both the directive and the government proposal states that the reasons for the comming law are terrorists and organized crime (human trafficing and narcotics). Although the law is intended to fight serious crime, the government states that it does not see any reason to limit what organizations can request information from the required logs.

... and invited to share their views on this law proposal are (naturally)... IFPI

Yes, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry has been invited to share their views on a law against terrorists and drug smugglers. Their opinion? Well, a 6 month retention plan might be too short, but generally they appreciate the proposal.

Does anyone wonder why the Pirate Party are winning more and more votes?

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the fuck is this modded insightful?

By the same argument: most crime is organised behind locked doors, therefore all non-criminal citizens should leave their doors unlocked and open so as not to hinder the police in their endeavours.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Terrorists are now pro-freedom?
Dammit, I've been BSed by our governments!.."

Doesn't it ever occur to Americans that Terrorists ARE interested in freedom? THEIR freedom!

The only reason people are trying to kill Americans is that they think America has been oppressing them for generations. You can argue about whether this is a true belief or not, but that is what is going on in their heads. No one except Bush and Cheney actually believes that, for some reason, goat farmers living on a hillside in Pakistan are so involved in political theory that they hate the theoretical concept of a capitalist two-party 'democracy' and are willing to travel half-way round the world to attack it.

What they see is a foreign country (used to be Britain, now America) coming into their country and supporting local tyrants in order to ensure the flow of oil, or to suppress any left wing politics and 'workers rights'. Eventually, they get pissed off. If the US troops, or the local warlord the US supports, kill enough locals, their family survivors are going to be REALLY pissed off.

There is a simple answer to stopping all 'terrorism', but it involves stopping having foreign-based armies, negotiating for access to raw materials, and accepting that sometimes other countries don't want to sell you things. So that isn't going to happen any day soon......

This is why we don't like the EU.

[VShael]

Now lobbyists only have to bribe a handful of central political bastards to affect the whole of Europe.

Re:This is why we don't like the EU.

[Halo1]

Now lobbyists only have to bribe a handful of central political bastards to affect the whole of Europe.

You apparently didn't follow the data retention directive farce at all. This was not brought about by "central political bastards", and the lobbyists were the various national governments. That directive was a wet dream of law enforcement agencies from all over Europe, and pushed through by the various national governments in the name of thinking of the terrorists and the children.

The rapporteur (Alexander Alvaro) of the directive in the European Parliament (EP) tried to tone it down, only to be backstabbed by the national governments (forming the EU Council of Ministers) that managed to pressure the large political groups in the EP behind his back to ignore his report and voting recommendations.

Alexander Alvaro was so disgusted with the whole circus that after the vote he had his name removed as rapporteur for the directive.