IN THE FACE OF POLITICAL ANNIHILATION

Six members of the Riksdag for the "liberal" pary, Folkpartiet, are apparently having second thoughts about the FRA Act.

In a phone survey by [the national television station] SVT News six center-right coalition members of the Riksdag said they may change their minds and side with the opposition on the FRA Act. 'This is a last resort strategy, to write a bill that annulls [the FRA Act]. We do not want to cause trouble for our own administration, but in this critical situation we may have to do something' says Camilla Lindberg, who is one of the six.

One of their beefs with the law is that it does not require probable cause before anyone's electronic communications can be wiretapped. It is good that these politicians are waking up, but the lack of probable cause stopper in the law was apparent long before it came to a vote in the Riksdag.

A lot of what these six are saying seems to be directly derived from the threat of political annihilation that the Folpartiet is facing now. Says Solveig Hellquist, one of the six:

No one has been able to convince me about the need for expanded wiretapping and I am therefore having difficulties accepting the ramifications that the law will have for fundamental rights and freedoms.

These ramifications were also well known before Hellquist and her parliamentary friends voted for the law. Again, it is good that second thoughts are kicking in, but the reason is political egoism rather than anything else. It is therefore difficult to believe that these six members of the Riksdag will go as far as to demand a termination of the FRA Act. That would bring about a major crisis for the Reinfeldt administration and the Folkpartiet would punish the six by removing them from the ballots in the next election. (Sweden's weird parliamentary system allows political parties, not the individual candidates, to decide who is running for what political office.) These six will not sacrifice their own political future for their principles; if that had been the case they would have voted against the FRA Act already in June.

At the same time, they know the party - which is barely big enough to make it over the minimum vote share threshold - faces annihilation in the next election. Voters will abandon the party to such an extent that they will be kicked out of the political limelight. So these six members of the Riksdag are trying to strike a compromise between the Reinfeldt cabinet and its parliamentary base, not in the interest of the people but in the interest of mutual political survival.

It is obvious that the Black Monday network and other opposition groups must continue their fight against the law so that its end can come about regardless of preserving the turfs of incumbent political interests.