Iceland to become 'journalist haven'

[Helen Reyes]

I think this is almost a trend in the Nordic countries. While USA, UK, NZ, Australia etc. are all playing around with Chinese-style filtering, and it gets harder and harder to get to sites like thepiratebay.org, the Pirate Party is making in-roads in local and Euro govt.

Pirate Party to Contest Swedish Municipal Elections, Roll Back Surveillance Cameras

Ivar Andersen
http://www.uppsalafria.nu/artikel/82259
Uppsala Fria<
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 | 15:48

After successes in European elections, the Pirate Party is now throwing the towel into local politics. Everyone knows this party, but tends to link it to large issues of the future far removed from local political daily life. "Many people associate us with the EU," says Victoria Westberg, who will stand for the Uppsala City Council.

• The Pirate Party is standing for election in Enköping Municipality, Tierps Municipality and the Municipality of Uppsala, and the county council of Uppsala.

• Internal recruitment is now in progress until the end of March, when the party plans to present their electoral lists of candidates.

After privacy issues received considerable attention in the domestic political debate, the Pirate Party took just over seven percent of the vote in elections to the European Parliament last June. Now that the party is attempting to repeat its success at the local level, their previous success is both an asset and a source of concern.

“Now the Pirate Party is more familiar. We also have greater experience in campaigning, this helps us all. It may well be that people are more familiar now with what we stand for and are more interested in our politics," said Johan Lundmark, municipal leader of the Pirate Party in Uppsala.

But success also means that for many, the Pirate Party is intimately linked with the EU, and with questions that might be perceived as distant from local political daily life and basic services.

“Many people associate us with the EU and many of the laws we are getting come from there, I think there will be a bit of a challenge," says Victoria Westberg, who will stand for the Uppsala City Council. “But now that we have drawn up our municipal policies, I see that there is much we can do within the municipality as well. It's just about getting our message across.”

The party's municipal program calls for Uppsala to become a leading information city, something that will be pursued by focusing on IT education in primary schools and by attracting knowledge-intensive businesses to the city. The party also seeks to address security issues.

“Such is the case with surveillance cameras," said Johan Lundmark. “We want to promote a safer Uppsala in several ways. Better lighting works better than cameras, and then you avoid problems that arise with violations of privacy.”

The Pirate Party is also getting established in county elections. Andrew Smith, constituency leader in Uppsala County, sees opportunities for meeting the cost of care with effective use of new technologies.

“Today, many believe that the administration or their actions are a tax that takes too much time. There are things we want to streamline; it should be easy to use technology to make time for real work. But we also want to save by using open standards and free software, there is very much money being spent on this currently.”

full article in Swedish:

http://www.uppsalafria.nu/artikel/82259