All of Sweden is now under surveillance

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Homesick
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All of Sweden is now under surveillance

Post by Homesick »

Today, Sweden's parliament passed a law that will allow the government to monitor and record all telephone calls and all internet traffic that crosses the country's borders. In most cases, even purely domestic communication crosses the border at some point, which means that every single person who communicates in this fashion with or within Sweden risks being put under surveillance—even if he or she is not suspected of a crime. As a consequence, this law violates basic human rights and threatens the very foundations of democracy in Sweden.

Now, I've checked with our web host: all of their servers are located in Denmark, so there is no risk that your visits to EnterTheSoulAsylum.com will be monitored (unless you live in Sweden). This issue is important enough, however, that I feel everyone who visits this site should know about it.

As you may already know, I'm a citizen of Sweden. I feel that this law is preposterous, insulting, and totalitarian, and everyone I have spoken to about it shares these sentiments. In fact, every single poll that has been conducted on the issue clearly shows that this is not something the people of Sweden want. Our parliament has shown a reckless disregard for democracy in passing this law, and the fight against it is far from over.

Even if you are not from Sweden yourself, this issue still concerns you: your own country could be next in imposing this kind of violation against its own citizens. Let people know about what is happening in Sweden, and encourage them to spread the word. Find out more about the situation in Sweden, and be wary whenever the same kind of politics are being discussed in your country. If they already are, consider joining and supporting the Pirate Party, which was founded in Sweden but exists in several other nations.
Jakob Kallin, webmaster of EnterTheSoulAsylum.com

downonuptome
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Re: All of Sweden is now under surveillance

Post by downonuptome »

Words cannot express how sorry I am. You are right, any country could do it next. I haven't really heard much on this but it makes me mad that it seems almost everything is being monitored all over the world. Hopefully this new law will end in the next few years. I'm so sorry... :(

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philipgar
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Re: All of Sweden is now under surveillance

Post by philipgar »

downonuptome wrote:Words cannot express how sorry I am. You are right, any country could do it next. I haven't really heard much on this but it makes me mad that it seems almost everything is being monitored all over the world. Hopefully this new law will end in the next few years. I'm so sorry... :(
My basic feeling is not to trust the government with information you don't want them to have. This forum isn't really an issue, as it's public, so everything said on it can be read. People know I post on it, and I'm alright with that being in the "public record" (hell, some my posts on the old AOL SA board are now in the MN archives).

The internet in itself is not secure, and I would be careful with it, most email, websites, etc are all sent in plain text with no real authentication. There are exceptions to this rule though. The best defense against an intrusive government in this sort of situation is to use encryption and the likes. I'm personally a fan of pgp/gpg to provide encryption on email, and even on aim and stuff. Of course, for any of this stuff to work, both the sender and receiver must support the encryption, and you must have a trusted way of knowing that the receiver is really who they say they are.

I imagine laws like this are far more painful in a country like Sweeden. In the US, I know such things occur, but most all communication between two people in the US stays in the US due to the layout of the communication networks. Smaller countries don't have that luxury. Best of luck,

Phil

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Cordelia
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Re: All of Sweden is now under surveillance

Post by Cordelia »

This is really unfathomable. I am sorry for you very much.
Many Greetings from Germany
yours Cordelia

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sheryl
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Re: All of Sweden is now under surveillance

Post by sheryl »

This sort of thing has been "discussed" in the US, in the name of homeland security. Not to sound like a conspiracy theory freak, but I've often wondered if they just went ahead and did it and didn't bother to mention it.

At least your govt told you what it was doing. Reprehensible though it is, they were up front about it. It's still wrong on every conceivable level.

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Homesick
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Re: All of Sweden is now under surveillance

Post by Homesick »

Sadly, Sweden has a history of cover-ups that were kept secret from the public. In 1973, two Swedish journalists uncovered a secret intelligence agency – the Information Office – that was unknown even to Sweden's parliament. We don't have a brilliant track record, so we can only hope that all the facts behind this new affair are indeed public information.
Jakob Kallin, webmaster of EnterTheSoulAsylum.com

CrazyLittleWoman
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Re: All of Sweden is now under surveillance

Post by CrazyLittleWoman »

I'm sorry to hear about this new law in Sweden. I hope it can be quickly overturned or repealed. Loss of freedom anywhere ultimately affects us all.

I was under the impression that here in the U.S., under the Patriot Act, Homeland Security had and has been tracking what websites are visited by whom and which email addresses we all mail to, but not (yet) monitoring the actual contents of the emails. A warrant is necessary, I think, if they want to monitor the actual contents of our emails. I could be wrong about this, but I thought that was one of the more controversial provisions of the Patriot Act (and predates the warrantless wiretapping of telephone calls).
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philipgar
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Re: All of Sweden is now under surveillance

Post by philipgar »

CrazyLittleWoman wrote:I'm sorry to hear about this new law in Sweden. I hope it can be quickly overturned or repealed. Loss of freedom anywhere ultimately affects us all.

I was under the impression that here in the U.S., under the Patriot Act, Homeland Security had and has been tracking what websites are visited by whom and which email addresses we all mail to, but not (yet) monitoring the actual contents of the emails. A warrant is necessary, I think, if they want to monitor the actual contents of our emails. I could be wrong about this, but I thought that was one of the more controversial provisions of the Patriot Act (and predates the warrantless wiretapping of telephone calls).
I'm pretty sure the law that sweeden has is true in the US. The federal government was intercepting communication that went overseas without a warrant if I remember correctly.

The real issue is that they can do this, but what do they do with this information. It's widely known that communication mediums like the internet are insecure, and it's fairly easy to track this sort of information. However, being able to track this information is very different than being able to use it. The amount of information traveling around the internet in a day is immense, and even google wouldn't be able to keep track of all that (although they come damn close to it).

The real danger of these laws is that they can be used by government officials to track their enemies and blackmail people. By reading all communication you're almost always going to find something someone doesn't want public, and that is where the danger lies.

Of course, thats why I think we need to really push for more security on the internet. Encrypt more of our everyday communication, etc. While the nothing to hide argument is always made, in reality, no one wants their whole life public.

Phil

sheryl
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Re: All of Sweden is now under surveillance

Post by sheryl »

The nothing to hide argument....sure, I can say "I have nothing to hide, so go ahead and look". And then suddenly some random comment, taken out of context, gets me arrested for treason.

When big brother is watching everything you say can potentially be something you shouldn't have, regardless of how you may meant it.

I always feel like I sound obnoxiously paranoid in these types of conversation, but I've had experiences that really make me nervous about any kind of gov't surveillance.

And what gets my back up entirely is...didn't WE hire THEM? Really, why is it that they're able to get away with doing things that the people who put them in office don't want them to do?

Augh....backing out of the conversation now.

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Sometime to Return
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Re: All of Sweden is now under surveillance

Post by Sometime to Return »

philipgar

I'm personally a fan of pgp/gpg to provide encryption on email, and even on aim and stuff. Of course, for any of this stuff to work, both the sender and receiver must support the encryption,
What in the hell did you just say? :?
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A quote from our own..Phil (philipgar)
Gluek's 12/17/2010.

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