Liberal Road Blog Individual Freedom and Equality

Today a Swedish TV station told that the Swedish troops in Afghanistan are spying on civilians as well as the local police and military.

Phone lines of whole towns are listened to at times, which is especially worrying and wrong. It’s not the first time that Sweden doesn’t care about the privacy of private people, unfortunately. Even in wars we should care more about privacy and human rights; these rights are too important to be lost.

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Earlier this week the Immigration court in Sweden decided that some Iraqi refugees can be deported to some parts (mainly north) of Iraq. According to the court there isn’t a military conflict in Iraq as defined juridically. That’s why some deportations are possible. This decision has been criticized and even the minister of foreign affairs has expressed some concerns over the issue (source: Svenska Dagbladet, in Swedish).

I’d like to point attention here to one thing that hasn’t been debated that much. The critics have been about whether or not Iraq is safe enough, but not about why in the first place we are deporting people.

I believe that deporting people is very discriminating: if you are a citizen you can stay, but if you are not you don’t have this right. This puts people in different situations based on where they were born or who their parents are.

Moreover when the deportation is due to crimes committed in the country, it is actually a second punishment you get because you are a foreigner. First you are punished for the crime and if you are a foreigner you get this second punishment: deportation.

Some people argue that the deportation of criminals are right because it protects the country from further crimes. But this is only a way to move the problem to foreign countries, not to solve it. And if we are deporting non-citizen criminals, shouldn’t we actually deport ALL criminals, even citizens, to be consequent? I believe that no: we shouldn’t deport anyone at all.

Basically everyone should be free to go to whatever country they want to and even settle there. Country borders and immigration laws are artificial boundaries violating our individual freedom.

Any opinions about the subject?

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The Swedish government is going on with plans of a new law allowing the wiretapping and monitoring of all phone and data traffic in Sweden (Source:Svenska Dagbladet, in Swedish. See also my old post about this proposition). The law proposition will be voted in the parliament later.

It is a pity the government isn’t listening enough to critics. Although the proposition has slightly been changed, the spying for the need of the government will not require any approval by a controlling authority.

Allowing the listening of phone calls and the monitoring of all data traffic is a violation of the privacy. I understand that to solve crimes phone listening is sometimes necessary, but in that case there should be some evidence that the persons in question may have committed a serious crime. Secondly the listening should be submitted to a court.

But in this law proposition the listening would be more based on keywords. For example if a phone call contains some keywords it would be listened to. This means non suspects would be listened to.

This law proposition shows that the government clearly doesn’t care about the rights to privacy of people and this is a dangerous step toward a Big Brother state.

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As I looked at the news I found the following news. A proposition (link in Swedish) backed by the School Minister of Sweden would allow teachers to confiscate mobile phones and mp3-players from disturbing students in Sweden. If accepted the new law would enter into force in fall 2007.

Honestly I have to say the proposition is a very bad idea. We should have more respect for the property of others. It’s true that according to the proposition the confiscated items would be given back at the end of the day, but still it’s a violation of property.

If the confiscated items were a security threat to others I would understand it better, but it’s not the case.

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A school in southern Sweden has decided that students are allowed to speak only in Swedish (link in Swedish: Dagens Nyheter). The decision forbids other languages not only during class lessons, but also during breaks.

A wrong decision I think. It’s discriminating foreign students as they won’t be allowed to use their mother thongs even when speaking with other foreign students. I also think it’s an unacceptable limitation of students’ freedom of speech. Why should schools have the right to decide what language students use when speaking to each other?

Sure, the decision has been made for security reasons so that no one will be able to think someone insulted him or her in an other language. The school has had serious security incidents. But still, the cause doesn’t justify this rule. It’s the wrong medicine to the problem. Everyone should have the right to use their language when they want to.

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Today as I read the news on the Internet I came across an article about an interesting Swedish opinion poll (link: SVT in Swedish). According to this poll 91% are for camera surveillance in public places, 87% are for secret wiretapping of phone calls by the police and 51% wants that a dna-register is created about the whole population.

Hang on a second. 91% is for camera surveillance in public places? Every other person is for a dna register covering the whole population? Yes, that’s the numbers. I knew that many have become positive to increased control and less privacy the last years. But still I had to double check the numbers before I believed I read correctly.

The strength of the support surprised me. And I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one.

But opinion polls should always be taken with precaution. It all depends about how you ask it. By changing a little bit how the question is asked you may get a different result. For example if instead of asking “Do you support secret wiretapping of phone calls?” you ask ” Do you support secret wiretapping of phone calls without a court order?” you will get a different result.

Unfortunately the media didn’t report the exact questions asked. It would have been interesting to know them.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised. After all Sweden is a country where a lot of information is public and privacy is already limited more than in many other countries. For example the tax information is public. It means that anyone can get the information about how much you earned in the past years. And that’s just an example.

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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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