The Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt has claimed that the blanket net wiretapping already being performed by the Swedish government is completely compatible with freedoms of speech and expression, as it is “performed discreetly”. This remarkably Orwellian statement was made in a panel at the Stockholm Internet Forum today, where Bildt is trying to portray himself as net-friendly. The Swedish government’s credibility is below zero in these matters among activists, as the recently-enacted FRA law mandates the government to wiretap all traffic online in bulk without a warrant, if it happens to cross a country border (which you can’t know in advance if yours does).
Swedish Government: "Total Surveillance Doesn't Harm Freedom Of Speech, Because It Is Covert"
This is so disturbing. Why do the Swedes accept this. Even in South Africa, which, in the past was, and now still is in a covert sense, totalitarian, we do not have total surveillance of our web. Seems to me Orwell was a true prophet. The West=Oceania; Washington=Airstrip One; Inner Party=#banksters; Outer Party=#bankster friends; Proles=the rest of us; Big Brother = Ubiquitous surveillance. Thanks you for the work you do. I follow your comments and insights daily and have a link to your blog on my own blog in an attempt to direct my readers to your site, which offers much deeper analysis than I can. I take comfort in the fact that The Pirate Party has supporters like myself around the globe.
The Swedes do not accept it. Te swedish pirate party is working and doing things in sweden. Unfortunately not every citizen in sweden knows that we exist. But as i said, we are working.
The Swedes take this up the ass, just like they take the muslim invasion up the ass. They are afraid to say anything, because they have been taught to never question authority, in government schools – of course!
Muslim invasion, lol.
You are wrong on this count, as ZA already has blanket wiretapping in place, has been for a while now (I believe since 2005, if memory serves).
Open a web browser and search for “Regulation of the Interception of Communications Act”, or just RICA for short. The act was passed in 2002 and has only more recently been more fully implemented, but it is in place – by law and by action.
You are what you eat, and the ANC did swallow the NP.
Clearly the Swedes have not been watching their diet and swallowing anything main stream media has been offering. What next? Apartheid-Lite, it’s all right as long as you are covert about it. Viva Pirate Party Viva.
So if as long as someone infringes on our rights “discreetly”, it’s ok??? Huh, if this passes, thepiratebay has a solid defense as most copyright infringement occurs “discreetly”
Is there a way to download the Bambuser stream if you are not the account owner, in order to preserve this statement and its context?
I wish to thank minister Bildt for his contribution to the internets.
http://imgur.com/gallery/oik7laQ
it makes no difference at all whether it is discreet or covert it is still an invasion of privacy and an intrusion on peoples freedom. i dont understand what is happening in the world today. everywhere seems as if they want to know everything that everyone is doing every second. is it because they are scared of terrorist acts or because they are scared of people discovering what those that are supposed to be looking after OUR interests are, in actual fact, just looking after THEIR OWN interests!! by that i mean their introducing new laws that benefit certain industries, that stifle innovation that would create competition against existing industries, and all done for a price! when this type of surveillance is going on, it is because those that want it, those that introduced it have things to hide about what they are doing, what the government is doing, how things are being done, why tehy are being done and who is benefiting from those acts. it is always a different story, however, when reports, pictures and videos leak out of a country that is in conflict with it’s citizens. that can be used to show how bad that country is. it is also then used as a propaganda exercise to try to brain wash people in other countries into thinking how much better off they are. in actual fact the difference is pretty small. it just hasn’t gotten to the violent stage yet, but that is just around the corner!!
Bye, bye beautiful Swedish model…
(Are your politicians paid with american money?)
And it is so ironic. As a 51 year old South African I remember the war that was fought on our border with Angola. Sweden was a strong supporter of SWAPO (South West African People’s Organisation) whose members were the chief “enemy” fighting for the liberation of South West Africa (Namibia today) from the Apartheid regime. What happened to that Swedish sense of justice and morality? Sweden was also a strong supporter of the ANC when it was still a banned organisation in South Africa. And so the “liberator” becoems the oppressor. It’s Animal Farm all over again.
Sweden is still a very active in complaining against this kind of injustice and human rights cases as long as it is outside the Swedish borders.
Inside Sweden we have lost all our privacy and basic human rights.
We sentence violent rapers and killers to shorter jail time then to kids providing a website for sharing files.
@Deon Opperman,
“What happened to that Swedish sense of justice and morality?”
That is a very good question, that urgently needs an answer, if nothing else, to perhaps serve as warnings to other countries.
I think one possible part of this conundrum is that Sweden have gone through an important generational shift, since there is a huge difference between people who lived through the 1920-1945, and those who were born after 1945.
Before 1945, Sweden were (in truth) a quite poor country, afterwards, Sweden rapidly rose to became one of the richest countries in the world.
The majority of the persons who lived throught the really “hard times”, have now passed away, and with them also the memories, the perspectives on life, of what is important, and what is worth “fighting” for.
The majority of our population, that now have grown up after 1945, show obvious signs of being increasingly spolied, compared to our former generations (grandparents and great grandparents).
We might have become to complacent, to comfortable, to naive, and to fond of admiring our own successes, percived importance and heritage.
I once read an African proverb saying, that “Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors”, and I often wonder, if not Sweden without any significant societal challanges for the last 70 to 80 years, now have lost much of our ability to read the moral compass.
You are right. We haven’t had a single revolution or war or oppression for very long so we are totally spoiled in Sweden.
People in Eastern Europe (hopefully incl. Germany) are much more well armed to meet this massive wave of monopolistic oppression. Since they’ve seen it before some 25 years ago…
Wouldn’t surprise me if Eastern (and maybe Southern) EU saves the rest of the EU from total monopolistic domination.
@harveyed
“People in Eastern Europe … Since they’ve seen it before some 25 years ago…”
Yes, that might very well turn out to be the case. But Eastern Europe (taken at large) also has other deep challanges, with falling birth rates, and populations that are now actually shrinking. This might in turn drain much of their energy and political power, and they could in many cases become heavily dependent upon outside help to survive.
Ukraine for example, might, according to some observers now be formost in line to be the first nation state in the modern era, that actually fails.
I would rather look for example to Latin and South America, that also has ample recent experience, living through terror, war and authoritarian rules; but also has a very young and expanding demography, rapidly economic growth and increasing egalitarian and democratic societies.
I wonder if not they are the ones that in the end will take up the mantle, to become the moral guardians for the freedoms and the open society, in the decades to come.
If Carl Bildts statement is on tape, someone in the swarm need to copy it and put it on YouTube/other videoshares . I think it might have high(er) impact on people’s opinions that way. Thanks!
[…] ‘discreet uitgevoerd’ wordt. Dat deed meteen volop stof opwaaien op blogs, zoals bij Rick Falkvinge. Het idee van minister Bildt dat volledig toezicht dat stiekem gebeurt de burger dient is […]
[…] Text: Rick Falkvinge […]
[…] uitgevoerd’ wordt. Dat deed meteen volop stof opwaaien op internet, zoals op het blog van Rick Falkvinge. Het idee van minister Bildt dat volledig toezicht dat stiekem gebeurt de burger dient is […]
Here is Carl Bild’s and Cecilia Malmström’s statement “Sprid nätfriheten till fler” (in swedish, use google translate for other languages): http://www.regeringen.se/sb/d/17012/a/217509
Ooh disturbing stuff.
But the logical response to this would be to make it no longer discreet, no longer covert, by exposing it to as many people as possible.
Make that go viral.
What would be the best way? I’m thinking of a funny video, maybe with cats.
But that would still be playing by their rules. Secret wiretapping is no good regardless.
Wasn’t the statement by him done at a public panel, that was broadcast online?
It was. As the stream was broadcast live on bambuser, it should be available as a recorded stream soon enough (if not already), unless someone makes that not happen.
Cheers,
Rick
Thanks Rick.
Found it here http://bambuser.com/v/3608515
Starts allmost exactly at the 1-hour-mark.
A shorter Youtube clip of mr Bildt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stDl6ovmwrE
br
[…] of Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt claimed that the blanket net wiretapping by the Swedish government is compatible with freedoms of speech and expression, as it is “performed […]
This is only the beginning
point of order:
it isn’t *total* surveillance because we don’t get to surveil them.
Well, I’m glad to know that Anna won’t mind if I install a webcam in her bathroom focused on her shower, so long as it is covert – but I don’t know what she looks like.
Those familiar with Anna, could you tell me whether that would be worthwhile?
My apologies to Anna – I just realized that she only reported what Carl Bildt said.
But perhaps Carl has a pretty wife that might be worth a webcam in his bathroom, or his bedroom!
It is good to know that he has no objection, so long as the camera is kept hidden. Does anyone know if this will be worthwhile?
Actually…
He is kind of right. If it were covert and illegal.
I would have no problem with the spy organizations illegally and covertly spying. That’s what they are for! If someone feels that the severity of the found information merits it. Then you go public. And prepare for the scandal. With ministers careers ruined, spies and technicians going to jail, damages paid and so on.
I would see that as a reasonable compromise.
The thing that gets me is doing it legally. Lowering the threshold for when the information is used and making me pay for it.
That’s not how it would work if they were covert and illegal.
The spy organization would be in a special police or military group, propably SÄPO or MUST in Sweden or FBI, CIA or NSA in the US, and if they find that you are doing something severe enough to warrant action (like exposing war crimes) you would either be “v&’d” and never heard from again, or “accidentaly” found by other, more conventional, ways, and sentenced to a looong time in prison…
Maybe vanning would not be necessary in most cases. They could just try and find as much filth about you as possible in your online surf life and spread rumors about it to saboutage your social life so you won’t dare to speak your mind. Or even if you did… no one would be able to take you seriously because they only think of all the smutty rumor details once they see you…
Absolutely. And only a small part of the information needs to be true and possible to verify. People and the media will do the rest of the work.
On the other hand, people already do that work without any information, because there are so many “tin foil hats” writing about things that seems impossible. Some, of course, are, but Rick wrote in a comment field here somewhere that several people downright dismissed his warnings about the coming FRA law as bullshit, because the government could never do something that bad. Even though Rick was showing proof of it in the form of the proposal itself.
The comment linked to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy_bias
[…] The Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt has claimed that the blanket net wiretapping alre… […]
You think it’s bad now? Check it out:
If you think about Mickey Mouse, are you infringing Disney’s copyright? What if you willfully memorize a copyrighted poem? Think hard; the answer could be worth $150,000 in court.
According to the law, copyright protects “original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now or later developed, from which they [the works] can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.” (Emphasis mine.)
Note the word “tangible.” You might assume this would exclude your thoughts from copyright protection—after all, you can’t touch a thought. But thanks to new advances in neuroscience, the intangible is now becoming tangible. And it’s all thanks to “the aid of a machine or device.”
In 2011, researchers used a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) device to extract visual images directly from the brain. Test subjects were shown a Hollywood movie trailer, and their brain activity was monitored. By analyzing the subjects’ brain activity, the researchers were able to reconstruct the original movie trailer from thought alone.
I can just imagine the conversation that went on in the lab:
Researcher 1: Well, here we have this awesome new technology. How should we test it out?
Researcher 2: Let’s make copies of copyrighted Hollywood movie trailers.
Researcher 1: Oh boy, no more DRM!
Researcher 2: I’ll skip past these FBI warning messages so we can get started.
It gets better. Their reconstruction process entailed searching for clips on YouTube that best fit whatever the subject was thinking about, then mashing the clips together to create an icky, blurry, yet still recognizable version of the original Hollywood trailer. So the researchers not only reproduced copyrighted movie trailers, they also created an unauthorized mashup comprised of copyrighted YouTube clips. I just hope for their sake that they didn’t circumvent any Digital Rights Management protections that might have been protecting those trailers; the Motion Picture Association of America disapproves of that.
But it gets even better. More recently, a group of neuroscientists created the rodent equivalent of a Borg hive mind. With the help of cutting edge brain-to-brain interfaces, two rats separated by thousands of miles were able to share thoughts with each other over the internet to solve a common task. And by “share” I mean that one rat stole stole copyrighted thoughts from the other rat without permission. How long will it be before rats connected in peer-to-peer networks are sending pirated seasons of “Game of Thrones” to each other?
And that’s not all. Researchers have been able to pinpoint individual neurons devoted to storing memories. For instance, there is a specific neuron in your brain that is lighting up right now as you think about the copyrighted character Mickey Mouse. Ask yourself: did you get permission from Disney to reproduce Mickey’s iconic image in your neuron? Or are you pirating images of him with your innate human copying capabilities? Whatever you do, don’t imagine a picture of Mickey Mouse wearing a pirate hat, or else you’ve created an unauthorized derivative work and can someday be held liable for copyright infringement when it becomes possible to record your infringing memory “with the aid of a machine or device.”
While you’re at it, control your dreams too. The same fMRI machine used to copy Hollywood movie trailers can also be used to replay your midnight ruminations. In one particular dream, a test subject was found to be visualizing some kind of printed document, doubtless a noninfringing original work or a public domain document from Project Gutenberg. It is of course illegal to reproduce copyrighted documents, videos, sound recordings, etc. regardless of the medium through which such reproduction is achieved (for instance an fMRI machine). In the future, those who choose to record their dreams will need to be careful to respect the rights of creators by not dreaming about copyrighted TV shows, movies, songs, characters or books. Although some limited usage of copyrighted material may be permissible for personal use or for purposes such as commentary, parody or news reporting, the law is clear that in most cases it is illegal to copy or distribute copyrighted material with your mind.
Now let’s fast forward twenty years, to a point in time when you can back up your memories on the cloud and upload your dreams to Youtube. You can also download thoughtfiles from the internet directly into your brain and share your thoughts with the Facebook hive. One can readily envision how this situation could present a challenge to creators concerned about controlling their work online. I believe that it is more imperative than ever that we move to combat the looming threat of thought-based piracy.
In the upcoming rewrite of the copyright law, legislators should explore extending the DMCA process into the realm of the mind. For example, creators can work together with search engines and ISPs to voluntarily monitor users’ neurons for infringement. If a pirate imagines copyrighted content or tries to share restricted thoughts with other users, a takedown notice can be sent and the infringing idea quickly blocked. There also needs to be funding set aside for programs that educate casual downloaders about the law; for example, some users may not realize that it is illegal to download memories, thoughts or dreams about movies, music, art, and literature from thought-sharing sites.
Lastly, the new law should introduce stiffer penalties for DRM circumvention and thought-sharing. Sites that deliberately enable copyright violations should be blocked from users’ minds; we also need more stringent punishments for those who would abuse the human brain’s natural creativity in order to create unauthorized derivative art on sites like YouTube, DeviantArt, Etsy and Fanfiction.net. Piracy is responsible for billions of dollars in lost sales, and better education and vigorous enforcement are necessary to meet the challenges of the digital age. By maximizing the powers of rightsholders and minimizing the rights of everyone else, we can achieve a fair and balanced copyright law fit for the 21st century.
The American economy relies on strong protections for copyright. The next great copyright act must provide real protections for creators, demonstrate respect for property rights, and punish thought-theft so that we can encourage the creation of new works and enable our creative industries to remain competitive in a global marketplace. The value we place on controlling thoughts today will send a powerful message about the role of the human imagination in the society of tomorrow. Let’s join together to preserve copyright for another 200 years!
Please get your own blog.
Sweden, please let me know if you need help to overthrow your government
Covert surveillance of this type allows for Really Nasty plausibly deniable Systematic Harrasments of people expressing “unwanted” ideas with the obvious goal of scaring them to silence.
They can’t stop you from speaking your mind.
But they sure can Systematically Harrass you ’til you don’t dare to or want to speak your mind any more. Certain number of suicides and “schizophrenia” cases probably are consequences of this…
And they probably can claim that if you don’t become crazy after such harrassment then you clearly are not “normal” but “sick” from the start.
[…] SOURCE: FALKVINGE […]
Why even worry about government surveillance? Why not just do something simple, encrypt everything.
I bet mr. Bildt thinks it is OK if I slide it in his number 2, as long as I do it “discreetly”…
This is most disheartening. “All telephone and Internet traffic that crosses Sweden’s borders” is as good a limit as there is none. Does that mean that if I host a site on a server based in Sweden the government can monitor ALL traffic to my site, regardless of where it comes from? Yuck.
But well… the government wants to know what kind of websites you visit and what you use the Internet for on a daily basis? Why not browse through and load sick content, the kind of stuff that would make people mentally scarred for life. Governments need to know to be careful what they wish for.
As a side note, is FoI going to default to HTTPS soon? (I know it has SSL enabled, but I don’t think it always defaults to HTTPS unless the visitor deliberately visits the SSL version?)
Yes. You can also make bots for that so you don’t have to view the craziest or nastiest stuff yourself. Probably (hopefully) it will become like a new national sport to fuck with the monitors by fake visiting odd places.
It is kind of sad in the sense that it will probably just be harder to catch the real bad guys.. but this kind of privacy intrusion without warrant has nothing to do in a democracy.
You could also check out “mullvad” and other VPN services. They are (supposedly) able to somewhat circumvent this surveillance.
It doesn’t work that way. Generally humans are not involved in the first step, computers programmed for pattern recognition do that work.If they find pictures of mentally destabilizing nature, they don’t set any alarms off, because that’s not illegal or dangerous for Sweden’s national security.
But they will record that you have that interest, and that could be useful in blackmailing you…
Also, it’s highly illegal to even view child pornography in Sweden, and Swedish law counts certain cartoons as child pornography too. So bots or even careless clicking, or of course just being at the wrong place at the wrong time, could prove dangerous.
From 2015, cartoon beastiality porn (such as furries) may also become illegal due to a new animal protection law, like that would protect any animals. That’s something I read on a forum, and it was unconfirmed already there, so don’t take it as a fact, but if it’s true it is another risk for people trying to mess with the surveillance.
Also, Sweden has laws against distributing depictions of extreme violence, but they have not been used for a long time, and will most likely not be either.
Yes illegality of just viewing the images makes perfect for blackmailing too.
Great way for the perpetrators to get rid of witnesses in child molestation cases. Who would dare gather evidence and show that evidence to the police if they risk being portrayed as a child pornographer..? I would never dare to do that, even if I knew it was the right thing.
The worst thing about your example is that from a legal perspective, the right thing to do is to NOT gather video evidence.
If I’m not mistaken, a woman was at least accused of child pornography crime, because she filmed her children in the bathtub, in order to document that they had learned something that is not normal for children that age, to use as evidence against someone who she suspected had abused them sexually. I heard it on the news, but I don’t remember the full story, what happened to her, the children and the suspected pedophile.
Yes, well that was my point : The real baddies are protected if people don’t dare gather evidence against them (out of fear of being charged with such shameful crimes as CHILD PORN).
I have also read about such a case in Sweden. A lawyer (!!) encouraged the mother to gather video evidence that the kids had sexual behavior abnormal for their age and when she showed that evidence to the child care authorities instead of to the police, she herself was immediately put under suspicion of making child porn.
I think she was cleared of the suspicions later on, but the law in it’s current form sure works as scaring away people who want to gather evidence against child molesters.
It is literally to encourage adults to look away from the problem..
I would guess that we are talking about the same case. I think I heard it on the short hourly news on the radio, and it was a while ago.
That it was a lawyer’s idea should say something about the bad quality of the legislation, as if it wasn’t obvious anyway.
[…] mot fildelningen, få den stora breda massan att inte reflektera alltför mycket över om vad som i detta nu pågår verkligen är rätt och […]
[…] njae. knappast, är det någon som någonsin tvivlat på var Bildt hör hemma så borde karlns yttranden under Stockholm Internet Forum skingra alla tvivel. Carl Bildt har nämligen ingenting alls emot en fullständig massövervakning […]
Guess the Stasi monitoring in DDR was not so bad after all, they tried to be discreet too.
This is why I think Germany will be able to take this fight for democracy better than most other countries. Youngsters know about the internet and think it should be free. Older people were brought up when Germany was split and have met people on the other side. So you should have a broad interest in these political questions.
[…] minister from one of the Freedom Online Coalition countries recently remarked on a conference panel that surveillance is not an obstacle to Internet freedom because it is […]
I am a German Pirate and just working on a proposal on publicness and secrecy:
https://lqfb.piratenpartei.de/lf/initiative/show/6396.html
Translation:
(1) All documents produced in public services (parliaments, governments, state administration) must by default be published within a week.
(2) On argumented demand, a document can be declared secret for a limited time (few years) by a council which must include members of parliament.
(3) Again on argumented demand, a document’s secrecy can be extended before its expiration date for the same time by the same council.
(4) The initial or extended secrecy has to be published with: unique document ID, author(s), title, expiration date of the secrecy. After the expiration date, it is published within a week.
(5) Keeping a document secret without complying to (2)..(4) is a state crime to be persecuted by the authorities in charge.
(6) Publishing a wrongfully secret document as in (5) is legal and will not be persecuted.
What do you think?
We dont accept it but its tabu to talk about such stuff here. the Swedish people love to feel safe and not to discuss real matters, its a shame really and Its a huge violation to us as individuals!
Our goverment is currupt and in Obamas backpocket.
Thank you mr Assange for your sacrafice, keep up the good job. People are waking up every day.
[…] Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carl Bildt, had a famous quote where he said that mass surveillance doesn’t threaten freedom of speech at all, […]
This is only the start.
“THEY” are using the “Panopticon” principles to cower people into submission.
[…] het ‘discreet uitgevoerd’ wordt’. Dat kwam hem op kritiek te staan van de Zweedse piraat Rick Falkvinge die de geloofwaardigheid van de Zweedse regering inzake internetvrijheid onder activisten als […]
[…] necessarily means controlling (effectively eliminating) free speech. He’s even gone on record stating that mass surveillance doesn’t violate human rights because it is covert: as if security […]
[…] necessarily means controlling (effectively eliminating) free speech. He’s even gone on record stating that mass surveillance doesn’t violate human rights because it is covert: as if security […]
[…] necessarily means controlling (effectively eliminating) free speech. He’s even gone on record stating that mass surveillance doesn’t violate human rights because it is covert: as if security […]
[…] necessarily means controlling (effectively eliminating) free speech. He’s even gone on record stating that mass surveillance doesn’t violate human rights because it is covert: as if security […]
[…] this necessarily means controlling (effectively eliminating) free speech. He's even gone on record stating that mass surveillance doesn't violate human rights because it is covert: as if security services […]
[…] necessarily means controlling (effectively eliminating) free speech. He’s even gone on record stating that mass surveillance doesn’t violate human rights because it is covert: as if security […]
[…] Swedish Government: “Total Surveillance Doesn’t Harm Freedom Of Speech, Because It Is Co… The Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt has claimed that the blanket net wiretapping already being performed by the Swedish government is completely compatible with freedoms of speech and expression, as it is “performed discreetly”. This remarkably Orwellian statement was made in a panel at the Stockholm Internet Forum today, where Bildt is trying [&] […]
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