The Data Retention Directive lie

The Swedish politicians have tried to convince the public that the implementation of the Data Retention Directive (DRD), the massive surveillance scheme that would make the DDR blush, is aimed at fighting organized crime, terrorism and such.

Well, the cat's finally out of the bag: Infamous Minister of Justice Beatrice Ask wants the police to be given access to any surveillance data (the positioning of your cell phone, your e-mails, text messages, calls...) on suspicions even of petty crimes that only warrant a fine. That means that the police could use the DRD surveillance machine to track you down and prosecute you for urinating in a public place, littering, or probably more realistically: For illegally downloading music or movies on the Internet.

Is this really the society we want? Don't you wish you didn't vote for a totalitarian government in this year's elections?

Other thoughts on the subject: Sysadminbloggen, opassande, Henrik Alexandersson, Full Mental Straightjacket.

Picture: mandiberg

A moron without a cause

Centerpartiet politician Fredrick "It wasn't me" Federley seems to get away with literally anything. The latest news on this buffoon is that he's letting the taxpayers pay his taxi bills. No, not just taxi to and from work, but rather late-night trips to and from pubs and nightclubs, labelled "meetings" on his expense reimbursment. Sure, I guess they're meetings of some kind, although not of a very political nature... My personal "favorite" is this:

Efter två timmar hemma hämtas han av en taxi som kör honom till en adress i en söderförort klockan 04.52. En timme senare, 05.40, är han hemma igen efter ännu en taxiresa.
”Övrigt”, står det på taxiräkningen. 

I guess there were no labels for "Casual sex on taxpayer's expense".

The really sad part here is that apparently Federley is recommended to use taxis as his primary means of transportation for security reasons. The problem is, this complete moron uses all kinds of social media to let everybody know where he is and what he's doing at every given moment, which kind of ruins the whole security argument.

Photo: Politikerbloggen/private

Everything counts in large amounts

Corrupt, greedy politicians at their best. "Everything counts" by Depeche Mode seems to be a fitting soundtrack.