Sweden Admits Tapping Citizens' Phones for Decades 273
paulraps writes "Sweden is close to implementing new surveillance legislation that will include the monitoring of emails, telephone calls and keyword searches using advanced pattern analysis. The objective is to detect 'threats such as terrorism, IT attacks or the spread of weapons of mass destruction' but the proposals have divided the country. In a misguided attempt to put people at ease, the government admitted that Sweden has been tapping its citizens' phones for decades anyway."
Yes ... and? (Score:5, Insightful)
strange (Score:5, Insightful)
Hooray (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like a 7-mile-wide billboard shouting "SORRY, WE HAVE NO FUCKING SHAME"...
Re:Yes ... and? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but using such software can bring unwanted attention. Especially if the government is looking for stuff like that as I am sure the Swedish government is.
Re:Shrug (Score:3, Insightful)
Well... (Score:3, Insightful)
Hee hee hee (Score:5, Insightful)
- entirely backtrack
- agree that domestic surveillance really ISN'T that big a deal
- just be hypocrites.
(grabs some popcorn)
OK, let's start discussing!
Not Surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
With the internet I now have the option of securing my communications if I so wish, which isn't really a problem for surveillance at all for legitimate purposes, but this quite clearly scares the security services here and elsewhere because they want to feel like they're in control. Crucially, the security services in many countries now have to give themselves a reason for being, wasting taxpayers money and continuing the old boy's network - which is where the exagerrated levels of terrorism and foreign threats come from. We've had a ton of these arguments in the UK, and none of them stand up to scrutiny or evidence. Apparently, we're facing threats that are even graver than anything seen in World War 2, and yes there are terrorist groups out there in the world, but this is quite obviously ludicrous to any sane person.
However, I don't think that telling citizens that their phones have been unknowingly tapped for decades anyway, so there's nothing to worry about, is exactly the wisest of moves. These security services organisations are so out of their depth now it isn't even funny, especially regarding internet communications. If they wanted to keep themselves in a job then they should have worked harder to keep Communism and the Soviet Union intact
Re:Hee hee hee (Score:5, Insightful)
There's no need for there to be a logical inconsistency.
Re:Hee hee hee (Score:2, Insightful)
Everything wrong in the world has to be the fault of the US, or else you cant expect the US to do all the work in fixing the problems.
Ikea sucks
Re:Yeah well... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Grow UP (Score:3, Insightful)
And when a government doesn't need a warrant to tap a phone, then you're well on the road to fascism.
Re: Slashdotted (Score:2, Insightful)
Posts like this annoy me. Are you saying you were actively taught they were on country? I doubt that. The only other explaination is your total lack of interest in world geography. Even one cursory look at a map of Europe and you would know.
Re:The US called (Score:1, Insightful)
Not strange at all (Score:1, Insightful)
Just so you know, just about every country in the world with the technology to do so monitors communication of its citizens. Very few are ever stupid enough to admit to it.
Re:Yes ... and? (Score:5, Insightful)
Since when was Sweden.. (Score:3, Insightful)
The anti-American (Score:2, Insightful)
And how much would Sweden have to suck before it stars being worse than the USA? The exercise goes like this: Start taking away (alleged) Swedish liberties one by one, and raise your hand when the liberty removed breaches the threshold and causes living in the USA to be preferable to Sweden.
If you run that exersie through your mind and discover that you still feel disgust and disdain for the USA no matter how many (alleged) Swedish liberties you remove, then voila: you're an anti-American. It means that you define the USA as the evil enemy. It means that all the prattle about rights and liberties and "police state" is rhetoric. In other words, you don't really give a shit about rights or liberties. It means that you care about weakening or destroying that which you have defined, regardless of any evidence, as evil to begin with: the USA.
Does this apply to you? That question is not only for the parent poster. It's for anyone who is reading this.
I remember debating with my fully-"progressive" sister who because zealotized when she moved to the UK. In one conversation, she blurted out at me, "The United States has the WORST human rights record!" In response, I asked her, "Really? Worse than North Korea?"
I got a deer-in-the-headlights look that I'll remember fondly for the rest of my life. However, her inability to answer merely showed weakness in her resolve. If she were fully committed to the anti-American cause, then she would have revved up the engine that robotically bleats out, "All of the information you've been told by the Imperial and Greedy Western Media about the glorious People's State of North Korea is LIES! They can feed all of their citizens if not for Western Greed and Imperialism! They need nuclear weapons to defend themselves against Greedy Capitalist Imperialist pigs from the West!"
That's the litany of the anti-American zealot. And that type of zealotry is just like all other types of zealotry: full devotion to the cause (whatever it may be) is of prime importance. All other concerns, including facts, logic, human life, happiness, etc, are secondary. It sounds an awful lot like Ash on the Nostromo, doesn't it? Robotic, cruel, and stupid.
But you can't call it unprincipled. And that's precisely why it's attractive.
Re:Hee hee hee (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hee hee hee (Score:3, Insightful)
America makes mistakes, fine. We have bozo's for President (not just bashing Bush here, honest). Those bozo's go about bombing nice places into ruins, making new bin Ladens across the world.
But that's not the citizenry, any more than saying Germans are "little Hitlers" or French are "all fags." Yes, you can find examples of that a plenty. I can also watch French TV mock Americans for 3 hours every Thursday. I can watch German TV wail about pacific island Nukes and Guantanamo bay. I lived there - and I can't really guague the feeling over there anymore. Just because you experience some narrow media-driven sliver of American life - doesn't make your statement right. Just because you chat on a billboard amongst a rats nest of 18 year olds looking for 9/11 revenge doesn't give you that experience either.
It just makes it pathetic - because you're really just buying the cheap lines that Rupert sold you. What you don't see is the citizens who are aghast with you. What you don't see is the totality of the situation - and you only get that by living here, breathing the air, talking to the cleaning ladies, chatting with the neighbors at the game.
I've lived abroad, was born abroad even.. you just can't understand a people from a distance. So really.. please stop being a pathetic ass, wherever the hell you're from.
Technologically Possible != Morally Acceptable (Score:3, Insightful)
You're much more likely to be killed in a violent mugging than by terrorists. Does that mean we should allow mass email screening to identify muggers? Would they be stupid enough to discuss mugging people in emails if they knew everything was being screened? Of course not, and terrorists aren't stupid enough to discuss terrorism either.
Even if it did catch a few terrorists it's not worth giving up your freedoms for anymore that it would be worth giving them up for the possibility of catching a few more violent criminals. It doesn't take much for a democratic system to lurch towards tyranny and it is the height of stupidity to provide the facilities that make it possible.
Re:Grow UP (Score:1, Insightful)
The Taleban was created after the USSR left, and was, at best, only distantly related to the organizations which fought the Russians. It was a Pakistani import after the war ended, and the country became split between the warlords. I should also note that radical Islamic circles don't really like any nation which can be considered Western, and had the same attitude long before the (USSR-)Afghanistan war.
(sarcasm)
Throughout history, "questionable" US actions has tended to occur most when there actually is a wrong that needs righting. I'm not sure whether or not doing wrong is a valid response to doing wrong; frankly I have a hard time making that judgment call because I'm not an American.
(/sarcasm)
You're just justifying achieving goals that you ideologically like by any means possible. When your political opponents do the same thing you accuse them of being Facist. I suggest you look at the mirror.
Re:Yes ... and? (Score:2, Insightful)
As long as the stupidest, most ignorant, least knowledgeable and most impressionable among us outweigh the rest and are allowed an equal weight in voting and directing this country, we will never be able to change anything (or preserve the things which are inherently important). And in a world where people are content as long as their favorite television shows aren't pre-empted and their favorite soft-drink is still available at their fast-food joint of choice, there will never be enough dissatisfaction with the way things are or could be for anyone to make significant efforts.
Life is short and you can't waste it fighting the inevitable in some sort of quixotic quest to overcome the median idiocy that actively wants to give up the very things you are fighting to preserve, because losing their various freedoms frighten them far less than losing their Tivo or Forerunner. You'll only end up with an ulcer.
Re:I bet they don't understand arabic anyway... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:...which may affect other countries as well (Score:3, Insightful)
The point is that a very significant part of all traffic from Finland to the rest of Europe as well as to North America is routed through Sweden. It may be that traffic between Sweden and, say, Russia gets routed through Finland, but the vast majority of international traffic from Finland goes to the west, whereas the same probably can't be said about the communications from Sweden to Russia or so.
I'd also be interested to hear about a single major (and at least partially Swedish) telecom company providing service to a large population in Sweden that houses servers for said services in Finland and routinely routes its traffic through the country as well. On the other hand, it's easy to name at least one such company in Finland. (In fact, it would seem that my ISP's e-mail server, which I don't use, may be located in Sweden, and at least a traceroute shows the packets going through some apparently Swedish routers.)
Re:Hee hee hee (Score:5, Insightful)
Sweden U.S
Infant mortality rate 2.76/1,000 6.43/1,000
HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate .1%
Income distribution - Gini index 25 45
Inflation rate 1.4% 2.5%
Public Debt 46.4% of GDP 64.7% of GDP
Life expectancy at birth 80.51 years 77.85 years
Source: CIA Factbook
The CIA Factbook isn't a particularly controversial source, and I can think of others ranging from the UNICEF to the UN.
I know it is fun to pretend that people you don't agree with are in a logically inconsistent position. But, it actually reflects poorly on you when you pretend it is the case when it isn't.
Re:Yes ... and? (Score:2, Insightful)
The only thing people in this country are motivated to do is buy big cars, fuck and spawn, watch American Idol and complain about gas prices while sipping their five dollar coffees. People are simply not motivated, because life is short and they're fine as long as they can be content and enjoy a few little trinkets of "the good life". Grief and depression makes great artists. If the greatest impact you suffer is paying the mortgage and getting the kids off to school in the morning, you're not going to have the drive or motivation to push for any change. You're happy to throw your fists in the air as long as other people are dying, but as soon as a little pressure is exerted, they'll crack like a lobster shell. And, I suppose, who can blame them? If you take 400,000 angry people marching in the streets with the intention of storming a state house and toss a thousand armed national guard in front of them and see how quickly they shrivel back and change their tunes.
I'm not suggesting that people need to "rise up and become violent and overthrow the government". What I am suggesting is that, unless people are ultimately willing to, then they're just a bunch of mushy rabbits that are convinced that everyone is acting only in the ultimate benefit of the individual's own good and that simply isn't so. How else do we explain people who are imprisoned for years without due process or subjected to illegal search and seizure with absolutely no acknowledgment or outcry from the society that is supposed to support and maintain these laws to protect their fellow citizens to begin with?
I know the other 299,999,999 Americans aren't willing to stand up if it ever becomes necessary. So why put myself out there by stepping in front of all of them? There have been about fifteen people to do that in the Soviet Union recently and you see what has happened to them!
When I hear most people, including here at slashdot, talk about fighting for change and freedom and civil liberties and all of this... I know full well that in another ten minutes, they will have forgotten all about it and will be wrapped up in some epic debate over Star Wars. We aren't the revolutionaries that founded the country and other great civilizations. We're just a bunch of weak, pudgy, soft consumers and if we woke up to find the Bill of Rights no longer applied tomorrow, we'd bitch about it on Talk Radio and blogs and by late afternoon, we'd be back to setting our Tivos to record Next Top Model.
Re:Hee hee hee (Score:2, Insightful)
-Blame the US for starting this development.
Frankly, if it wasn't for the current US goverment and their unhealthy obsession with terror we would not have this development in Europe.