Wiretapping in Sweden: all communications to be monitored?
Wednesday, June 4th 2008, 19:19 UTC Published in in English, internet, link tips, notes, politics, technology
Rick Falkvinge, the leader of the Swedish Pirate Party discusses a wiretapping bill called “better adapted military intelligence gathering” that soon may hit hard on the privacy of anyone relying on any electronic communication routed through Sweden. A few quotes from the post:
“At about 20 points in the national information infrastructure network, all traffic is spliced off and fed into the Försvarets Radioanstalt (FRA) agency. These points are placed as to catch all traffic entering and leaving the Swedish borders, but will catch much - if not most - domestic traffic too, for technical routing reasons. Electronic traffic, in particular, always takes the scenic route.”
The insanity of the bill has been widely commented on by authorities:
“How did the bureaucrats respond [to the bill]? In unusually plain language, actually.”
“The Police Board said that the bill “indicates a frightening lack of understanding for the requirements regarding the protection of citizens’ privacy that follow from our Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights”.”
“The National Registry Authority replied that this bill “is compatible with neither the Swedish Constitution nor the European Convention on Human Rights. Such an immense expansion of wiretapping of telephony and other forms of communication cannot be legislated under any circumstance.””
Congratulations, Sweden, you’ve got The AIDS of Right-Wing Government.
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