MORE SWEDISH PROBLEMS WITH RIGHT AND WRONG

While authorizing blanket wiretapping of the entire country without suspicion of crime, the Swedish government is very particular about who is a terrorist and who is not. A man from Chechnya in Russia has been accused by Russian authorities of a number of terrorist crimes. he has been granted protection from extradition to Russia because, the Swedish government says, there is plenty of evidence of "crimes against human rights" in Chechnya, ostensibly committed by Russian authorities.

This has fired up Russia's foreign ministry:

The position taken by the Swedish authorities is nothing short of political hypocrisy, an attempt to split terrorists into good and evil. Stockholm is sending a signal that Sweden can provide a safe haven for terrorists, said the Russian foreign ministry on Friday. ... The highest court in Sweden has dismissed the charges against Adayev as being squarely political - [the charges] include terrorism, conspiracy to kill police officrs, illegal possession of firearms, and arms trade, the Russian foreign ministry added. Last year Sweden refused to extradite another Chechnyan man to Russia, suspected of involvement in the kidnapping and murder of a Russian photographer and journalist in 1999.

This high ground on Chechnya is taken by the same government who, again, is so afraid of terrorists within its own borders that it has legalized blanket wiretapping of e-mails, faxes, phone calls and internet activity of all Swedes, without any court approval or any discretionary restrictions. This is the same government who merrily extradites a Kurdish woman to Iran who has been involved in a political movement that the Iranian government has banned - and who is also the victim of Iran's anti-women Shariah law.

Lack of judgment on right and wrong is the most dangerous weakness a government can have. Couple that with unlimited powers to eavesdrop on all its citizens - and the breakdown of the rule of law is not far away.