Still a Kingdom but definately not as peaceful and soon possibly less democratic.
While Zlatan & Co made many Swedes proud last night by pushing and pressing the Greecs and winning 2-0 (the roaring from the pub a mile away from my apartment woke me up twice, with five minutes interval), the Swedish government is pushing forward the proposition that gives power to Sweden’s National Defence Radio Establishment (Försvarets Radioanstalt – FRA), to monitor all computer traffic and mobile phone calls between Sweden and the rest of the world. FRA would not be required to seek a court order to begin surveillance. The bugging proposal will be voted on in about a week, on 17 June 2008. If adopted the law would enter into force on July 1.
Questions that pop up in my mind: Is Sweden turning into a “big brother” state? What can I do to prevent this from happening?
Another thought: Why should I do anything? It seems many are already involved in this and hopefully will make sure this will not happen?
Can I really count on it? Apparently, many Swedes don’t mind being bugged at any time. One of the polls last year showed “… that four of five Swedes are in favour of increased surveillance of citizens, whether it be through wiretapping, DNA registers or surveillance cameras in public places.”
Are we giving up our civil rights yet keeping such an obsolete institution as monarchy?
Coincidentally, the day you posted this the UK parliament voted to extend detention without charge of terrorism suspects from 28 to 42 days, yet another step in the continuing erosion of civil liberties during the lifetime of the Labour government.
My only protest was to email my Member of Parliament. Unfortunately, although 36 Labour MPs voted against the change, she was not one of them.
Opinion polls were claiming that 60% of the population supported the change. I guess people in the UK take civil liberties for granted and so are oblivious to the police state that is currently being constructed, whether deliberately or not.
Regards, Charles
Hey Charles,
That is another bad news I would say. The governments can play on people’s fears to pass those laws that give them more power and lead to erosion of civil rights. Probably those who said yes in a poll in the UK did not think they or their family memebers and friends could ever be detained on suspicion of terrorism.
From what I gather the law the Swedish Parlament will be voting on next week does not even require that there is suspicion of a person being a terrorist. They would be bugging randomly which means anyone at any time.
I did not see that coming in Europe and in Sweden in particular: the protection of the right to privacy had been very strong here for the last decades.
One thing that I cannot understand in this respect is the reaction from the other European states, if there has been any. Both Sweden and the Uk are EU member states. Whenever some proposition concerning say CAP is to be voted on one hears a lot of protests from other member states, trade being a highly prioritised political issue everywhere. Why are they quiet now? Are they quiet? Do you know anything on the reactions from other member states?
Gassho,
Irina