Wiretapping Law Sparks Rage In Sweden 344
castrox writes "This Wednesday at 9am the Swedish Parliament is voting on a new wiretapping law which would enable the civil agency (FRA — Defense Radio Agency) to snoop on all traffic crossing the Swedish border. E-mail, fax, telephone, web, SMS, etc. 24/7 without any requirement to obtain a court order. Furthermore, by law, the sitting Government will be able to instruct the wiretapping agency on what to look for. It also nullifies anonymity for press tipsters and whistleblowers. Many agencies within Sweden have weighed in on this, with very hefty criticism, e.g. SÄPO (akin to FBI in the US), the Justice Department, ex-employees of FRA, and more. Nonetheless, the ruling party block is supposedly pressuring its members to vote 'yes' to this new proposed law with threats to unseat any dissidents. After massive activity on blogs by ordinary citizens, and street protests, the story has finally been picked up by major Swedish news sources. The result will likely be huge street protests on Wednesday. People have been completely surprised since this law has not gotten any media uptake until very late in the game."
Re:what about encryption? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Where's the outrage in the rest of the free wor (Score:2, Informative)
It's an important book to read - it's on the school curriculum in most western nations. The USSR banned it, and people in the USA have tried to (w.t.f.???).
Big deal (Score:1, Informative)
Wont change a thing.
2 facts (Score:5, Informative)
Ergo: big business have already identified this threat and we've already established a nice contract with the U.S. Telia, the largest ISP in Sweden, moved mail servers to Finland because their Finnish customers were getting worried.
Protest site (Score:5, Informative)
Re:what about encryption? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not anymore. (Score:3, Informative)
Of course your posing of this question does say a lot about why the republicans lost control of congress though.
or until a couple of days ago... (Score:3, Informative)
But I guess in this case, more publicity is actually doing good.
Re:Protest site (Score:5, Informative)
integritetsintrång = invasion of integrity
utredningsbegäran = request for official enquiry
åsiktsregistrering = (political) view tracking
Ask for the "integritetsintrång" pen holder at your local IKEA!
Jokes aside, I find it interesting that it is the conservative and liberal parties who push for this law (though they are the ones who around elections claim they campaign for freedom and individuality).
Politicians... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Where's the outrage in the rest of the free wor (Score:3, Informative)
Communism is a form of government....
Re:Where's the outrage in the rest of the free wor (Score:2, Informative)
In a communist system, there is no government.
Well there is not state to be precise. Whether there is government (as in some form of self government), is slightly different question. But yes, OP needs to get a clue. And the "to each according to their need ..." is the FOSS slogan, no? ;)
Re:Where's the outrage in the rest of the free wor (Score:5, Informative)
Funny thing, I thought Animal Farm was about democracy failing due to an uneducated public.
Animal Farm is a fairly obvious allegory of the betrayal of the hopes of the Russian Revolution. (HINT: The pig 'Napoleon' is Stalin and the horse 'Snowball' is Trotsky). In Orwell's mind that was "democracy failing," but that is perhaps not how you meant the phrase.
Bear in mind that Orwell was a revolutionary socialist, who fought for the Trotskyist POUM in the Spanish Civil War (SCW) and that the POUM was crushed, not so much by the Falangists, as by the Stalin controlled Communist Party. Stalin during the SCW, was actively supressing all worker-led collectivisation of industry and reinstalling the middle-class owners in the (vain as it proved) hope of convincing France and Britain to join him in opposing Germany and Italy (who were involved in the SCW on the Franco/Falangist side).
Re:Quick way to make for less technology companies (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Where's the outrage in the rest of the free wor (Score:5, Informative)
One of the clearest statements of the goal of making the state "wither away" is in Lenins "The State and Revolution" which is mainly concerned exactly with the abolition of the state. For example:
Arguably that is one of the chief sources of the Marxist-Leninist view of the state.
Note that Lenin did not advocate the removal of the state immediately - on the contrary he though it necessary as a way of suppressing the capitalists after a socialist revolution. This too is firmly rooted in Marx' and Engels writings - being the basis of the term "dictatorship of the proletariat" in contrast to the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie" which was a term Marx' and Engels used to refer to capitalist "democracies" that oppress the poor.
What confuses people is often that what Lenin and his successors called a socialist state, people in the west started calling communist.
One can argue over whether even the socialist label of that society was true, and to what extent they followed their own supposed principles once they gained power or whether the many reprehensible actions taken were a perversion or abuse of the symbolism and support they had built with no connection to the original ideology. Regardless of which side one falls down on in that discussion, it should be quite clear that there was never even any indication from the Soviet leadership that the saw their society as communism in any shape, way or form - it was at least in name intended to be socialism.
This becomes even more clear if one studies the debates that raged in early Soviet society over how soon the transition to communism would be complete, and where depending on who and when you asked the answer might be anything from a generation in the future to hundreds of years - communism was seen as a long term goal by most people.
Re:Protest site (Score:1, Informative)
integritets-intrång = integrity-invasion
utrednings-begäran = enquiry-request
åsikts-registrering = view-registration
Re:Where's the outrage in the rest of the free wor (Score:3, Informative)
Old Major is Lenin (or maybe Marx), Napoleon is Stalin, and Snowball is Trotsky. The other characters and events were all based on Russian history.
This really isn't up for debate, unless you're a postmodernist, and frankly Orwell didn't like postmodernism.
Re:Our Voices Have Been Muzzled (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Where's the outrage in the rest of the free wor (Score:4, Informative)
Well if they don't have time to read it they could just listen. [audiopod.ca]
Re:Our Voices Have Been Muzzled (Score:3, Informative)
It's not protests themselves that governments are scared of, it's the news coverage of those protests. The reason is that only a tiny fraction of the people ever go on protests, whereas a much larger fraction watch the news and will get the protesters message. Normally governments can rely on the mainstream media to ignore protesters or demonize them, but they still make efforts to shut them out of the media.
In the UK the government has effectively banned mass protests outside Parliament. They were spooked by the large anti-war protests and the news coverage they received. Protests outside Parliament are very newsworthy, but protests in some random street or field are not. Similarly in the US the concept of "Free Speech" zones was created to keep protesters away from the eyes of the media.