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Jun. 2nd, 2006
Update on the legal rot in Sweden
Jun. 2nd, 2006 10:53 pmFirst of all, the scope of the raid against The Pirate Bay is staggering. Among the sites whose colocated servers were appropriated by swedish police, we find
What makes it all even more egregious is that spokespeople for Antipiratbyrån - the industrial organization protecting the interests of the movie and record industry in Sweden - have stated in media that the prime goal of the action wasn't really to go after The Pirate Bay, but to silence Piratbyrån. The quote, which when it was up at DI.se (roughly swedish equivalent of Financial Times - both in scope and seriosity), was extended and rather clear in meaning; hardly taken out of context, has since been removed due to the spokesperson claiming it to be misquoted.
It is disgusting that an industrial organisation can actually in this day have political opponents removed from the net in this way. It is disgusting to see the lack of rigor used when essentially shutting down several hundred servers; and the lack of interest for how far the scope of inquiry actually would reach.
I am angry. I am scared. I don't want to watch my home descend in this direction; more and more towards a police state, where individual rights matter less than the ubiquituous surveillance and the overwhelming power of wellfunded lobbying groups. I used to be proud over the legislative system in Sweden.
- Piratbyrån - political organisation/thinktank working with the abolishments of the gregarious copyright protection laws and actions taken lately.
- Planka.nu - political organization/lobbying group/activist organisation trying to get free travel on buses and subways in Stockholm.
- Kavkascenter - Chechnian news site with journalistic status (and thus protection according to the swedish constitution) and texts critical against the actions by the Russian regime in Chechnya.
- Several commercial sites
- Several non-profit organizations sites - among others a group of gamers who recently had won a server in a competition. Guess what? Their server now sits in police storage.
What makes it all even more egregious is that spokespeople for Antipiratbyrån - the industrial organization protecting the interests of the movie and record industry in Sweden - have stated in media that the prime goal of the action wasn't really to go after The Pirate Bay, but to silence Piratbyrån. The quote, which when it was up at DI.se (roughly swedish equivalent of Financial Times - both in scope and seriosity), was extended and rather clear in meaning; hardly taken out of context, has since been removed due to the spokesperson claiming it to be misquoted.
It is disgusting that an industrial organisation can actually in this day have political opponents removed from the net in this way. It is disgusting to see the lack of rigor used when essentially shutting down several hundred servers; and the lack of interest for how far the scope of inquiry actually would reach.
I am angry. I am scared. I don't want to watch my home descend in this direction; more and more towards a police state, where individual rights matter less than the ubiquituous surveillance and the overwhelming power of wellfunded lobbying groups. I used to be proud over the legislative system in Sweden.