The Swedish citizens will get all their phone calls and e-mail traffic wiretapped in real time not just by the Swedish NSA branch, but also by police, customs, the tax authority, and others. These plans were revealed today by the Ny Teknik magazine, sending shockwaves among civil rights activists. This follows a previous law change that gave the Swedish NSA branch, the FRA, realtime access to all Internet traffic that crossed the country borders – effectively wiretapping everybody warrantlessly all the time.
Circumventing the entire legislative process and every democratic shred of oversight, the Swedish Police are demanding voluntary agreements from telecom operators to give the Police and other Swedish authorities direct and real-time access to phone call data, mail traffic, and much more. This is not just the slippery slope into an Orwellian society that civil rights activists have warned about: this is a slippery precipice.
We’re now officially past the point where “national security” (and the the ever-present disgusting child porn/terrorism argument) is used to justify bulk warrantless wiretapping of everybody, all the time. We’ve arrived at the point where the Police justify the complete elimination of entire classes of civil liberties with nothing more than “because it can be done, and we want it”.
The authorities that would get direct real-time access to most communications aren’t just the Police, but also the Customs Office, the Security Police, and the Tax Authority (!!).
A key difference between a functioning democracy and a police state is, that in a functioning democracy, the Police don’t get everything they point at. While the border between the two is arguably a lot of gray area, and subject to a lot of polemic, it can no longer be reasonably stated that police powers are under checks and balances.
According to the Ny Teknik article, followed up by many others in Swedish oldmedia, it’s not just real-time data on phone calls and mail that the Police are demanding. A sample of other things included in the proposed mass surveillance package:
- How telecom bills are paid – cash, credit, direct deposit. If credit card, which one, and if direct deposit, from which bank account.
- The subscriber’s PUK code, enabling a police authority to activate the cellphone’s SIM card without the subscriber’s PIN code.
There are hints in the article that many other items may be covered by the realtime wiretapping, referring to a wiretapping standard called ITS27.
The only telecom operator to say a blank never, this is completely unthinkable to the Police demands is the Swedish Tele 2.
The fact that the Swedish regime isn’t immediately firing everybody in the Police demanding this wholesale abolition of civil rights is practically an endorsement of the plans – and one that goes hand in hand with the much-criticized Swedish FRA Law that legalized warrantless bulk wiretapping in the first place.
UPDATE – a followup article in Ny Teknik reveals that the wiretapping standard ITS27 mentioned above was developed by the British spy agency GCHQ.
THIS IS DISGUSTING!
WHERE IS OUR HERO RICK FALKVINGE???
WHY DON’T YOU START A REVOLUTION AGAINST THESE FILTHY BASTARDS?
THERE IS NOT A TINY BIT OF FREEDOM LEFT.
RICK, YOU HAVE TO START A REVOLUTION.
ANY FREE HUMAN-BEING WHO HAS A TINY LITTLE BIT OF DECENCY LEFT IN THEIR SOUL, HAS TO WAKE UP, OPEN THEIR EYES, AND STAND UP AGAINST TYRANNY!!!
CIVIL LIBERTY ACTIVISTS MUST DECLARE WAR AGAINST THESE FILTHY MOTHERFUCKERS BECAUSE THEY HAVE DECLARED WAR AGAINST MANKIND!!!
THEY CAN TAKE OUR LIVES, BUT THEY CAN NEVER TAKE AWAY OUR FREEDOMS!
LIVE FREE OR DIE!
GIVE ME LIBERTY, OR GIVE ME DEATH!
LONG LIVE LIBERTY!!!
The revolution already exists.
It’s called the Pirate (Party) Movement. đ
Not in Sweden anymore. I think the Swedish PP are doing anything they can to not be seen as controversial and therefore in the public mind fading into obscurity. So afraid of doing wrong that there is nothing to report about. This at the same time as the very far right wing Swedish Democrats are going in opposite direction now gathering more and more votes from ordinary people. I expect the SD to get over 25% the next election, becoming the third largest party in Sweden. Probably being the last nail in coffin creating the basis for a paranoid police state.
I would guess they would get somewhere 10-15, but not 25. Well, who knows, I’d maybe better start packing my things anyway…
The Swedish PP on a national level is dead. Unfortunately this is true, because their core questions are some freakin’ huge ones, and until the swedish people wake up and realise that their freedom is almost gone, until then the Swedish PP is a sleeping zombie.
The Swedish PP on a European level, though… That’s a whole different story. Lots of success stories mostly thanks to CE but also Amelia, and 3 pirates next year in parliament would have the chance to actually change EU – or atleast bring change to the forefront.
National elections? Probably 1% at best, this time around. Still too indecisive on the questions that really matter (school, healthcare, welfare), but if the broadening of the PP continues then we’ll sooner or later see a good political platform there methinks.
EU? We can get 10%+. We just need to be clear that we have brought change, and we can bring MORE change.
I hope you have an anonymizer. That comment could be interpreted as a threat to the regime, and that will not be seen keenly upon in the near future.
I think “steelneck” is right, too. The Pirate Party is becoming a regular nothing-special-party.
actually I was reading today about encrypting emails, although I use the HTTPS Firefox extension to encrypt all web traffic and web email. Then I don’t know how I will use this PGP, but for me it won’t be too hard, its about people who find it harder. I’m sure I’ve seen somewhere a kind of phone used by army which encrypts voice too, have to find that. And for shopping I learnt from some Swedish people to use only cash, and use prepaid mobile, and they have dummy name as the user account.
@anon: They continuously GSM-track (or GPS-track on a smartphone) the location of that dummy name prepaid card too and the owner or renter of the flat in which the card is in most nights is probably the owner or a partner of the owner of the card. They track you 24/7 unless you are willing to not carry with you a mobile phone anymore.
Every primitive mobile phone is a tracking device which we carry voluntarily with us and we even pay for it and for being tracked. We are like some convicted criminals which have their electronic tags. No, we are more stupid than them because they don’t carry those voluntarily. And electronic tags don’t have microphones that can be activated silently.
Smartphones? Smart phones for dumb sheeps. And next: Smartwatch, Google Glass… full spead ahead into totalitarian societies and the sheeps are dumb enough to pay for it and request all this. Like there wouldn’t be any life possible on planet Earth without these designed-for-surveillance gadgets.
For super easy to use encryption in communication I would recommend redphone and textsecure. The first encrypts your phone calls, the second encrypts your texts. Both use perfect forward secrecy and are easy enough for your grandma to use. They are currently only available for android though iOS versions should be coming out soon.
I have been actively trying out every privacy oriented app I can find for the past two years and redphone and textsecure are by far the most stable, and easy to use.
very disturbing news indeed. the main questions to ask, surely, are who is behind this? what incentive has the person(s) that is promoting these disgraceful proposals received or will receive? what has happened to want to turn Sweden into a country akin to the very one it’s people fought against almost 70 years ago? if those behind these suggested new laws, are not known, it’s about time they either stepped up to the plate willingly or were forced to do so. someone knows who they are. release the information! if not, the world is going to become ruled by corporations under a Fascist/totalitarian flag and it will have one hell of a task to get away from it once it is in!!
In their view they are only doing their job as good as they possibly can, obeying orders and sometime licking up to their boss, doing their duty. People doing career in whatever profession. This is the most dangerous and unresponsible thing there is in this world, terrorism is very harmless compared. Already Plato recognized this 2500 years ago, calling this type the tyrannical type, not because they want tyranny, but because it leads to it. This is exactly how the tyrant rise out of the democracy as a protector, we are now on a track that has repeated itself many times before in history.
If this news doesn’t start any sort of revolution, then Sweden is clearly beyond salvation.
R.I.P
I read this and my reaction was that Sweden celebrates an April Fool’s-like holiday in November.
Has ths story been carried in the mainstream media in Sweden?
Welcom to the New world order ( Illuminati )
Where is my comment i send here ? Where i said Welcome to the New world oder ( Illuminati ) ?
Use pgp encryption and make the spooks work harder…
Use PGP encryption and make the spooks work harder. If everyone does so, they’ll soon give up.
Isnt this a clear violation of EU Directives… Not that i like th EU, we can still use it to our advantage.
i quote
“Article 8 – privacy
Main article: Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights
Article 8 provides a right to respect for one’s “private and family life, his home and his correspondence”, subject to certain restrictions that are “in accordance with law” and “necessary in a democratic society”. This article clearly provides a right to be free of unlawful searches, but the Court has given the protection for “private and family life” that this article provides a broad interpretation, taking for instance that prohibition of private consensual homosexual acts violates this article. This may be compared to the jurisprudence of the United States Supreme Court, which has also adopted a somewhat broad interpretation of the right to privacy. Furthermore, Article 8 sometimes comprises positive obligations:[20] whereas classical human rights are formulated as prohibiting a State from interfering with rights, and thus not to do something (e.g. not to separate a family under family life protection), the effective enjoyment of such rights may also include an obligation for the State to become active, and to do something (e.g. to enforce access for a divorced parent to his/her child).”
Source Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_Rights#Article_8_-_privacy
Den 7 dec klockan 12 kommer vi avgÄ frÄn HumlegÄrde en marsch igenom centrala Stockholm lik den som Àgde rum den 5 Nov, ta med fanor, plakat, megafon, det ni kan skapa hemma eller kom som ni Àr samt ett glatt humör.
OBS: tiden kan förÀndras vi Äterkommer eller titta in pÄ eventet som finns lÀnkat nedan eller följ oss pÄ vÄr officiella twitter konto som Àr kopplad till denna hemsida samt FB sida
âș https://twitter.com/AnonswedenInfo â
âș Anonymous Sweden FB â
Det fÄr vara nog nu!! Vi förvÀntar oss aktivister frÄn UNGPIRAT hoppas nÀr vara sÄ som 5 Nov samt andra. Vi ses dÀr !
Karta âș HĂ€r â
Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1432202920327415/
See you there
http://www.anonsweden.se/?p=4696
When these people die I will piss on their graves. Who’s with me?
Rick,
Du Àr smart och pÄlÀst och en bra talare. TyvÀrr skjuter du dig hela tiden sjÀlv I foten genom att inte hÄlla dig till sanningen. Det finns inte ett ord i Ny Tekniks artikel om att skattemyndigheten ska fÄ tillgÄng till detta. Bara SÀpo. Du har ett enormt starkt case för dina stÄndpunkter bara genom att presentera fakta utan överdrifter och embellishments. NÀstan i varje bloggpost Àr det kommentatorer som i all vÀlvilja hittar faktafel som du sen tvingas justera. Det Àr pinsamt och undergrÀver din trovÀrdighet. SnÀlla, sluta att hela tiden slira pÄ sanningen. Om du vill bli en auktoritet och politisk makthavare mÄste man kunna ta dig pÄ allvar, vilket innebÀr att man kan lita pÄ att dina pÄstÄenden Àr faktamÀssigt korrekta. SkÀrp dig, som det Àr nu framstÄr du mest som en pajas.
The SVT article linked above:
I do agree with all of the ideas you’ve introduced on your post.
They are very convincing and can definitely work. Still, the posts are very short for newbies.
May you please extend them a little from subsequent time? Thanks
for the post.
http://www.riksdagen.se/sv/Start/Sok/?sok=FATCA&searchtype=all&facets=1&a=s&sortorder=desc&sort=rel
Sweden is agreeing with USA, to look for all Swedish citizens living in Sweden, via their banks, to find those that can be taxed and penalized by USA.
–For those Swedish citizens who are suspected of having one US parent,
–to those suspected to have been born in USA (such as those children born while their parents were working at Ericsson in USA),
–to those suspected to not have not fully cancelled their greencards (form I-407), and anyone suspected of being such
–to those Swedish citizens who are suspected of having a joint bank account in Sweden with their spouse who is suspected to be as above
-to those Swedish citizens suspected of having a business together with a person listed above
-to those business who are suspected of having a person above who is the business manager, CFO, accounts-payable administrator, or purchaser
-to those suspected to have “indicia” of any of the above
Sweden is paying billions of SEK to implement US law in Sweden, to find Swedes in Sweden suspected of being liable to USA for taxation and devastating retroactive fines (up to 300% of their income)
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/Pub5124UserGuide.pdf
The above link is where the most personal data of Swedish citizens in Sweden will be sent to USA, because these Swedish citizens in Sweden are suspected of being taxable by USA.
As this data gets passed to the USA, it is sent further to the USA Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINcen), NSA, DHS, CIA, FBI, for further scrutiny.
Simply for being a Swedish citizen, living in Sweden, and suspected of having “indicia” of being a US person.
And this is what Sweden and the EU are willingly signing up for.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRoU-JNFhr0
Above youtube link is where the EU parliament is speaking with US tax agents, to implement USA law on European soil, for which all the participants, save one, were in full desire to implement. In fact, the German MEP says that “we should be thanking America” (for implementing US law in Europe)
Welcome to America! Sweden is being annexed! Taxes are due April 15th of each year and the reports to the USA FInancial Crimes Enforcement Network are due each year on June 30th. Don’t forget to file!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-EVF7CZt_w
Above link is a humorous but factual discussion of what Sweden is capitulating to today. Sweden will begin implementing USA law in Sweden upon Swedish citizens.
Ho hum. Back to sleep.
Land of the free? Who ever told you that is your enemy!
Fantastic blog! Do you have any helpful hints for aspiring writers?
I’m hoping to start my own website soon but
I’m a little lost on everything. Would you suggest starting
with a free platform like WordPress or go for a paid option?
There are so many options out there that I’m totally overwhelmed ..
Any ideas? Kudos!
When these people die I will piss, on their graves. Whoâs with me?