this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2024
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Privacy

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Open letter: Mass surveillance and undermining encryption still on table in EU Council - European Digital Rights (EDRi) (edri.org)
submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 29 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

I think what ultimately made me realise how fucked up things had truly gotten, was an article I read a few years ago.

A man had been assaulted by masked police in his sleep, beaten, and then taken to interrogation, where he sat for hours without really knowing what the hell was going on, until they finally started giving him information. When they finally showed him evidence, it turned out that they had gotten it completely wrong.

This "evidence" in question were pictures of him shagging his boyfriend. The police had gotten it from some American organisation, and then just acted on it, believing that he was holding a minor hostage and raping him. He wasn't; his boyfriend, the "minor" in question is in his 30s.

Some American organisation skimmed through his Yahoo mail, sent the photos to Swedish law enforcement, who promptly sent out a group of masked thugs they later weren't able to identify or punish, assaulted an innocent man, and essentially kidnapped him, all legally. No justice was ever meted out for this either, the man, his mother, and the boyfriend no longer felt safe in Sweden, and they've all moved abroad.

Does all this privacy infringement lead to criminals getting punished? Oh yeah I'm positive ~~they do~~ it does, just like stop and frisk probably caught some criminals too, but not without violating over 80% of the people stopped that were completely innocent regular people.

That's not a price we should be so eager to pay.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

can you post some sources? preferably in English

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

There's a Swedish article about it on SVT, the Swedish national news media outlet. It's actually strangely long for being on SVT, I think there's some anti-competition laws that prevent them from doing journalism with too much detail.

I believe the original source is this article from Kontext Press.

Edit: I ought mention that I tried, but I struggled to find any articles about in English.

For some additional context though; the American organisation that tipped off the police here in Sweden was the NCMEC, the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children.

The police examined the boyfriend whom they'd described as "not prepubescent", to ensure that he has the same birthmark that appeared in the pictures.

The prosecutor that signed off on the decision to raid this man's home, Titti Malmros has resigned.

Also this gem, which is from the Kontext Press article.

If a police officer commits misconduct while masked, how do you then investigate it?
Well, it's not really possible if one cannot establish who has done what, says prosecutor Lena Kastlund

Were all the officers present questioned?
No, they were not, because you cannot question them if you don't know who is suspected. You can't interrogate someone without informing them of the suspicion, and you can't question everyone who is suspected either. We have very high standards of evidence, so that no innocent person is suspected.

Can't they be heard as witnesses then?
Not if they later could become suspects.

Then is there any possibility of redress against officers who are masked?
There's always a possibility, but there may be difficulties. Plus, there are other officers present who may have heard things. We always try to do as much as possible.

Do you think that everything that could have been done has been done in this case?
Yes, that's my opinion at least. I stand by my decision and believe I've done what can be done.

I can't help but read this as; it's perfectly okay to break into a person's home in the middle of the night, assault them, and take them away from their home without informing them of where they're going or why, but you can't possibly accuse a police officer of misconduct; that requires a lot of proof which is magically unobtainable.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

I think part of it is a fundamental weakness in the Swedish judicial system where you need clear perpetrators and clear victims, meaning that if you have a group of people committing a crime and you can't prove that they intentionally cooperated to commit the criminal act or who did exactly what, they may go free (exhibit A). The same goes if you can prove the crime but not the victims (exhibit B).

Of course the bar is higher when it comes to the police, they will pull out all the stops to prevent one of their own getting investigated, but this issue runs even deeper.