The War on Terrorism Brings Mass Surveillance In Sweden
by
Per Bylund
by Per Bylund
DIGG THIS
On June 18
a new law was passed in Sweden granting the national defenses civilian
agency National Defence
Radio Establishment (FRA) the right to collect and analyze all
communication data that in some way passes the borders of the Kingdom
of Sweden. As a small country with extensive government and business
collaboration with the other Nordic countries, most domestic communication
such as Internet and phone services at some point passes the national
border. The real effect of the law, which mandates that communication
corporations deliver all their border-passing data directly to the
FRA, is therefore mass surveillance of the whole Swedish populace.
The official
lie offered as excuse for this horrid, uncivilized law is, like
in all other countries, the threat of terrorism. It is unlikely
anyone actually believes Sweden, an insignificant socialist country
in the far north in moral,
financial, and political decline, is on the terrorists list
of future targets, yet the sense of a common external threat of
a faceless enemy seems to be as effective in Sweden as elsewhere.
The law, which
officially is called proposition
2006/07:63 An Adapted Military Intelligence, was passed under
rather strange circumstances that only make sense in a political
world. The law was originally formulated a few years ago by the
former social democratic government and was then strongly criticized
by the four so-called non-socialist parties in parliament. It was,
however, not brought to the floor of parliament for enactment by
the social democratic party (for fear of losing the election?),
but by the succeeding non-socialist four-party coalition government
after the social democratic party lost power in the general elections
in 2006. Also, the new coalition government parties voted in favor
of the law while the social democrats and their lackey parties The
Left Party (formerly known as the communist party) and The Environment
Party voted against it.
The debate
leading up to the passing of the law in June 2008 just before the
parliaments summer leave was quite hostile, especially after non-socialist
bloggers started analyzing the effects of the law and bringing the
truth to unknowing voters. The media kept their mouths shut for
as long as possible, but as the bloggers wouldnt stop they manage
to create enormous public pressure on politicians. The prime minister
and his government responded by forcing "their" members
of parliament to shut up and vote in accordance with their governments
proposition even though it could be interpreted as conflicting with
the parties political platforms, promises, and programs.
With their
political careers literally on the line, only a handful of politicians
had the courage to criticize the proposition beforehand even though
all of the discussions took place behind locked doors. All but one
agreed on voting in favor of the bill or being absent from this
particular vote, while only four votes of the 349 in parliament
would have been enough to throw the bill out.
As is common
practice in Sweden a new law is referred for consideration to major
government agencies, big business corporations and labor unions
for comments before brought to a vote. Basically any organization
has the right to comment on a law and the government has to register
the comments in a publicly accessible archive of comments, which
is often used by the media. The comments on this law were very skeptical
and a number of agencies and departments, among them the Swedish
security police (SÄPO), claimed the law shouldnt be passed
due to its total lack of restraints on FRAs surveillance activities
as well as safeguards for peoples personal integrity (!). Despite
such devastating comments the bill was proposed to parliament by
the non-socialist government while the media basically remained
silent.
But a number
of Swedish bloggers and free-lance writers, mainly libertarian or
semi-libertarian such, continued online discussions on the "FRA
Bill" (often referred to as "Lex
Orwell") on blogs and elsewhere and during these discussions
a number of interesting facts surfaced. The military agency FRA,
which up to this point had only had the right to spy on radio
communication crossing borders, with the main (but not explicitly
stated) purpose to spy on Soviet Russia for the United States federal
government, had already acted as a domestic surveillance agency
despite it being illegal. The agencys actions were reported to
the police, but the attorney general almost immediately dismissed
the case despite obvious and severe crimes.
After the bill
was passed a number of politicians in the non-socialist parties
reacted to the public pressure in the way politicians often do:
a number of them publicly stated their opposition to the bill they
had recently voted in favor of and created "anti-FRA"
political networks to bring the bill to the floor again and this
time make sure it doesnt pass. And the social democrats, who were
the ones writing the law in the first place, vowed to discard of
the law if elected in the 2010 elections.
Despite these
pathetic political attempts to benefit from the public awareness
of the law, the discussions on blogs and in non-mainstream media
go on. More strange circumstances and illegal acts by the agency
are reported almost daily on numerous blogs while the main media
corporations seem obviously afraid to touch this issue despite
the fact that this surveillance would severely affect news reporting
as well as other businesses and individuals.
A list
of 103 Swedish citizens that the FRA has previously reported
to the security police was published by blogger Henrik
Alexandersson (his English blog here)
in an attempt to show that the FRA has not worked within the law
historically and therefore will not do so in the future. Alexandersson,
who is also the chairman of the libertarian activist network Frihetsfronten
(Freedom Front) is now being investigated by the police for the
crime of espionage (!) for publishing the list in conflict with
freedom of speech laws. He was reported to the police by the director
of the FRA, Ingvar Åkesson, and while the report includes
a number of interesting pieces of information implying illegal activities
by the FRA neither the media nor the police pretend to have noticed.
It seems despite
the protests and the increasing public pressure the law will come
into effect on October 1 this year. The law is however only one
in a line of new laws calling for mass surveillance of ordinary
people in Sweden and all over Europe. The European Union is calling
for mass surveillance on the super-national level through national
data retention laws; one such law, which calls for mandatory storage
of all phone call, text message and email data (including peoples
whereabouts, etc., but not contents of call or message) in Sweden
will be brought to the floor of the Swedish parliament during the
fall session of this year.
In addition
to these laws the so-called ACTA treaty, following the lead from
the Department of Homeland Security but to counter "illegal
file-sharing," was approved by the EU member states in a session
on agriculture and fishing policy (!) on May 14 and is currently
negotiated by the European Commission. The treaty grants border
security to confiscate any digital media carried by the traveler
and outlaws certain digital equipment as well as file-sharing networks
(even if legal).
Most of these
Orwellian laws are part of a new "anti-terrorism" initiative
in the European Union, where a new union-level situation center
in Brussels, called SitCen, is proposed in order to coordinate the
EU countries national security police, intelligence and surveillance
efforts. With laws such as the "FRA Bill" and the proposed
communications data storage law to be passed this fall it is easy
to see that the European Union intends to be the first to establish
a full-scale police state on the super-national level.
Decisions in
the European Union are often made behind locked doors by EU-appointed
officials to whom the national governments have "delegated"
powers. In other words, it is impossible to know the true extent
of the measures proposed and already enacted. Unpopular laws that
rapidly increase the powers of member states are often pushed to
the EU level in order to avoid public debate, and while national
decisions are pushed to this higher level the EU officials in charge
make sure the decisions benefit the political institutions on the
super-national level as well.
This supposedly
new EU initiative
aiming "to tackle terrorism, organised crime, and legal and
illegal immigration" is likely to be the result of such political
tactics. Politicians in the member states dont dare face voters
and the media with such far-reaching surveillance propositions and
therefore hide behind locked doors in Brussels. The reason this
issue, first and foremost the FRA Bill, is pushed hard by the Swedish
government, and primarily by prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt (a
spineless crook of whom I have personal experience), has been conjectured
by Henrik Alexandersson: Sweden under Reinfeldt will be "chairman
state" in the EU in the last six months of 2009 and obviously
the prime minister wants to look good in the eyes of other European
politicians.
And how do
you look good in the eyes of politicians? Through pushing your own
serfs harder than anyone else pushes theirs.
August
15, 2008
Per Bylund [send
him mail] is a Ph.D. student in economics at the University
of Missouri and the founder of Anarchism.net.
Visit his website www.PerBylund.com
or his blog where he
comments on this article and more.
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