Sweden to spy on cross-border Internet traffic

The Swedish government is planning to introduce new rules that would allow its National Defence Radio Establishment to spy on cross-border emails and telephone calls. The plans have been presented to parliament amid controversy over "Big Brother" style of monitoring.

Current rules dictate that the NDRE can only tap military communications, something that was required for counter-intelligence operations during the Cold War. However, it is now seeking to address modern concerns over the use of phone and Internet communications with particular focus on international terrorism. Sweden's defence chief Mikael Odenberg has been quoted by the country's English-language news outlet The Local as saying that "this is about collecting information for the country's foreign, security and defence policy and protecting Sweden from foreign threats." The new rules would allow the intelligence agency to apply pattern analysis and conduct specific searches rather than simply going after all of an individual's communications.

However, critics of the proposals have been pointing out that the introduction of these new rules could lead to taps being put into operation without the go-ahead of law courts. The government would have the last say on what is and is not allowed, and ultimately, critics believe, millions of Swedish citizens could be subject to indiscriminate covert monitoring and surveillance. Interestingly, this may have already taken place for several decades, as the NDRE was secretly wiretapping communications for some sixty years according to Mr Odenberg, who used that fact to argue for the introduction of the new rules to legislate the practice.