A HISTORIC PERSPECTIVE ON THE FRA ACT

The daily Expressen maintains its coverage of the FRA Act as well as its own campaign against the law. Its call for protests against the act has apparently led to some six million e-mails being sent to the Swedish parliament, the Riksdag - quite a number given that Sweden's population is only nine million.

But the newapaper also gives a fair and balanced coverage of the debate over the FRA Act. Today they interview Karin Enstrom, member of the Riksdag for the Moderate (conservative) party. She is a staunch defender of the FRA Act, however her defense - which is trying to put the FRA Act in a broader perspective - lacks historical context.

As far as Karin Enstrom is concerned there is no doubt that Sweden should have a wiretapping program run by the FRA. 'You have to look at it in a broader perspective. It is an important part of defense intelligence, which in turn provides support for decisions regarding policies on foreign relations, national security and defense' she explains.

Then the newspaper makes the somewhat redundant but apparently still needed point that Sweden is not facing any military threats.

No, there is no military threat against Sweden in particular. But there are threats of various kinds, both against Sweden and, e.g., other EU member states. It is everything from terrorism and serious multinational criminal activity to computer attacks and proliferation of WMDs. It is a matter of a broader concept of security where we consider other kinds of threats than the traditional ones.

Multinational criminal activity has been around for as long as there has been organized crime. Terrorism was a bigger threat to Sweden in the 1970s when the country was the target of three terrorist attacks. One involved the hi-jacking of a civilian airliner by Serbian Ustasja separatists; in another, Baader Meinhof terrorists occupied and eventually blew up the West German embassy in Stockholm; in a third attack, the same German terrorists plotted to kidnap the Swedish foreign minister. That attack was foiled in the last minute by Sweden's civilian (not military) intelligence. And they did it at a time when there were no internet, e-mails or cell phones.

And while we are back in the 1970s, it might be worth pointing out that if the FRA Act had been proposed then, it would have given the military intelligence service the right to open regular mail being send through the Swedish postal service - and not only that. They would have been allowed to open every letter, copy it and store the copy for future reading and cross-referencing with other correspondence.

No such law was ever proposed back then, despite the fact that Sweden had been targeted by terrorists on numerous occasions in a short period of time.