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I can't speak for the OP, but the Nordic countries seem to be pretty progressive in this aspect. I'd gladly relocate to a country that doesn't have this invasiv

I can't speak for the OP, but the Nordic countries seem to be pretty progressive in this aspect. I'd gladly relocate to a country that doesn't have this invasiveness (hint hint, 20 odd years in software and devops, hook me up). The chilling effect is bad enough, but having agencies that sit outside of the light of public/democratic scrutiny is a foul thing. How much you can trust the alternatives? That's a trickier question.

vidarh 11y ago
Norwegian secret services for decades conducted illegal political surveillance going far beyond "just" phone taps. I personally knew people who were regularly harassed because of membership in legal political organizations. One was the newspaper editor of the newspaper "Friheten" ("Liberty"), linked to the communist party, who told me how he for years was now and against stopped by officers from the police surveillance service (POT; now PST) who would make a point out of commenting on conversations that he and his wife had face to face in his home to prove they were listening in. There was no legal basis for the surveillance - POT had legal powers to initiate surveillance in cases where there were legitimate surveillance needs, but this surveillance never went through proper channels because they knew full well it wouldn't have been approved. Another was a trade union rep whose commute to work had him walking past the Soviet embassy, which was the only reason he could think of for why he was tailed to and from work every day for years. They didn't try to hide it - making it obvious was part of their regular harassment. (To be clear, while most of this surveillance was directed at left wing groups, the most likely instigator was the Norwegian social democrats in the 50's and 60's, not the right wing - the social democrats were if anything more worried about the groups to their left than they were about the conservatives at the time) This was rolled up in the mid 90's, and during the parliamentary investigation it was revealed that one of the committee members - a socialist MP - was under illegal surveillance by POT while he was investigating them... POT was "rebranded" the Police Security Service (PST), and we were assured it won't happen again, but the oversight is a total joke. Last year one of the largest papers revealed extensive amounts of illegal IMSI catchers in Oslo, for example, and it's all just petered out. The various agencies insisted it was nothing to worry about awfully quickly for someone who also denied having anything to do with it - if they had nothing to do with it, presumably they'd have been all over figuring out what was going on; their fast denials only makes sense if they denied because they knew exactly who and why. Norway has also figured in Snowden documents as providing significant intelligence to the NSA. Sweden has the infamous "FRA law", a signals intelligence law that makes every signal that passes the Swedish border free game for Swedish military intelligence. Which is pretty nasty when you consider that the host interchange points that a lot of European internet traffic travels through. So don't assume you can escape this, because we can't. The only option is to find ways to fight back.
- SFLemonade 11y ago
  Thanks for sharing this, it was really informative. I agree, we have to find ways to fight back and stand up against this stuff at home. Telling yourself that you can just retreat to the Nordic countries (like they're some kind of utopia - give me a break) just leads to a false sense of security and increased complacency.
- harkyns_ruins 11y ago
  Thanks, whipped down thoroughly, I must have had my wires crossed with other policies I liked. If this gets through anyway, I seem to have been rate limited.
  - bmelton 11y ago
    Direct replies within a conversation are soft-rate limited to discourage heated replies. The "reply" button is hidden for a time, but can be bypassed (oddly) by clicking the "x minutes ago" button and replying directly. It's an open secret that I don't believe is against the rules, though if somebody knows better, you're invited to chime in.
    - dang 11y ago
      Not against the rules; it's just a speed bump. We should probably have more of those.
  - chillax 11y ago
    Some more information can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lund_Report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lund_Report
- tylermauthe 11y ago
  Wow! Thank you so much for sharing this. There really is nowhere that is safe, is there? Your last statement is absolutely correct -- time to fight back!

vidarh 11y ago

Norwegian secret services for decades conducted illegal political surveillance going far beyond "just" phone taps. I personally knew people who were regularly harassed because of membership in legal political organizations. One was the newspaper editor of the newspaper "Friheten" ("Liberty"), linked to the communist party, who told me how he for years was now and against stopped by officers from the police surveillance service (POT; now PST) who would make a point out of commenting on conversations that he and his wife had face to face in his home to prove they were listening in. There was no legal basis for the surveillance - POT had legal powers to initiate surveillance in cases where there were legitimate surveillance needs, but this surveillance never went through proper channels because they knew full well it wouldn't have been approved. Another was a trade union rep whose commute to work had him walking past the Soviet embassy, which was the only reason he could think of for why he was tailed to and from work every day for years. They didn't try to hide it - making it obvious was part of their regular harassment. (To be clear, while most of this surveillance was directed at left wing groups, the most likely instigator was the Norwegian social democrats in the 50's and 60's, not the right wing - the social democrats were if anything more worried about the groups to their left than they were about the conservatives at the time) This was rolled up in the mid 90's, and during the parliamentary investigation it was revealed that one of the committee members - a socialist MP - was under illegal surveillance by POT while he was investigating them... POT was "rebranded" the Police Security Service (PST), and we were assured it won't happen again, but the oversight is a total joke. Last year one of the largest papers revealed extensive amounts of illegal IMSI catchers in Oslo, for example, and it's all just petered out. The various agencies insisted it was nothing to worry about awfully quickly for someone who also denied having anything to do with it - if they had nothing to do with it, presumably they'd have been all over figuring out what was going on; their fast denials only makes sense if they denied because they knew exactly who and why. Norway has also figured in Snowden documents as providing significant intelligence to the NSA. Sweden has the infamous "FRA law", a signals intelligence law that makes every signal that passes the Swedish border free game for Swedish military intelligence. Which is pretty nasty when you consider that the host interchange points that a lot of European internet traffic travels through. So don't assume you can escape this, because we can't. The only option is to find ways to fight back.

SFLemonade 11y ago
Thanks for sharing this, it was really informative. I agree, we have to find ways to fight back and stand up against this stuff at home. Telling yourself that you can just retreat to the Nordic countries (like they're some kind of utopia - give me a break) just leads to a false sense of security and increased complacency.
harkyns_ruins 11y ago
Thanks, whipped down thoroughly, I must have had my wires crossed with other policies I liked. If this gets through anyway, I seem to have been rate limited.
- bmelton 11y ago
  Direct replies within a conversation are soft-rate limited to discourage heated replies. The "reply" button is hidden for a time, but can be bypassed (oddly) by clicking the "x minutes ago" button and replying directly. It's an open secret that I don't believe is against the rules, though if somebody knows better, you're invited to chime in.
  - dang 11y ago
    Not against the rules; it's just a speed bump. We should probably have more of those.
- chillax 11y ago
  Some more information can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lund_Report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lund_Report
tylermauthe 11y ago
Wow! Thank you so much for sharing this. There really is nowhere that is safe, is there? Your last statement is absolutely correct -- time to fight back!