Common ground

There we are! Seems Sverigedemokraterna (SD) and the currect Government have even more in common than we thought. SD too, apparently, want to ban art and culture that can be deemed offensive by some.

So up until now we've got:
1. No respect of basic human rights
2. Less artistic freedom (as mentioned above)
3. Harsher punishment for committing victimless crimes
4. Moving away from the assumption that one is innocent until proven guilty
5. Even more surveillance

Plenty of common grounds to build a new government on. I think this might work out very well in the end.

5-year-old suffers "injury to his reputation"?

A five year old boy was wrongly accused of stealing a bag of crisps at a Lidl store in Dublin, and won 7,500 Euros in damages. Fair enough, being wrongly accused of a crime can be pretty traumatic, and at that age you're pretty sensitive. Apparently he's also suffering from stress and inconvenience. All good reason to award damages.

What amazes me though is that these damages weren't awarded due to any of that, they were awarded for "defamation of character". Apparently this little kid had "suffered injury to his reputation". Say what? What reputation can this kid possibly have at the age of 5? Is he frowned upon by the other kids in kindergarten? Unable to get a job? Estranged by his neighbors?

Come on.

Photo: DJO Photo

Crime pays

In case you're wondering, crime does pay, provided you're high enough up in the food chain. The property director of the City of Stockholm, Torbjörn Johansson, has personally been certifying more or less phony invoices on purchaces and trips he's allegedly made himself contrary to the applicable regulations.

This jerk has wasted over 200.000 SEK of taxpayer's money in only 1,5 years of working as a property director, and for that he receives a dishonorary discharge AND a whoopping 2 years salary in severance pay - amounting to 2 million kronor, also taxpayer's money. You would think that severance agreement would include a clause on fraud, but apparently the bright minds at the City of Stockholm didn't think so.

Photo borrowed from Fastighetssverige.se

German government does business with criminals

Who would believe a government would actually be buying stolen merchandise on a regular basis? Well, those crazy krauts are at it again. Only a couple of years after the previous scandal when they bought stolen data from a Liechtenstein bank, German officials are looking to buy even more stolen data, this time from a Swiss bank - all to be used as evidence against its own citizens.

Most people would call this a crime. Most courts of law wouldn't even call it evidence. Not in Germany, though.

Guilty until proven innocent

The mafiosos over at the record companies (yes, the usual "axis of evil", Universal Music, EMI Music, Sony Music and Warner Music) continue their crusade to make the world an insecure place to live. According to Dagens Nyheter, Dagens Industri and Svenska Dagbladet they insist that two of the Pirate Bay founders are still involved in the management of the site, and should be fined accordingly. Not only that, but they seriously expect that mere allegations should be enough, and that the accusers should have to prove their innocence! The witchburners of the 18th century would be proud.

Enligt skivbolagen har de två har brutit mot vitesförbudet "genom att delta i driften av fildelningstjänsten", och skivbolagen anser att bara det faktum att Pirate Bay fortfarande fungerar är tillräckligt för att de två ska anses ha överträtt förbudet - såvida de inte kan visa att de inte längre är delaktiga.

"So, you're not a witch, huh? Prove it, or you're obviously guilty and will be burned at the stake."

I actually had to read that last sentence a couple of times before I realized it was serious. The good old "guilty until proven innocent" tactics that most developed countries abandoned decades ago. You're kidding me. However I'm quite sure the court will continue to obey the entertainment industry no matter how seriously it violates basic human rights.

A secure FTP server is...well, secure

Svea hovrätt just announced that having a secure FTP server that requires a username and password to access, means it's files are not publicly available. No shit, Sherlock. Although, I have to say I'm a bit surprised that this incompetent institution actually managed to find a judge that had no affiliation with the entertainment industry, and that actually made some sense. This means the ISP Ephone does not have to give up its customer's integrity.

Now what I want to know is when Antipiratbyrån will be prosecuted for breaking into this server in the first place, to gather the pathetic piece of "evidence" that was presented to the court (and found to be more than enough by the retards at Solna tingsrätt)? Last time I checked hacking into secure servers was still a crime. A much more serious one than copyright infringement, I might add.

A conviction at any cost

Have a look at Peter Sunde's blogpost on how the dutch branch of the entertainment mafia, Brein, are committing a serious crime fabricating evidence in a desperate attempt to convict some people of something that shouldn't even be considered a crime, in a country these people have no connection to whatsoever.

So, what's worst? Fabricating evidence to get people wrongfully convicted, or possibly aiding in copyright infringement by providing an infrastructure that lets people communicate and share files with each other? Who should really be on trial here?

Of course the outcome of this ridiculous case is already given. Brein's fabricated evidence will be accepted without and questions by a court consisting of people with close affiliation to copyright lobbying organizations, and another miscarriage of justice will be committed.

If anyone's interested the documents are available at wikileaks.

Today's lesson

Today's lesson to all you miserable punks out there who have nothing better to do with your pathetic little lives than messing up your own neighborhoods: Threats of arson and violence do actually pay off. Congratulations guys, and my condolences to the society.

The fine art of prioritizing

DI.se and Aftonbladet.se, SVD.se and DN.se all report that the Swedish police will hire 15 policemen who will work exclusively on trying to track down those illegal and dangerous...wait for it...copyright infringers. Those vicious, lethal bastards who threaten to tear apart our society by performing acts of, yes you got it, copyright infringement...

Upon reading the articles it becomes clear that these 15 policemen will not be new hires, but will instead be transferred from other police departments where they have hopefully been busy doing important work up until now. Well, not anymore, they won't! Instead they'll be busy upholding laws created by the entertainment industry to protect their obsolete business models instead of developing like the rest of the world, and to help them maximize their profit. What a brilliant way to spend my tax money. I mean, who really cares about rapes, murders, kidnappings, arson, robberies and random acts of violence when you've got the massive threat of kids (and grownups for that matter) who simply enjoy sharing art, entertainment and information with each other?