Just after Christmas, the leader of the Swedish Pirate Party, Rickard Falkvinge, published some information this is deeply disturbing if it’s true. It’s not so much that the information inside is new, but that I’ve gotten more confirmation of things I thought were possible, but wasn’t entirely sure of.
To set the context about these things, it’s necessary to know that the last five years in Sweden has seen a marked rise from the government pushing for legislations related to Internet freedom, privacy and wiretapping. Sweden has traditionally had very good policies for these things, but that has been eroded the last years with things like IPRED, FRA, the persecution of The Pirate Bay, the proposed measures in the so called Renfors inquiry (Renforsutredningen) and many other things.
The information Falkvinge posted gives proof that all these measures have been a focused push by the US government, and that the Swedish government have easily been manipulated or told to follow the US governments suggestion. This information comes from a WikiLeaks diplomatic cable called Stockholm 09-141, which details how Sweden should not be put on the Special 301 list by the US Government, because the Swedish government has been pliant enough and made enough progress on the measures mentioned above.
If you read Swedish, you can read Falkvinke’s post here. If you want to see the text of the cable itself, you can see it in English here. As a Swede, I’m very unhappy to see these things confirmed. Once again, WikiLeaks have shown us something we didn’t know before.
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