FRA: This overall question is not about wiretap or not wiretap

Thomas Gür writes in SvD today (in Swedish) about all the mistakes the Swedish Government is doing. How the impact of “the blog” has changed the way politicians (specifically, but I claim this is also true for anyone) have to think twice before making a statement. And think differently. What is said is immediately discussed in the “blogosphere”, and even hinting that people complaining do not understand the question and/or issues is just plain wrong. Thomas explain this so well. Sure, many people commenting use a language that is not suitable for printing or saying, and sure, some people do not understand the issues (what do I know about non-IT things?). But, to ignore the blogosphere as a collective because they have not understood is just so wrong.

I hope, for the best of Sweden, that the Government do change the way their machinery do handle the FRA legislation, because what has happened in Sweden is that this was a wake up call. Sure, we had the Tsunami, we had many things that have been discussed on line and off line. But nothing like this legislation. A legislation that in principle is simple. A legislation where the actual proposal that was produced by the Government was of low quality. A proposal that forces (as Thomas writes) people like myself that believe in controlled wiretap be against the Governments proposal.

Next year we will see other IT related legislative things which not all are good. And I do not look forward to those proposals if the Government has not learned. Implementation of the Data Retention Directive for example. The open consultation period has closed. Comments during that period where not all in favor (in fact, most comments I know of said the proposal was of pretty low quality). But that in the fall of 2008. Now it is summer, and it is good the Government can think about what really happened during the FRA incident, what the real issues where, and what they could have done differently.

Because that is as important to learn, part from of course sorting out the FRA issues.

Once again, thanks Thomas for a good text!