Preparing for the arrival of Big Brother

I heard the most stupid reason for voting for the new bugging legislation, also called Lex Orwell, by a Swedish politician on the radio yesterday. She argued that ECHELON and others such as the Swedish National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA) are already (illegaly) bugging us, so we can just as well have a legislation that makes bugging legal and can be done also by our own government.

So, if we as citizens are having problems with burglars breaking into our homes, then our government should make a law that makes it legal to break into our homes. This way we won't have a problem with burglary anymore. Pure magic!

What politicians should do is of course to create laws that protect our rights as citizens and human beings and try to uphold them, not give them up because it seems meaningless to protect them.

The common law definition of burglary was described by Sir Matthew Hale as:

The breaking and entering the house of another in the night time, with intent to commit a felony therein, whether the felony be actually committed or not.

Source: wikipedia.org

Yesterday, on the 16th of July 2008, two days before the Swedish parliament is to vote about the new FRA law (which is tomorrow), the Swedish news program "Rapport" revealed that an employee at FRA has leaked information that the FRA has (illegaly) bugged phone calls for at least 18 months and that it can be for as long time as 10 years.

Am I surprised? No. Now I definately trust the FRA to interpret the new fuzzy legislation as they desire - NOT!