There are some interesting similarities when it comes to mass surveillance in the US and in NSA partner countries. There is no doubt that system and judicial designs often are copied directly from the US system.
As an example, in Sweden the Government talking point is that it assumes that (the Swedish NSA partner) FRA is conducting its mass surveillance in accordance with the law.
Yeah, right. The legality of NSA as well as FRA surveillance lies with secret courts, with no effective representation of civil rights or the public interest. In the US it’s the FISA Court and in Sweden the FRA Court.
And here is the “beauty” of it all: What the secret courts says is legal is legal.
So, mass surveillance carried out is legal in a formal sense–regardless of what’s going on.
That is how Sweden has managed to cram hostile IT attacks on systems in other countries into a law that mentions nothing of the sort. If the secret court says it’s legal, it doesn’t matter what laws Parliament has set down.
This is not how things are to be carried out in a democracy. Rules should be decided in an open, democratic process. And the people must be able to hold politicians accountable.
The way mass surveillance is managed in the NSA sphere, it short-circuits democracy as well as rule of law.
This is utterly unacceptable.
/ HAX