Vote about voting

1825 today, parliament will will vote about whether they should vote about the amended Lex Orwell at 1925 today.

Swedish parliament under siege

Politikerbloggen quotes a police officer at the Swedish parliament saying that there is roughly 2000 people gathered to protest Lex Orwell. Its headline news all over at the moment, and I so wish I could have been there!

I would stay up and follow this as it develops, but there are other issues i must attend to now. I’ll try and collect some of the english articles I found on this ASAP.

I hope whatever bloggers are there take lots and lots of pictures!

Back to the drawingboard

157 yes. At least a third of the 349 MP’s had to vote yes to accomplish this, so the result is far from surprising. Problem is now they will add more topping to this turd and try to make us swallow it when we’re not looking. Fact of the matter is you can’t make this bill fit into any definition of an enlightened democracy.

At this stage the only acceptable recourse is to scrap FRA, turn it inside out to establish just how far their illegal activities went, and distribute what ever actual competence and useful hardware they have among other Swedish institutions and organizations that can use them. I bet NSC would love that HP Cluster Platform 3000 13728 (Xeon), InfiniBand system that FRA bought recently.

Lex Orwell will resurface, maybe even later today. And with sluggishness of old-media chances are most people wont know what hit them. The blogosphere has all ears to the ground and will do its best to fight it. After all we know full well just how how much of our private lives will be effected by this bill. And history has taught us that the results over time will be disastrous.

The Vote has begun

The voting is about to start and I’v just returned with a big fat piece of vanilla-rasberry cake. Theres alot more people present today. Not sure when they will get to the FRA-bill. My first time watching a voting, thes will be interesting.

Endgame

I got in to this a bit late and really wish I could have been there both this morning and tomorrow. But my schedule prohibits trips to the capitol, so the live web feed will have to do. The Centre Party showed that they could play the game as well as anyone else. All 29 of their MP’s demanded that the bill goes back to the drawing board, of sorts, or they vote and sink the government. Problem is there are alot of loopholes available at the moment to sneak Lex Orwell past the public and the media. Announcing the new vote and voting can be done in a matter of hours if timed well and its unclear if the announcement must reach all MP’s before the vote.

I was quite hopeful earlier but this is starting to smell.

There where a few more speakers, but none added anything that hadn’t been covered earlier today, though not by me so far. If you read swedish you can follow the links to the live blogs that where at the parliament today.

Gunvor G Ericsson (mp)

She asked the very interesting question where all the fear is coming from. There is no established threat to swedish interests on a scale that warrants this enormous breach of our Civil liberties.

Gunilla Whalén (v)

More of the same, though I guess its hard to be original when you asked for time at the stand at the door and only have four minutes to play with. Still, she, like most was astounded by the public interest in the issue and cited a few emails. One of which pointed out that someone with families abroad would be constantly monitored.

The way she worded her objection to the Centres demands that the bill be sent back for a new round of considerations made me smile: more control of the ones controlling the controllers will simply not work.

Finn Bengtsson (m)

At the end evil rears its head and brought a dictionary as a weapon. The threats are real! I have big words to prove it. He could have been speaking lolspeak for all i care, it would have made just about as many listen. His main reason to enact Lex Orwell seems to be that:

• This area needs regulation
• Discontinuing FRA would be irresponsible.
• Since the opponents have no alternative, we must vote yes.

Strange reasoning since:

• FRA is acting illegally today and this obviously means there are laws regulating their actions. Which they ignore.
• Keeping this operation alive even though it violates laws and produces no results is the irresponsible option. Even more irresponsible is to extend their jurisdiction and ignore their history of organized crime.
• The alternative is obviously to have no mass surveillance of our citizens and it is far better than avoiding imaginerrorists.

The vote is tomorrow and from what it looks like the bill will be sent back to a improvised round of considerations. No one knows when the next vote will be, or who will be present. In all this day was pretty anti climatic.

Update: I forgot to mention that Karl Sigfrid that I mentioned earlier as one of the four needed to stop the bill got an offer he couldnt refuse and will now not vote at all. Our primeminister carries a nasty whip apparently.

Jan Lindholm (mp)

Another speaker from the Swedish Green party.

He spoke interestingly about how the amuont of people taknig an interest in this is more telling than whatsactually wrong with it. Not sure I’d agree there, but maybe that comes from extensive internet usage. Gathering large amounts of peolpe online is easy, about as easy as finding bad arguments IRL.

Lindholm cosiders this a historic event, with so many people enganing themselves. And he says that there has been a shift in focus from gathering people in marches to actually threating to replace the MP’s through elections. And I agree, you need to put people in those seats that actually understands the issues. That understands the changes to society that the infarmation age has brought forth.

After this he went of on a great big drugs trip and started talking unrelated enviromental issues. But thankfully it wore off and he demonstarted that he had spent alot of time making up his own mind on this.

Other live blogs from the debate:

Opassande
Rick Falkvinge
Pirat-Janne
Oscar Swartz
Projo
Svensson
Röd Libertarian
IDG
Aftonbladet
Politikerbloggen

Lage Rahm (mp) – A speaker in white

I found a working live feed. And I’m watching an MP from the green party. He’s also quite angry. Starting of a bit shaky, he got warmed up towards the end touching upon virtiually all problems with the law. Dressed in white he brought out every gun he could and actually recieved a snide comment about him using almost 50% more time than he asked for.

As speeches go he could have done better, but where facts and opinions are concerned he got it all right.

Other live blogs from the debate:

Opassande
Rick Falkvinge
Pirat-Janne
Oscar Swartz
Projo
Svensson
Röd Libertarian
IDG
Aftonbladet
Politikerbloggen

edited for speeling and grammar

Final Debate

Final debate of the bill is today. MP’s who opt to read the news today will be greeted by a dizzying amount of articles concerning the FRA-bill. A week ago there where zero. Non of the old-media outlets, had written a single proper article. There where a few editorials, but neither created any public interest. One of swedens more renowned newspapers even went so far as to tell one worried citizen that he was simply “too late”. All things newsworthy about this bill had been exhausted last year, when a minority in our parliament managed to put the decision on ice for a year to allow for further debate and consideration.

“Tack för ditt mejl. DN har skrivit en hel del om FRA-lagen såväl
på nyhetsplats som på ledarsidorna. Tyngdpunkten i den bevakning låg
dock förra året när frågan ännu var öppen. Idag är frågan i realiteten
avgjort. Debatt och beslut äger rum i riksdagen i början av nästa
vecka, och inför detta kommer vi att skriva igen. Men det är extremt
ovanligt att partierna ändrar sig i ett så här sent skede - eller att
riksdagsmän fäller förslag från den egna regeringen. Så det är inte vi
som är ointresserade av frågan utan bloggarna och annonsören “Nätverket
stoppa FRA-lagen” som är för sent ute.

Vänliga hälsningar

Johannes Åman

tf chef för ledarredaktionen [DN]“*

I’ll attempt to translate parts of that

"Thank you for your mail. DN has covered several issues about the FRA-bill in both
articles and editorials. The majority of the coverage happened last year
when the outcome was still open.
.... blah blah blah, parliament cant change their minds this late, blah blah blah ....
So, its us not having any interest in the issue, but instead the blogs and
the "Stoppa FRA-lagen"-network that are too late.
Kind regards
Johannes Åman
acting editor-in-chief [DN]"

So the debate since last summer then? There was none.

But today, that same newspaper has no less than THIRTEEN articles criticizing the FRA-bill, on the front page. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 (all Swedish)

This one has 11 articles, most slamming the bill.

Swedish National Radio (swe) has an article saying that Folkpartiet: The Liberal Party of Sweden are having a special whipping meeting later this morning. Obviously no liberal could find anything wrong with this bill, and whoever has any doubts get the whip….

Same article also reports that Bahnhof (their press release in Swedish), swedens oldest ISP, will refuse to comply with the law in the event that Swedish parliament passes the FRA-bill. Bahnhof are just about done moving in to their new offices; an old nuclear storage bunker. I cant believe the CEO can keep a straight face when he tells the reporter that. I can almost see him biting his tongue, not to say: “I’d like to see them try”.

As a note, Bahnhof also made the headlines when they took the Swedish Tax Office to court for demanding the customer databases of several large ISPs in sweden, among them Bahnhof.

A call has gone out in the swedish blogosphere to wear white tomorrow in support of those brave enough to vote according to their own values and ideals. All we need is for four liberal MP’s to vote no. Judging by the last few days, its quite possible.

If the vote is in fact “no” on Wednesday, the Swedish blogosphere will have written history and changed the outcome on a vote even the old-media thought a lost cause.

Political Careers end on Wednesday

And alot of them. The Swedish parliament well be voting on a wiretapping bill built on the same cozy ideals laid forth by countries like Saudi Arabia and China. All communications touching any of 20 specific points of the swedish infrastructure will be monitored and searched for any of about 250,000 search criteria, including random strings of characters designed to catch any and all encrypted messages.

None of this requires you to be suspected of any crime or terrorist activity, and no court will be involved. The purpose is to:

“… aid in Swedish foreign, security and defense politics as well as monitoring external threats to the country.”

In Swedish in case you would like to verify the translation:

“1 § Försvarsunderrättelseverksamhet skall bedrivas till stöd för svensk utrikes-, säkerhets- och försvarspolitik samt i övrigt för kartläggning av yttre hot mot landet.” (source)

The seats in the Swedish parliament is divided among 7 parties, three of them want to send the bill back to the drawing board and hold 171 seats. Among the other four (holding 178 seats) the official party line is that this bill must pass. But several members are obviously troubled, specially the young and the liberal. Many of these are now under immense pressure by their voters and the public in general to break the party line and vote no.

All youth sections on both sides of the divide are demanding that theirs members of parliament vote no.

The Swedish blogosphere is in a literal frenzy, and virtually all of them are demanding MP’s to vote no and offering their support to those brave enough to defy the political whip on Wednesday. The post is from 4th of June this year, and blogs about this bill has seen similar representation on that site and all like it since. Only topic that has even come close to rivaling it was when Sweden won their first match in the European Championship a few days ago.

So far The Swedish National Defense Radio Establishment (FRA), who will be in charge of the wire tapping have been caught:

1: Admitting on tape that they are knowingly violating the Swedish constitution.

2: Illegally wiretapping and storing information on 100 swedes with no criminal or terrorist ties. (Source in swedish)

3: Systematically and illegally collecting and storing traffic data on Swedish communication, between Swedish nationals in Sweden. Source is a leaked internal document dated 14th march 2007, found here. (Both in Swedish)

A challange has gone out! The people of sweden will remeber this attack on our democracy, and all who vote yes to this bill will be held responsible. In the upcomming election the swedish blogosphere will remind the public who voted yes and we will vote them out of office.

A yes on wednesday is political suicide!