A new, recently-approved Swedish wiretapping law angered The
Pirate Bay earlier this week, and the site’s administrators have
decided to fight back. The Pirate Bay administrator Peter “brokep” Sunde, writing in his blog, announced
that the site will be adding SSL encryption to its list of features for all
visitors, and a VPN-tunnel system for Swedish visitors that will soon be rolled
out worldwide.
More importantly, however, is The Pirate Bay’s attempt to organize a global
internet ban against Sweden.
“Yes, that’s right!” wrote Sunde. “We want Sweden to be banned from
the Internet. The ISPs need to block Sweden in order to protect their own
customers’ integrity since everything they do on Swedish ISPs networks will be
logged and searched.”
The law in question, approved
by Swedish parliament on June 19, allows the FRA (National Defense Radio
Agency, In English) to monitor all national phone, e-mail, and web traffic for
the purposes of National Security. The bill was passed by a narrow majority –
143 to 138 with 1 abstaining – and became law despite heavy criticism by
journalists, bloggers, lawyers, and the Swedish intelligence agency.
“We’re going to help out in any way we can with fighting the law,” wrote
Sunde. Speaking in an interview with TorrentFreak, Sunde noted that “we
have many aces up our sleeves and we’re gonna use them. No worries.”
“Trust me, this war is not lost,” said Sunde.
“Democracy is reliant on the transparency of power, not the transparency of
citizens,” said Swedish Pirate Party leader Rick Falkvinge, speaking
in an interview with The Local earlier this month. “All places where
the opposite has been the case - where it has been impossible to examine the
powers that be, while citizens lack any right to a private life - have been
really nasty places to live.”