

Sweden 'a close partner' in NSA surveillance - yesbabyyes
http://www.thelocal.se/50096/20130906/

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antocv
Of course it is, and it was before the internet as Sweden has cables to/from
Russia over which most of Russias traffic passes.

Ive heard from former employees at the then government owned Tele company that
they had secretly installed black boxes in specific locations.

The FRA-law if you remember, which was passed after FRA illegally surveilled
all communications they could get to make it legal, collects huge amounts of
data, just like NSA, and then they trade with their NSA/GHCQ counter-parts.
One argument for the surveillence was from some right-wing military person
"Sweden needs a bargaining chip in the international scene".

~~~
Udo
_> "Sweden needs a bargaining chip in the international scene"_

Only it's not a bargaining chip, it's an ongoing commitment, a liability they
can never get back out of. Once in place, pressure of all kinds is being
exerted to make sure it stays that way.

~~~
antocv
Indeed.

I almost vomited when I read the ministers defence of this law and this
relevation "we do this for freedom and democracy and to safeguard Swedish
soldiers in foreign countries" then another one "we have regulations, courts
and other laws in place to make sure everything is done by the rulebook".

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jdp23
The information was presented to the EU parliament by Duncan Campbell -- who
broke the ECHELON story 25 years ago. [1]

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_Campbell_%28journalist%2...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_Campbell_%28journalist%29)

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brown9-2
I think it's pretty safe to say that the intelligence agencies of almost all
Cold War era allies are still close partners. Governments on either side still
generally regard the other side as potential adversaries.

~~~
Sharlin
Of course, the Swedes still officially claim to be neutral, like they were
during the Cold War (and in WW2 and WW1). In practice, it's of course obvious
which side they liked best.

~~~
gaius
I don't think it's nearly as clear cut as that. Neutrality means you're
willing to work with whoever wins. It requires a high level of moral
ambivalence.

~~~
oskarth
If you are actively aiding one side or the other (or both), I don't think that
counts as being neutral (if it does, it is certainly a very weak form of
neutrality). Which is exactly what Sweden has done and is doing, dating back
to at least WW2.

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tokenadult
Sweden's official foreign policy has been armed neutrality for a very long
time, almost as long as for Switzerland. Sweden has not been a combatant power
in any war in living memory.

But geographic reality compels Sweden to be aware of who its friends might be
in moments of trouble. Some nearby countries that were not combatant powers
(at first) were overrun during World War II. So Sweden arms, yes, to be able
to maintain neutrality as best it can, and it also pursues an active foreign
policy of making friends without making alliances with the countries that best
support Sweden's cultural heritage and aspirations for freedom and prosperity.

Here in the land of the Swedish diaspora, where almost everyone knows somebody
with Swedish ancestry, the local public university's law school has an
exchange program with the law program at a Swedish university. I remember
hearing a talk on Sweden's defense strategy given at the law school here in
1989 by a visiting Swedish professor. He, and almost everyone else in Sweden
at the time, was quite concerned by repeated incursions into Swedish
territorial waters by Soviet submarines on training missions. The Soviet Union
and its successor state Russia have an obvious strategic interest in
controlling access to harbors in Sweden, so Sweden has an obvious strategic
interest in knowing whether or not Russia is planning any hostile moves.
Sweden needs to be informed about the outside world to maintain its policy of
armed neutrality. The cooperation described in this article is not surprising
in that historical and current events context.

AFTER EDIT: I would be delighted to hear from anyone who can let me know what
facts they think I have got wrong here, as the pattern of upvotes and
downvotes so far suggests that someone disagrees with me, but I'm not
completely sure why.

~~~
davorb
I think people are voting you down because what you are saying is based on
Sweden's "official" line during the Cold War. A lot of new information has
been revealed post-1994, that pretty much shows that Sweden was anything but
neutral during that period.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_neutrality#The_Cold_Wa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_neutrality#The_Cold_War)

[http://www.thelocal.se/18262/20090317/](http://www.thelocal.se/18262/20090317/)

~~~
rickjames28
Why would Sweden be neutral during the cold war - putting aside nuance, you're
either pro-eastern bloc or not?

~~~
paradoja
What? Do you have reading skills?

The message you are answering to doesn't take a political position, it just
says that the previous one has some facts wrong.

That said, I don't think _you 're either pro-eastern bloc or not_. There are
many political opinions one can have, and many aren't easily divided into
_pro-eastern bloc or not_.

~~~
tokenadult
Nobody showed I had any facts wrong. Sweden has been formally neutral (not
part of a defense alliance) for as long as anyone now living has been alive.
As my own post said, Sweden has to think, within its general foreign policy
framework of neutrality under international law, about who its friends are.

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Sharlin
It was not that hard to guess that the main impetus behind the FRA law and the
capability to spy on the Russians' Internet traffic was the prospect of
trading any valuable pieces of intel with friendly major powers, apparently
specifically the US. In retrospect it occurs to me that the Americans might
actually have been actively lobbying for the law in the first place.

~~~
mongol
Yes I agree this is very likely. FRA has certainly provided much valuable
intel in the past from radio analysis and for the cooperation to continue it
felt the need to listen into cabled communication as well.

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reinhardt
Does this mean that the "truly anonymous" VPN providers that have sprung up
like mushrooms in Sweden thanks to a supposedly privacy-friendly law are dead
in the water?

~~~
tjoff
I don't know what privacy-friendly law you are talking about.

VPNs in Sweden have always been a bad choice, you have less protection than a
regular swedish ISP would give you from a legal perspective.

The reason VPNs became popular in Sweden is because of the FRA and the IPRED
law (giving content producers the right to ask an ISP (via a court) for
information about who is behind an IP address so that they can build a case
and sue).

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Ras_
FRA is one of the reasons why Finland is very close to building another cable
to Germany via the Baltic Sea, bypassing Sweden. It's politically very high on
the to-do list.

Follow-on project would be to connect it to Asia via the Northwest passage.
Russian company is already laying some cable there, but connecting these two
is wishful thinking at the moment. On land the cables are already there,
reaching from Helsinki to near Russian Murmansk.

Pictures here:
[http://yle.fi/uutiset/suomi_haluaa_oman_tietoliikennereitin_...](http://yle.fi/uutiset/suomi_haluaa_oman_tietoliikennereitin_eurooppaan/6559072)

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CurtMonash
This puts Julian Assange's problems with Sweden -- and the UK/Sweden
cooperation in same -- into a whole different context.

~~~
geon
Please elaborate.

~~~
CurtMonash
Sweden is an important intelligence partner of the US. Assange is an enemy of
US intelligence (even if he isn't focused directly on US espionage the way
Snowden is).

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speeder
I think.now people.can stop.dismissing those that claim Sweden dislike
wikileaks as "tin foil.hatters"

~~~
mpyne
I think the claims have always been more along the lines that why go out of
the way to have Sweden extradite Assange for charges that haven't popped up
when he was right there in the U.K.?

Prime Minister Cameron reinforced the other day that the 'special
relationship' still exists, so why should Assange have _more_ to fear from
Sweden than the U.K.?

~~~
trevelyan
Because Assange is not charged with anything they can nail him for in the UK.
The fact the UK government is nonetheless spending 8 million annually just
policing the embassy suggests they hold a rational belief they can get their
way with him in Sweden, possibly before he is even charged with anything.

Seriously... has the government ever spent even 1/2 that amount in a situation
where someone is wanted for extradition but has yet to be charged for a non-
crime? How about 1/10th or 1/100th of that amount? If Assange really had
nothing to fear in Sweden the rational act for the UK government would be
giving him passage to Ecuador, saving millions in useless spending, and
cashing in the whole thing a favor to the OAS.

~~~
mpyne
> Because Assange is not charged with anything they can nail him for in the
> UK.

He's not charged _by the U.S._ for anything that they can nail him for in
_either_ Sweden or the U.K.

If that changes U.K. law is unlikely to be significantly more flexible for
Assange on national security concerns than Swedish law.

What Assange _is_ charged with under Swedish law is also a crime in the U.K.
by the way, as ruled by the U.K. High Court itself.

One big part of "due process" that progressives push for is that you should
not get special treatment just because you are famous (or infamous, for that
matter).

~~~
nitrogen
He may have not been _indicted_ by the US, but supposedly the US has
_prepared_ an indictment: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/05/julian-
assange-atto...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/05/julian-assange-
attorney-indictment_n_3386793.html)

~~~
anigbrowl
And if they wanted to extradite him, they don't need him to be in Sweden
first. This is the problem with conspiracy theories; there's an excess of
path-dependence which leads to absurd conclusions. If Assange's attorneys are
correct and the US has prepared an indictment against Assange, they could just
ask the UK to extradite him directly to the US, since the US and UK have rock-
solid treaty relations. There is absolutely no need to get him to Sweden
_first_.

Believing in the conspiracy theory also involves ignoring Assange's tweets
saying things like 'Sweden is the Saudi Arabia of feminism' as opposed to
simply denying that anything untoward happened.

~~~
tptacek
It's even dumber than that, because extraditing him from Sweden is _harder_ ,
since it would at this point be subject to the approval of _both_ the UK and
Sweden.

~~~
trevelyan
Assange volunteered to go to Sweden if given a guarantee against extradition
to the United States.

The only conspiracy theory on display is your allegation that the UK
government is so inept it actually prefers to spend 8 million a year provoking
a diplomatic row with Ecuador and the OAS instead of acceding to a perfectly
reasonable request.

~~~
Tomte
Luckily, criminals (and innocents) don't get to dictate the process and legal
rules of criminal investigations (and extraditions).

We call it rule of law. You may have heard of it.

~~~
trevelyan
I'd suggest against using the word "lucky" to describe any situation in which
innocent people can be forcibly extradited for "questioning" despite
volunteering to be questioned locally, over the telephone/Internet, or even
agreeing to traveling abroad if given a guarantee they won't be packed up and
shipped to a third-country with a history of extrajudicial torture.

Your insistence that this case is following "the process and legal rules of
criminal investigations" is laughable and only shows you know next to nothing
about how said rules are usually interpreted and applied.

~~~
tptacek
It's easy to gin up outrage by trying to reframe basic mechanisms of the
justice systems of pretty much every modern country as abnormal or abusive.
For instance, the notion that you can be extradited to face charges seems
banal, until you introduce the notion that someone might want to "face their
charges" in a totally different country over video link.

~~~
trevelyan
Fact check: Assange does not face charges.

~~~
tptacek
No, he doesn't, because under Swedish law he can't be indicted until he's
confronted by prosecutors.

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goombastic
Given that government has access to this much information and is not using it
to hunt down tax dodgers etc, does it mean they are actively protecting the
rich?

~~~
_delirium
It's fairly common to silo national-security-sensitive information, to avoid
revealing sources or methods for things deemed not important enough to be
worth it. The NSA doesn't share its data with the IRS or even regular police
departments, either.

