From the sublime to the ridiculous – comments on the EU

Rick Falkvinge, founder of the Swedish Pirate Party, has written the most sublime rant against the Swedish parliament: In Grand Deceivefest, Swedish Parliament Just Voted For Data Retention. I cannot do it justice and you must read it.

This has been one of the most filthy, deceptive political campaigns to introduce a massive Big Brother law I have ever seen. Its only parallel is when the general wiretapping was introduced in 2008, and I’m pissed off as all hell. There have been attempts at deception of every conceivable kind.

He then lists the deceptions, adding

Additionally, a Germany study concluded that the data retention had only helped on 0.002% of criminal cases. Yes, you read that right: zero point zero zero two per cent. In other words, hiring two new police officers is more effective for fighting crime than this abomination.

The worrying thing is that beneath this rant lies truth – a truth that is increasingly ignored by all of our governments.

That’s the sublime. The ridiculous is reported by TechDirt: German Gov’t Uses Anger Over Lack Of ACTA Transparency To Justify Further Lack Of Transparency. For example,

the European Commission tried to counter accusations that the [ACTA] negotiations were lacking in transparency by pointing out that the German government had a representative present during all the sessions (that’s transparency?). This was news to people, since the German government had somehow omitted to mention this fact.

So they tried to discover more, such as who was this representative, even going so far as to deliver a freedom of information request. The German government declined. Transparency? Ridiculous!