As usual, the government's pandering to the European council is going to cost us all our freedom and right to privacy. We Swedes should be allowed to define our own...

oh...

wait...

bugger

<adopts Euro>

What are secret policemen coming to.

The real reason for the law is to monitor comms to and from Russia?

So why didn't they just do it?

I reckon there's been a terminological displacement event at Swedish Gov HQ and all the real secret policemen have been encased in tarmac and are currently lying down in roads on traffic calming duties.

..you had to get "bork" in there, didn't you?

a terrorist attack in Sweden?

There've been a few plots from a minute's Googling. But no actual attacks.

And those plots were clearly uncovered and foiled without the new law.

They don't have a city called Echelon (or Aquinas) in Sweden do they?

You know, in Spanish "sapo" is the familiar name for certain members of the frog family.

But in Chile is also a name commonly used for people who used to spy for the government, specially during Pinochet's dictatorship,

One terrorist attack has taken place in Sweden, kind of, in 1975 the west German embassy was attacked by the Rote-Armee-Fraktion. Technically it was west German territory that was attacked but hey...

Surely no other country has any organised surveillance of internet based traffic do they? Surely that would be immoral in "proper" democracies such as the UK or the USA - To have nationally sponsored intelligence agencies with internet access doing their supposedly legitimate (?) "job"!

Or maybe it is more difficult for a Swedish surveillance activity to be secretly practiced as the Swedes have significant public access to information related to political mongering and decision making?

Try googling "Holger Meins Commando" and you'll find that the Red Army Faction group "Komando Holger Meins" took thirteen hostages and blew up the West German embassy in 1975. Three died.

Once the spying starts, it will NEVER stop. The governments all want total control -- to build more control systems -- and ensure their own existence -- funded by the public.

Where there is no freedom -- there can be no crime. As you give away your freedom and privacy one piece at a time -- think about where it will stop? When you can go to/from your home to/from work and 90% of your income goes to tax?

GCHQ in the UK has been implementing total net surveillance for years. And it would do so irrespective of any enabling Act of Parliament or a contrary ECHR ruling.

Given this, why is it that the Swedish measure provokes mass response and criticism?

Beacuse we always thought the Swedish were the good guys... the country we Brits could look at and say "well, perhaps there is still hope for humanity".

If the Swedish government is so willing to scr*w over their citizens, then the rest of us non-Swedish people might as well just go right now and lie face-down on the ground with no trousers on and pull our arse-cheeks open in advance of the inevitable f*cking over of our rights to privacy.

The irony is, countries like the UK and Sweden use many of the principles enshrined in the Human Rights act as demonstration of why we're morally superior to nations with 'poor human rights records' like Russia and China.

Because its totally unacceptable in a free society.

Mass citizen surveillance is all part of the ongoing war on democracy (colloquially known as the war on terrorism).

Why don't they just sign up to Echalon with the UK, US and Austrailian government? I hear its on version 2.0 and everyone using the interweb loves 2.0 don't they? XD

The last terrorist attack on Swedish soil was in 2001 when Mohammed Alzery and Ahmed Agiza were kidnapped from Bromma airport by the CIA with the complete support of SÄPO and subsequently tortured in Egypt. That American gangrene is already well-established here.

Mines the one with the worthless uppehållstillstånd in the pocket.

... there doesn't seem to be much point in welcoming our new surviellance overlords... they sneaked in yonks back and have been silently drawing up their plans to conquor the globe ever since. Tune in next month when the Declaration for Human Rights is abolished.

"Political representatives have received more than six million protest emails since the law was passed in mid-June."

In the UK there's said to be a problem if MPs receive more than four letters a day on the same topic.

...but in the UK, the emails would be ignored. Its not as if the MPs really work for you, they just pretend to. If they can ignore 1,000,000 physical protesters trying to stop a war, they're unlikely to act on a few emails complaining about Human Rights abuse.

When the guilty individuals are charged & punished for Phorm monitoring, then we'll know they're listening. Don't hold your breath.