Liberal Road Blog Individual Freedom and Equality

According to the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter (link in Swedish) the Swedish ministry of defence has announced his support to a proposition allowing the monitoring of all phone calls in Sweden.

If this proposition is accepted an organization under the Ministry of Defence (the National Defence Radio Establishment) will be allowed to listen to all phone calls and monitor all data traffic passing through Sweden. No court orders would be needed.

The National Defence Radio Establishment may already nowadays wiretape some phone calls, but this right would be extended. Furthermore, the information collected would be allowed to be transferred to intelligence agencies in other countries.

This is yet another example of an unacceptable violation of the privacy in the name of potential terrorist attacks and threats to the national security.

In the recent years privacy has been more and more sacrificed worldwide in the name of potential terrorist attacks. It is a dangerous trend that may eventually lead to a Big Brother state.

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The decision of a Scandic hotel in Oslo, Norway to refuse to accommodate a Cuban tourism delegation has caused a major debate in Norway and other Scandinavian countries (source: Yahoo News). The hotel argues that it has to follow the laws of the United States concerning the embargo of Cuba, because the Scandic hotel group is nowadays owned by the American company Hilton.

This is an example of discrimination that should not happen. Accommodation is such a basic need that it’s completely unacceptable to deny it to anyone based on where they come from or what company or country they are representing. If all hotels in Oslo would follow the U.S. laws and the delegation had to sleep in the streets (supposing that the dedication would come anyway), would that be considered fair?

However there is one thing that we have to note: Cubans as private persons are welcome to Scandic hotels in Norway, only official representative are not welcome. This is comforting, but it doesn’t change the fact that the delegation should have been allowed to book rooms in the hotel even if it would have resulted in Scandic or its owner Hilton being fined in the United States.

Now Scandic risks fines in Norway as a police complain for illegal discrimination has been filed by Antirasistisk Senter (link in Norwegian), a center against racism. A trade union has also announced it will boycott Scandic hotels.

We can say that the legal situation for Scandic was not easy: risking fines in the United States or risking them in Norway.
A subject to be followed.

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Today the Democrats took over the Congress and now control the whole Congress. Many hope for a change in American politics, but how much will change after all? Democrats are often not much better than Republicans. The power switch at least gives hope of a change in the Iraq war strategy. But one thing is sure: the United States got its first woman speaker of the house of representatives as Nancy Pelosi was elected to that post.

It is the first time in twelve years that the Democrats have a majority in the whole Congress. The Democrats have announced that they intend to change how the situation in Iraq is handled. Time will show what that means but we have to remember that some Democrats are still supporting Bush’s Iraq policy.

The war in Iraq was a big mistake. Saddam Hussein violated human rights, that’s true, but the situation is not much better today. The country is highly insecure with daily bomb attacks, kidnappings and killings. Furthermore with the Abu Ghraib scandal showing American soldiers torturing Iraqis, we may well ask if the human rights are more respected in Iraq nowadays than they were before.

The election of a woman, Nancy Pelosi, as the speaker of the House of Representatives is hopefully a sign that woman and men are becoming more equal in politics. It is a historical event, but there is still a huge way to go to achieve equality: women still represent only about 20% of the representatives in the U.S. Congress.

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I decided to start this political blog to comment about political issues from a liberal point of view. In this blog I’ll write my personal opinions about political events worldwide. There are two things I value very high: individual freedom and equality.

I believe that everyone should have the right to do whatever they want to unless it harms others or limits the freedom of others. The state has no right to limit the individual freedom unless it is necessary in order to protect the freedom of others or the equality of everyone. Actually the state is responsible to guarantee the individual freedom of everyone.

I also believe that everyone should be equal and should have equal opportunities in life. I believe that the state has the responsibility to do what is necessary in order to guarantee the equality of everyone. Basically the state has two responsibilities: to guarantee the individual freedom and the equality of everyone.

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