The current Swedish debate about a bill to allow military intelligence to intercept phone and Internet communications has produced something most unSwedish: a grassroots "blogquake" that has upset the staid logic of traditional politics. Given the threat that the bill may fall because of MPs disobeying their party whips (normally unheard of in Swedish politics) there is a real chance the bill is even withdrawn at the last minute. But even if it is, this is an issue that will return again and again: exactly how much information should the government be allowed to gather and for what purposes?

The motivations for the bill are familiar: to fight terrorism, international crime and threats to the infrastructure. However, in order to get the information needed the National Defence Radio Establishment will monitor all Internet traffic that enters or leaves the country. Since even the most cursory use of a computer is likely to produce such signals (e.g. doing a Google search) it would in practice mean monitoring the Swedish net - as well as any foreign information that happens to be routed through it.

While the agency says it will destroy any intercepted information not related to investigations, this may prove hard in practice since the boundaries of investigations are by their nature blurred and the effort to separate relevant from irrelevant is hard. There are even some accusations that the agency has already illegally stored information about foreign citizens that is outside its remit.

The key problem is that the proposal, like many other antiterrorism proposals, do not appear to be increasing the efficiency of finding and apprehending terrorists. It is a form of "security theatre" where the politicians can show they are Doing Something About It and a way to implement changes that make life easier for government agencies - all protected from criticism by the biasing effect of the concept 'terrorism'. As long as the motivating concept is such that no sane person would defend it, resisting such proposals is hard.

Meanwhile the natural bias among politicians and government personell is to downplay the risk of misuse: they know that they are nice people with the best of intentions. It is telling that the proposal includes provisions for oversight of how the intercepts are used by government agencies - except that the cabinet and its administration do not require any permission or oversight for their use of interception. But even if the Swedish government were completely reliable at this moment, there is no reason to expect it to be in the future.

Sweden had compulsory sterilization laws until 1976. During the cold war the official neutrality policy was actually a lie. The cabinet helped set up an illegal intelligence agency and did its best to cover it up in the 70's. In the late 80's government ministers were involved in setting up a private investigation outside the legal system (which was revealed when smuggling of illegal wire-tapping equipment came to light). And so on. This shows that even in the relatively clean Swedish government circles there has been misuse of power, a desire to gain information without oversight and to cover it up, and morally dubious actions possibly sincerely motivated by "public good". Given this history there is reason to think that future governments may be willing to misuse surveillance powers, even if they do not do it for any personally corrupt reasons.

We also know that social values change over time. We are often amused or horrified by the morality of people in the past - just as they would regard our morality as corrupt. Today honor is not regarded as a valid reason for most decisions in the West, while we allow women to vote, contraception and allowing the government to read gentlemen's letters. This means that future governments will likely be guided by values we currently would find deplorable or abhorrent. Data retention means our current actions will be judged by them, and we might very well be held legally responsible for doubting climate change, eating meat or privately arguing against greater government power.

There is nothing inherently wrong in giving broad power and access to government agencies as long as they are acting for legitimate goals, doing it in an efficient manner and not misusing their powers. Fighting terrorism is certainly a legitimate goal. But the current proposal appear to fall far short on controlling the efficiency and preventing the misuse.

From an ethical standpoint a proportionality principle appears to be the best approach. Increased government intrusiveness must be balanced by increased citizen control over the government. Privacy costs must be balanced by increased safety (or other) benefits - and these tradeoffs must be possible to check and rebalance.

As a modest proposal, why not apply the same form of interception to the National Defence Radio Establishment? All Internet and phone traffic of the organisation would be monitored and recorded, ensuring that it actually fulfils its purpose and does not misuse the information. An outside oversight agency will have full access, ensuring that misuse will eventually be found and the accountable people held accountable. Ideally of course all personal communication inside the agency should also be monitored, but we will just have to wait about ten years before lifelogging technology will achieve that.

There are many obvious criticisms against the above proposal, such as security risks, costs, privacy invasion and that it would interfere with the activities at the agency. But these are identical to the the criticisms against the original proposal: if those can be overcome, then clearly these can be overcome too. If the benefits of the bill are so large as its supporters think, then it would be worth monitoring the agency (and perhaps the cabinet) to an equal amount - after all, the innocent have nothing to fear.