Media News - Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Snoop law to be tried in European court

The Swedish government will have to defend the new FRA surveillance law in front of the European Court of Human Rights in a case filed by an independent law organization. The Sweden-based Justice Center (CFR) announced on Monday that it has decided to refer Sweden's controversial surveillance law to the human rights court in Strasbourg. Specifically, CFR contends the measure, which was narrowly approved by the Riksdag last month, violates Article 8 (guarantees citizens' right to privacy) and Article 13 (deals citizens' ability to hold national authorities to account for possible violations of the human rights convention) of the European Convention on Human Rights and has asked for judicial guidance. Moreover, the group sees the law's description of the threats to be controlled and the types of communication that can be monitored as too vague. CFR has based its case on a German case from 2006 as well as a recent ruling by the human rights court in which a similar surveillance law from the UK was judged to violate the European Convention on Human Rights. The CFR is also concerned over the lack of rights that a Swedish citizen has to the information collected on them. (The Local)

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