The FRA Law
An ever-increasing amount of communications has, due to technology development, in recent years been transferred from radio transmissions to cables. To secure FRA's ability to continue its operations, the question of enabling FRA to collect information from cable communication was addressed by the government in 2003 in a committee report regarding review of FRA (SOU 2003:30). The promemoria (Ds 2005:30) "Updated National Defence Intelligence Operations" with suggested legislation was compiled in 2005 by the government. It was remitted, following common practice, to some 90 agencies and organisations the same year.
On 18 June 2008, Proposition 2006/07:63, "the FRA law", was accepted by the Parliament of Sweden (Riksdag), and accordingly FRA was given legal permission to tap communication cables passing the Swedish national borders. The law has been in effect since 1 January 2009. A large public opinion and many experts, as well as members of parliament, protested against the increased surveillance by demonstrating and using new media channels like blogs and web pages.
On 25 September 2008, the government informed that the ruling coalition parties had agreed on supplements to the FRA law that would strengthen the integrity aspect. This was accepted by the Parliament of Sweden on 14 October 2009, with 158 votes for and 153 against.
Read more about this topic: National Defence Radio Establishment (Sweden), Proposition 2006/07:63
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