Coup d'état in Sweden?
Monday, June 16, 2008, 26 comments
This is about a sad and unexpected political development in Sweden and has nothing to with kayaking or paddling
Our right wing government has, with a coup d'état like procedure, chosen to remove an important part of the democracy, in contempt of the UN declaration of rights, the EU regulations and probably the Swedish constitution (to be investigated). This means a significant shift of power from the people and the Parliament to the government and is a radical departure from a many centuries old democratic tradition.
A military intelligence agency (FRA) will have the right to intercept, analyze and store all cable communication (telephone, email, sms, chats, internet) to and from Sweden without any court order - the arguments being threats against Sweden (no such thing according the the security police - and if: do they really believe that terrorists communicates in advance non-encrypted?) and that it is only foreign activity that is to be intercepted (the ignorants in the government does not understand that servers are placed anywhere in the world and that internet traffic takes the fastest and cheapest road, disregarding national borders) and that this database is an exception - it will not leak (!).
The new law was enforced against an formidable uproar amongst political blogs, massive demonstrations and rejections from almost all referral bodies: the police and security police, the department of justice, lawyers, journalists etc. The voting was arranged hastily late in the evening, when the old media was occupied with a game of soccer in the European championship and was passed with minimal overweight for yes.
The short term consequences are already seen: Google aborts further investments on servers in Sweden, not being able to guarantee their customers integrity anymore (and declaring Swedish IT-morale to be on par with Chinas and Saudi Arabias). Telia Sonera moves servers to Finland not to compromise Finnish internet users integrity which is against the law there (accepting immigrants, Finland?). Long term consequeces may be a silent society where no one dare to tip a journalist of incongruities, or where no one dare to call a medical or drink/drug abuse help line fearing that such information may leak to future employers or insurance companies.
Today I am ashamed of being swedish, and I long for the next election (2010) where we can kick out this miserable bunch of illdoers.