2005-10-07

ELDR members support the fascist-directive

In Sweden, members from the ELDR and the EPP, have agreed to support the fascist-directive that the Swedish minister of justice, Thomas Bodström (along with his Irish and British counterparts) has been pushing for.

The members of the ELDR and the EPP that I am talking of is the national parties Folkpartiet (ELDR) and Kristdemokraterna (EPP). More specific, the EU-committee of the Swedish parliament discussed the directive and the minister managed to persuade the committee after removing web and chat traffic from the logged data. The two other ELDR and EPP member partys (Centerpartiet and Moderaterna) did not support the directive.

ELDR member Carl B. Hamilton, stated that "as a liberal I have to protect the citizens against stately intrusions into their privacy, but I also have to protect the citizens against terrorists".

That is actually true, but the means that Mr. Hamilton decided to support are not proportional in any way. What would be reasonable and proportional as I see it is for example be to make sure that police from one state can query (through Europol) and receive communications records from another state. Demanding that the data is to be stored for several years is not.

The minister (from the PES party) made a statement about how they wanted to trample on individual privacy for those suspected for involvement in criminality. When a reporter asked him about all the innocents that would be pulled in to this, the minister replied that no one had to worry about intrusions into their privacy unless they are suspected.

Well, of course, no one have to worry a bit because a democratically elected government is inherently good and un-evil. The 1933 elections in Germany proved that without a doubt...

Bibliography
SVT (sv)

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