PARTY EGOISM BEHIND CRITIQUE OF FRA ACT

Influential members of the small "liberal" party Folkpartiet have opined in the daily Dagens Nyheter with an appeal to the Reinfeldt administration to reconsider the FRA Act.

The fundamental problem with the FRA Act is that even those who are not suspects of any crime will have their phone calls, e-mails and SMS messages analyzed by a government agency whose operations are beyond public scrutiny. Thereby [the FRA Act] is in violation of fundamental liberal values.

It might be worth noticing that "liberal" in this context refers to the traditional European definition of the word. This definition is closer to American moderate conservatism than American liberalism.

The fierce debate over the late spring and the summer about the FRA Act is unique. Many citizens have become involved and expressed concern. In a very short period of time an entirely new grassroots movement has formed, in support of individual freedom.

This is a slight exaggeration. Sweden is already a country with very little room for individual freedom. What the FRA Act has done in this respect is, perhaps, to inspire an interest in the notion of individual freedom, not much more. That is not bad, but it is not huge either.

We are appealing to the administration to take a step back and open for a new discussion with no pretext. We must, of course, protect ourselves against terrorism and military threats, but the infringements on people's integrity that come with the law are unbecoming of a modern nation of laws.

This is good, of course, especially since the list of people behind this op-ed include one former prime minister and two other former cabinet members. But the fact that this op-ed did not appear in the news before the Riksdag passed the FRA Act reveals the true purpose behind it. Their concern is not the integrity of the individual Swede - then they would have been against the law from the get-go. Instead, this is a reaction to how the general public has responded to the FRA Act. The liberal party Folkpartiet is one of the smallest in Swedish politics and is facing extinction between two increasingly similar and institutionalized big parties - the social democrats and the Moderate party. They fear that they might be the first victims if voters remember the FRA Act when they go to the ballot boxes in 2010.

While a good op-ed in itself, this piece is too obviously a political hack job to pass for serious reconsideration of the law. The Folkpartiet does not deserve support after the leaders of its parliament group bullied them into voting for the bill (with two notable exceptions).