SOCIALIST COLUMNIST FLAGS FOR CONCESSION

Sweden's largest newspaper, Aftonbladet, has been very critical of the FRA Act, and so for good reasons. With this new act, and its already hired staffers and its already up-and-running super computer, the FRA can wiretap every phone call, every fax, e-mail and internet activity in Sweden. Then they can record it and search it for every conceivable content. For newspapers this means that the integrity of their informants is reduced to snail mail and personal contact - back to the 19th century, alas.

But Aftonbladet's opposition to this law has its limits. Their party affiliation - socialist - is strong and the socialist leader and next prime minister, Mona Sahlin, has said that she wants to keep but marginally rewrite the FRA Act. So now Aftonbladet signals that it will begin to roll back its unconditional opposition to the FRA Act. The first flagging of this gradual turn-around comes from columnist Lena Mellin:

The FRA Act is to be used against the evil forces. But it is a dangerous tools that the spies at Ekero [where FRA is located] now have been handed. Used wrong it can be outright abhorrent. Therefore it is disturbing that a third of the Swedes are for this big brother law in its current form.

What Lena Mellin is signaling here is that the law "in its current form" is so bad that not even a third of the people ought to be for it. In "another" form, on the other hand, it could very well be acceptable.

Mellin is a seasoned columnist and has very good connections with the socialist party leadership. She knows that they will keep the FRA Act and that she better get used to it. She also knows that if the newspaper can lower its profile and help the socialists win in 2010 - despite the fact that they will not abolish the FRA Act - they might be given a pass on the anonymous informant issue. If on the other hand they maintain a position that is not in accordance with the party line, they will have to reduce their operations from whatever is left of their newspaper business to sheer infotainment.