Wiretapping Bill Passes Swedish Parliament, 143 to 138 326
Assar Bruno Boveri writes "Swedish lawmakers came down in favour of a fiercely debated surveillance bill in a vote at the Riksdag on Wednesday evening. Despite some cosmetic changes, Sweden's proposed surveillance law is still a monster, writes Pär Ström from the independent New Welfare Foundation." The Swedish newspaper DN (in Swedish; translations welcome) compares the implications of the proposed law with activities carried out by East Germany's Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (STASI).
for those of us who can't read sweedish (Score:4, Informative)
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dn.se%2FDNet%2Fjsp%2Fpolopoly.jsp%3Fd%3D2502%26a%3D794124&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=sv&tl=en
news (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.thelocal.se/12534/20080618/
More Coverage (Score:4, Informative)
'Ja' to Lex Orwell [radsoft.net]
Lex Blair [radsoft.net]
Orwellian Update I [radsoft.net]
To the Vote [radsoft.net]
Lex Orwell & Intent [radsoft.net]
Lex Orwell - No for Now [radsoft.net]
'I Have To Be Able to Look Myself in the Eyes' [radsoft.net]
Re:Wha? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually not. This bill was originally created by the previous Social Democrat administration (which was supported by the Green Party and the Left Party), while the current administration voted against the bill in parliament. Pretty quickly after gaining being voted into power, the current administration resurrected the scrapped social democrat proposal as their own, and put it before parliament. The opposition (the previous administration) used a law that enabled them to defer a decision for one year, and voted against the proposal today.
The only reason for the opposition's no-vote seem to be that they would prefer to vote it into law when they are in power themselves.
Re:So... (Score:5, Informative)
Also the left party and the green party wants to rip up the law when power shifts (the right-wing government isn't very popular right now and this isn't going to make them any more popular), the question is if the social democrats will agree to that.
This is truly the worst behaviour of any Swedish government I've seen yet. The government didn't really have any arguments for the law, just the general "The terriorists are coming to get you" propaganda.
To add to that, the law was voted to go back to committe this morning, and by nightfall, the "new" law, with minor modifications was passed.
The Left Party made an official complaint about the law and the government to the constiutional committe, but it would appear that they didn't do what they should have.
Right now there are two parties in parliament that I can trust. That would be the left party and the green party. The social democrats won't say no to wiretapping, they just said no to this specific proposition. The left and green parties and some great people up there debating against this and really kicking right-wing ass, not that it mattered in the end.
The only right-wing party where some members had the courage to stand up to this proposition was Folkpartiet (aka Peoples Liberal Party, though I certainly wouldn't call them very liberal after this), where one member voted no and one abstained.
Re:The register says rejects????!!!??? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Wha? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Wha? (Score:1, Informative)
a href, for father Dagon's sake! (Score:3, Informative)
Here's an example [google.com].
Re:The register says rejects????!!!??? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:So... (Score:4, Informative)
You mean like a constitutional court? We don't have one. The only instance that vaguely resembles one is the joke that is the Committee on the Constitution [wikipedia.org]. They have no power to rule any law as unconstitutional, they just argue among themselves with no actual results.
Ironically, the current administration has actually argued for setting up a constitutional court when they were in opposition. When they were voted into power, those arguments seemed to be forgotten.
Re:Sad sad sad day (Score:4, Informative)
Unless forced to by the greens and the left party, the social democrats won't rip it out, quite the contrary. They will say thank you to the previous administration, for implementing and taking all the heat on a proposition that was originally created by the social democrats.
Re:The register says rejects????!!!??? (Score:2, Informative)
The major motivation for the law, as the Swedish government sees it, is to enable the FRA to lawfully continue to do what they've been doing illegaly over the last 10 years or so (now a police matter, after it was revealed two days ago in the major TV news). One of their targets is the Russian internet traffic, as about 80% of the Russian internation internet traffic passes through Sweden. The Swedish spooks at RFA hope, among other things, to exchange information extracted from that traffic for information obtained by organizations such as ECHELON [wikipedia.org] and others.
Re:So... (Score:3, Informative)
The real control is SUPPOSED to be with the "riksdagen", which basically is the equivalent to the congress. This is where things go seriously south. Riksdagen is supposed to censor the government and make sure it doesn't get out of line. HOWEVER, since the government is made up from the parties representing the majority of the riksdagen, and voting against your party is a huge no no, (basically kills your political career real dead instantaneously) the riksdagen has become just another rubberstamp instance with no real function either. Our system is fucked up, our government is out of control, and it's 2 years to the next election.
Re:Wha? (Score:4, Informative)
The two biggest parties in Sweden, the right wing Moderates and the left wing Social Democrates are both authoritarian.
And several other parties have authoritarian pressure coming from their party tops.
Re:for those of us who can't read sweedish (Score:5, Informative)
Done by a human!
In two days, on wednesday, it is expected that Riksdagen will give the swedish intelligence service the right to scan all email, sms and telephone traffic that passes swedish borders. Christop Andersson is reminded of the surveillance in the old DDR and poses questions regarding privacy.
In the east-german security-police archive are shelves of yellow, redish or dark brown files. The total length of which is 110 miles. Here there are transcripts of regular east-german telephone conversations and long logs of people's phone use with timestamps. Especially interesting to Stasi was the telephone traffic across the east-german borders.
The giant system of surveillance had as a purpose to protect "Democracy" in DDR against "hostile negative forces" and "terrorism". The threats gave Stasi the right to check up on everyone.
Since 1989 the Stasi is gone. Yet, a similar but perhaps worse system of surveillance is about to be created. This time in Sweden. For this purpose the Forsvarets Radioanstalt (FRA) has aquired a monster computer worth millions of SEK according to Computer Sweden. It is expected to get company in the near years.
With help of the computers FRA will scan through all emails, all sms and all telephone calls that cross swedish borders. Every day, every hour, every minute and every second. Just like in the old DDR the purpose is to prevent "terrorism" and prevent outer threats against society.
The system will be fed search-word both in Swedish and other languages. Further the FRA will search after text strings with randomly selected words and numbers.
Encryption, the defense minister closest man state secretary(?) HÃ¥kan Javrell in a video interview shown at the group "Gravande journalisters"(investigating/digging journalists) seminar in Gotenburg in april.
In the interview he makes it clear that mail with encrypted contents are of special interest to the FRA. Possible terrorists would likely not use clear-text naming of where they will strike and with what sort of force. Supposedly encryption applications like PGP are hard to break but with one or more computers in the million SEK range it will be possible to break everything from encrypted love-letters to journalist correspondance with protected sources. The latter is protected by constitutional rights. FRA can not know anything about the content before the encryption is broken. Thus a catch-22 is created. In practice the constitutional paragraph regarding protection of sources worthless.
The only thing required for the green light for FRA is the approval of Riksdagen for "En anpassad forsvarsunderettelsestjenst". "An adjusted defense intelligence service". Behind the inocious title is a breach of swedish privacy without comparison in the swedish history. FRA will not just search for terrorism but will also search for "forsorjingskriser", ecological imbalance, threats to the environment, ethnical and religious conflicts, large scale refugee and migration and economic cases like currency and interest rate speculation. The mind wanders back to the Stasi system of surveilance.
At the same time HÃ¥kan Javrell and the right wing politicians promise that the public has nothing to fear. The only traffic that will be scanned is the traffic that crosses the swedish border and not traffic inside the country. The problem is just that even email within the country will pass the border. Partially because businesses and organizations use foreign email-servers, partially because email does not heed borders. The email between Lulea and Malmo could just as well go through the US if there is available bandwidth.
Stricly by the rules any information gathered from in-country traffic should immediately be destroyed if it is cought in FRA's net. The problem here is that there is no way for FRA to know if the data is covered by this rule.
Further vagueness in the proposed law conserns the protection of sources in
Re:I got an idea (Score:1, Informative)
To try it yourself, just fire up Emacs and enter the command M-x spook. It then inserts some randomly selected keywords in the current buffer. Example output:
The function description for "spook" says: "Adds that special touch of class to your outgoing mail."
Human translation (Score:4, Informative)
In two days, on wednesday, the parliament is expected to give swedish intelligence the right to scan all e-mails, sms and phone traffic passing through the borders of Sweden. Christoph Andersson is reminded by the surveilance system in the old DDR - and questions where the personal integrity is going.
In the east-german security police's archives there are shelves of fire-yellow, red or dark brown files. The combined length is a total of 180km. Here are printouts of common east germans' phone records and long lists of different persons phone contacts, together with dates and times. Particularly interesting for Stasi was the phone traffic that crossed the border of east germany.
The gigantic surverilance system had as a mission to protect the "democracy" in the DDR against "hostile negative forces" and "terrorism". The threat image gave Stasi the right to collect information about everything and everyone.
Since 1989 Stasi is only a memory. None the less, a similar but even worse surveilance system is about to be created - this time in Sweden. To this end, the military department "Forsvarets radioanstalt (FRA)" has aquired a supercomputer worth millions of swedish crowns (100 SEK = 16 USD), according to Computer Sweden. That is expected to become several in the years to come.
With the help of the computers the FRA will scan all e-mails, all SMS and all phone calls that pass through Sweden's borders. Every day, every hour, every minute and every second. Precisely like in old DDR the purpose is to stop "terrorism" and prevent foreign threats towards society.
Concretely this will be done through FRA feeding different search words into the computer system, both in Swedish and in other languages. In addition FRA will search for stings with randomly chosen words and numbers. (Yes, translation is good)
- Encryptions, explains the defense minister's closest man, state secretary Håkan Jevreli in a video interview that is shown on the society "Digging journalists" seminar in Göteborg in April.
In the interview he gives the understanding that mail with encrypted contents are of particular interest for the FRA. Any terrorists would hardly write in cleartext where they will strike - and with what force. Surely cryptographic systems like PGP are judged hard to crack. But with one or more computers in the million (SEK) class surely everything from encrypted love letters to journalists' correspondance with sources can be cracked. The latter is portected by the constitution's anonymity protection. FRA can not possibly know anything agbout the contents before they break the encryption - thereby creating a catch 22. In practise the constitution's paragraph about protection of sources becomes worthless.
All that is required so that FRA can begin work is that the parliament (Riksdagen) accepts the proposal "An adapted military intelligence service". Behind the contentless title hides a breach of integrity that lacks its equal in Swedish history. FRA should not only search for information on any terrorist cells or terrorist acts. According to the proposition FRA shall even collect information regarding "supply crisises, ecological imbalances, threats against the environment, ethnical and religious conflicts, large refugee- and migration movements as well as economic challenges in the form of currency or interest speculation. The thoughts once again returns to Stasi's old surveilance system.
At the same time Håkan Jevrell and "borgerlige" (right wing) politicians assures that the general public has nothing to fear. It is only border crossing traffic that is to be scanned, not domestic sms, phone and e-mail traffic. The catch is just that domestic e-mail also goes via foreign countries. Partly because swedish companies and organiations has servers in other countries, partly because e-mail does not take national borders into consideration. Post between for example Luleå and Malmö can very well go through the US - if there is free capac
Rough Translation (Score:2, Informative)
In two days, Wednesday, is it assumed that the riksdag (The Swedish instrument of government) will give the surveillance service the right to scan all email, sms (phone texts) and phone traffic that pass through the borders of Sweden.
Christoph Andersson is reminded by the surveillance machine in the past DDR - and wonder where the personal privacy is going.
IN THE EASTGERMAN SECURITY POLICE archives exists shelves with fire-yellow red or dark brown files. The combined length is 180 kilometers. Here exists printouts of common east german's phone calls and long lists of different people's phone contacts, right next to a date and time. Especially interesting to the Stasi was the phone traffic that passed abroad the boarders of East Germany.
This gigantic security surveillance system had the task of protecting "the democracy" within DDR against "hostile negative forces" and "terrorism". The threat picture gave the Stasi the right to collect all information about everyone.
Since 1989 the Stasi is but a memory. Despite this is a similar, but even worse surveillance system in the making - this time in Sweden. To accomplish this FÃrsvarets RadioAnstalt (Swedish Defence's Radio Department), the FRA, aquired a super computer, worth multiple millions kronor (SEK - the Swedish currency). It's expected to be more of them in the forthcoming years.
With the help of those machines the FRA will scan through all emails, all sms's and all phone calls that pass through the borders of Sweden. Every day, every hour, every minute and every second. Just like in the prior DDR is the goal to prevent "terrorism" and deflect outer threats against society.
In practice this is done by the FRA by feeding different search terms into the computer system, both in Swedish and other languages. In addition the FRA will search for strings with randomly chosen words and numbers.
- Cryptography, explains the defense minister's closest man, the secretary of
state HÃ¥kan Jevrell in a video interview shown in the "Digging journalists' seminary" in GÃteborg (Gothenburgh) in April.
In this interview he makes it understood that email with encrypted contents is especially interesting to the FRA. To-be terrorists would not type in plain text where they will hit - and with amount of force.
Sure, encryption systems like PGP is believed to be hard to crack - but with one or more computers in the million-range you can surely decrypt everything from encrypted love letters to journalists' exchange with sources. The latter being protected by the anonymity protection of Swedish law. FRA can thus impossibly know anything about the contents prior to breaking the encryption. Thus creating a catch 22. In practice the law's paragraphs about the source protection are rendered worthless.
Everything needed for the FRA to begin the work is for the Riksdag to pass the suggestion "An assimilated defense secret service". Behind the gibberish title hides a privacy breach that has no equal in Swedish history. The FRA will not just look for information about believed terrorist cells or acts of terrorism. According to the proposition the FRA will even search for information about "Income crisis, ecologic unbalances, environmental threats, ethnic and religious conflicts, large immigrant and emigrant movements and economic challenges in the form of currency and interest speculations". The thoughts are involuntarily drawn towards the Stasi surveillance machine of old.
HÃ¥kan Jevrell and other right-wing politicians ensures at the same time that the common person have nothing to fear. It's only traffic that passes the border that will be scanned, not domestic sms, phone and email traffic. The problem is that domestic email also is delivered through other countries. Partly because Swedish companies and organizations have servers in other countries, partly because email doesn't honor nation borders. The mail between, for example, LuleÃ¥ and MalmÃ, may very we
What a geek can do (Score:4, Informative)
1. Many of us are webmasters. Buy an SSL certificate and run your sites through TLS *by default*. Yes it uses more CPU. Do it anyway.
2. Start reminding your friends to use PGP or S/MIME for the email. Start turning up the urgency, week by week, until you finally demand that they do it or you can't talk them by email anymore.
3. Start acting surprised if your friends don't use any other forms of encryption - disk, etc. Don't layer it on too thick. Just enough to start to create a doubt in their mind that they're doing it right.
For us, encryption is normal and everyday (I hope so anyway!). Our tasks is to use our positions as tech "influencers" - either in positions of direct power or in the respect and regard of friends - to discreetly push the theory and practise of encryption and privacy into the normal lives of those around us.
The days grow dark indeed. Just a week ago France became maybe the first large rich country to start systematically blocking websites at the country level. And now this. It's tempting to withdraw into depression and fatalism but these measures will be implemented with technology and can be defeated with it too. Encryption, VPNs, mesh routing - it's all within our reach; even installed on everyone's computers! And it's time for us to do what we can, and start educating those around us to do what's right.
Translation (Score:1, Informative)
"Swedens own Stasi"
In two days, on wednesday, the riksdag is expected to give swedish intelligence service the right to scan all e-mails, SMS and all phone traffic that passes through Swedens borders. Christoph Andersson is reminded of the surveillance apparatus of the old DDR - and asks where the personal integrity goes.
In the archives of the east-german security police you find shelfs with yellow, red or dark brown files. The total length totals 180 kilometres. Here are the printouts of ordinary east-germans phone calls and long lists of peoples phone contacts, next to dates and time.
The phone traffic that crossed the borders of east-germany was particularly interesting.
The task at hand was to protect "democracy" in the DDR against "negative enemy forces" and "terrorism". This threat gave the Stasi the right to keep track of everything and everyone.
Since 1989 Stasi is just a memory. Now a similar but even worse surveillance apparatus is being built, but this time in Sweden. For this purpose FRA has gotten themselves a supercomputer, worth many million crowns, according to Computer Sweden. More are expected to be brought in over the coming years.
With the help of these computers FRA is going to scan all e-mails, SMS and phone calls that pass Swedens borders. Every day, every hour, every minute, every second. Just like in the old DDR the purpose is to prevent "terrorism" and to ward off external threats against society.
FRA does this by feeding different key-words into the system, both in swedish and other languages. In addition to this FRA will search for strings of random words and numbers.
- Encryptions, explains the defence ministers closes man, undersecretary of state HÃ¥kan Jevrell in a video interview that was shown at a GrÃvande journalisters ('Digging journalists') seminar in Gothenburg in april.
In the interview he explains that e-mail with encrypted content is particularly interesting for the FRA. It is unlikely that terrorists will write in plain language where they will strike and how. Admittedly encryption systems, like PGP, are hard to break. But with one or several supercomputers it will certainly be possible to break into everything ranging from love emails to journalists correspondens with their sources. The latter is protected by the constitutions 'anonymity protection'. But it will be impossible for FRA to know what the email contains before the the encryption is broken. this creates a catch-22. In practice this mean that the paragraphs in the constitution about 'source protection' become worthless.
The only thing that needs to be done for the FRA to start their work is that the Riksdag approves the proposition "An adapted defence intelligence service". Behind the meaningless title hides an interity violation without parallel in swedish history. According to the proposition FRA will not just look for information about possible terroristcells or terrordåd (Sorry, don't know how to translate this. A terrorist plants a bomb and it blows up, it's a terrordåd. A suicide bomber blows himself up, it's a terrordåd etc). According to the proposition FRA will also look for information regarding "food crises, ecological imbalances, threats against the environment, etnic and religious conflicts, big refugee and migration movements and also economical challenges in the form of currency and rate speculations". Thoughts of the Stasi surveillance apparatus make themselves known again.
At the same time HÃ¥kan Jevrell and other "non-socialist" / right-wing politicans assure us that the public has nothing to fear. It's only the traffic that crosses the border that will e scanned, not national sms, phone and e-mail traffic. The problem is that national e-mail also goes via other countries. Partly because swedish corporations and organisations have servers in other countries and also because e-mail does not care
Re:Lets fight back! Tor nodes and encryption! (Score:3, Informative)
The resources would be better spent on encrypting absolutely everything. Rather than setting up open proxies, we should convince server owners to use SSL/TLS anywhere that it would help. If you have bandwidth to spare (most browsers don't cache HTTPS by default), have control over the server, and have a form anywhere, there is no reason not to encrypt.
Re:Wha? (Score:4, Informative)
The German nazi party (NSDAP) had, in its full name, the title "NationalSozialistische Deutsche ArbeiterPartei". And it fulfilled NONE of those parts in its acronym.
It was not nationalist. No, really, it wasn't. The nationalism was a propaganda tool to rally the masses behind it. Sure, quite a few of the upper echelons in the nazi party were nationalistic dreamers (namely Hess and Heydrich), but in general, the "national idea" was used as a tool. Germany "sacrificed" Southern Tyrolia, an area that is largely inhabitated by people of German(ic) descent and was part of Tyrolia until WW1, to Italy to appease Mussolini. Would a nationalist country do that, surrender part of its people and territory? They also supported other nationalist parties throughout Europe and even beyond Europe, also nothing that goes well with the idea of the own nation's supremacy.
It was not socialist. It was actually anything but socialist. A fascist state has not the benefit of its people and equality amongst them as a key principle. The socialist aspect of the "unity of Germans" was a propaganda tool to keep people from being jealous of those who have it better. Germany during the 30s and 40s was anything but an egalitarian state, and I'm not even talking about payment. People were anything but equal before the law (and I'm not even talking about the Shoa).
It was not Deutsch (German). Might surprise you, but it wasn't. It was heavily dependent on foreign money, it even had a leader that came from abroad. The only thing German about it was that it was operating in Germany.
It was not for the Arbeiter (worker). Again, a fascist state puts the benefit of the state and the strength of its industry before anything else, including its people and workers.
And finally it was not a party in the original sense. A party consists of more than a leader and some bootlickers.
So please, don't go by the name. If there ever was a party that lied in every single letter of its acronym, it's the NSDAP.
Re:So... (Score:3, Informative)
They don't HAVE to break encryption. As long as they store the endpoints of every conversation (which they have done for years, illegaly [svt.se]) they have all the candy they could want. Complete sociograms of every citizens is a very powerful tool when it comes to scaring people into submission. It's also a very good tool for implicating people for crimes they have not commited or have no intention of commiting.
The Swedish people are generally not very good at protesting (not like the French anyway) but nobody likes this and I expect the political climate in Sweden to change rapidly after this.