[pp.int.general] More from Sweden

[Ole Husgaard]

Christian Hufgard skrev:
> Rick Falkvinge (Piratpartiet) wrote:
> > Our recent campaigns have boosted our membership count by 2,000 in the
> > past three weeks and we are now 1,000 members larger than the Green
> Party.
>
> Wow. How the heck do you get this done? Maybe you could set up an idiot
> proof tutorial? :)
Having followed closely what was happened in Sweden this year, maybe I
can explain.

The current swedish government is proposing one bad law after another.
Bad laws that take away our basic rights. And PP SE has been very active
in the public debate about these laws. Let me give you three examples.

The first really bad law this year was the FRA-law (aka. Lew Orwell).
This law says that the government must have a copy of all electronic
communication that passes swedish borders. Initially the old media was
completely silent on this. But PP SE kept pushing the subject in blogs.
When the rest of the bloggosphere also started writing about it, it
started spreading fast. When almost all political (and a lot of
otherwise non-political) blogs were writing about it all the time, the
old media had to write about something unusual going on in the
bloggosphere. And then the old media also had to report what this blog
activity was about. This got the public debate started, and when the law
was passed there were mass protests. Lots of demonstrations, and PP SE
has been involved in almost all.

The second really bad law was the implementation of the IPRED1
directive. The government went a lot further than the directive
required, giving the rights holders the right to play private police
(with more rights than the real police in cases against file sharers).
Without informing the accused filesharer, or involving the police, the
rights holders can: Get the identity behind a IP address from the ISP,
freeze all assets belonging to the accused filesharer, and sue him in
civil court, where he will not get a lawyer if he cannot afford it (as
if he could, with all assets frozen), and where the rights holders do
not have to prove anything, but only have to convince the judge that
their claims are more credible than the defendants. Here PP SE have been
very active in the public debate. Interesting the government opposition
has been silent in the debate, so the public debate has been with PP SE
on one side, and rights holders on the other side. PP SE won this debate
big time, I think. People cannot trust somebody saying the PP SE side of
the debate is a small loud minority, when a facebook protest group in a
small country like sweden can grow to almost 70000 members in about a month.

And now, shortly after, comes the implementation of the data logging
directive (known as STASI 2.0 in germany). Also here the government
wants to go further than the directive requires. Also here PP SE is
driving the public debate.

In all of these three cases it is obvious from the public debate that it
does not matter which government is in command. Last year SE got a new
liberal-conservative government, and these laws are all something that
the old socialdemocrat-socialist government wanted too.

So to get a lot of members you have to get your voice heard. Best would
be if you get to debate your issues on national TV and in old media like
newspapers, as PP SE has done a lot this year.

And then of course educate the public. Tell them the facts. Stick to the
facts, even when your opponents try to derail the debate by using
emotional arguments or direct lies.

And of course it helps PP SE that becoming a member is simple and fast.

Best Regards,

Ole Husgaard.