Yesterday the Swedish government voted yes on a proposition known in Sweden as FRA-lagen, a proposition for a new law which makes it legal for the government and military to tap essentially everything. A devestating law that goes against some of the basic rules of a modern democratic society. One might even say that this is a rather large step towards a society not entirely unlike the one seen in Soviet during the past cetury. Who said mankid learns from history?
The law might not look that bad, as only information which actually passes our nation’s borders will be tapped. However, almost all information that is sent in our modern society passes a national border at one point or another; essentialy all web traffic, including email, chats and phone over IP passes a border since most servers handling this information are set up in foreign countries such as the UK or the US. Even mobile phone calls and text messages will be tapped since most of these also pass national borders while re-routing to the correct destination.
The really non-democrating thing about this law is that no probable cause is needed. Everyone is a suspect until proven otherwise. Because of this, all independent sources media and others use might have been tapped, which makes it impossible for sources to provide information anonymously.
The law is supposed to protect Sweden from any external threats (wait, there are none, that’s why we’re cutting military funds, right?), but since the government and associated agencies also have access to this information, it is prone to ending up in the wrong hands, such as the police or totally unrelated organisations such as Antipiratbyrån. If the information actually end up at the police, laws that protect our freedom have effectively been circumvented. Police are normlly only allowed to tap phones etc. after obtaining a court order.
(Ironically, FRA is also the abbreviation of the European Fundamental Rights Agency)
