Sweden boards the wiretapping bandwagon

Even as the U.S. Congress votes to make sure that the next president retains extraordinary power to conduct wiretaps, and to immunize telecommunications companies that collaborate with the feds against lawsuits, Swedish politicians have launched a wiretapping scheme of their own.

Sweden on Wednesday adopted contentious legislation that will give officials sweeping powers to eavesdrop on all e-mail and telephone traffic that crosses the Nordic nation's borders.

After heated debate and last-minute changes, lawmakers approved the bill that has outraged some lawmakers and prompted protesters to hand out copies of George Orwell's novel "1984" outside Parliament.

Lawmakers approved the bill in a 143-138 vote. One lawmaker abstained.

It will become law in January.

Google Inc. and Swedish telecom TeliaSonera AB have called it the most far-reaching eavesdropping plan in Europe, comparable to a U.S. government surveillance program.

"By introducing these new measures, the Swedish government is following the examples set by governments ranging from China and Saudi Arabia to the U.S. government's widely criticized eavesdropping program," Google's global privacy counsel, Peter Fleischer said.

Hmmm ... Does this law affect all data "that crosses the Nordic nation's borders"? Because, in this Internet age, a lot of communications that neither originate from nor are addressed to any given country pass through servers located in that country.

In Slate, Eric Weiner covered European authorities' propensity for conducting warrantless wiretaps as a matter of course.

The three worst offenders are not countries you would suspect of playing fast and loose with civil liberties: Britain, Italy, and the Netherlands. Italian officials conduct tens of thousands of wiretaps each year. Technically, judicial approval is needed but since judges in Italy are "investigative," meaning they act more like our prosecutors, there is essentially no check on law enforcement's ability to eavesdrop. ...

The Netherlands has the highest rate of wiretapping of any European country—a surprising fact, given the country's reputation for cozy coffee bars, not invasive police tactics. Dutch police can tap any phone they like, so long as the crime under investigation carries at least a three-year jail term.

EDRI monitors European electronic privacy issues here.

Also see Privacy International.

Really, if you want privacy these days, your best bet is to look into strong encryption.