DN builds FRA story on old Google quotes

Swedish blogs are buzzing about a controversial proposal that will allow wire-tapping by FRA, the National Defence Radio Establishment, of phone and email traffic that crosses Swedish borders. The Swedish Riksdag will vote on the proposal on June 18, so the law is a hot topic also in mainstream media. But I did not expect that it would be so hot that Dagens Nyheter would actually use a 12 month old story as their top story this morning. The headline in the printed paper is “IT company (or companies) in attack on new law” or “IT-bolag till attack mot ny lag” in Swedish. In the blurb below, readers are given the impression that Google just lashed out against the law, saying they won’t place any servers in Sweden, should the law become reality. But inside the paper we find that this is a quote by Peter Fleischer, Google’s spokesperson on integrity issues, made in an interview for InternetWorld in May 2007.

The second IT company to “go to attack” is TeliaSonera, which already back in June last year moved e-mail servers for their Finnish customers from Sweden to Finland in order to avoid wire-tapping. One would expect a lot more news value in the lead story in Sweden’s leading daily.

It was also interesting to see how DN used the quotes from InternetWorld, in Swedish below. DN has not used the quotes word-by-word, but instead re-arranged the quotes with different words (my bold).

IW: Vi har kontaktat svenska myndigheter för att ge vår syn på förslaget och vi har gjort det klart att vi aldrig kommer att placera några servrar innanför Sveriges gränser om förslaget går igenom.

DN: Vi har gjort klart för svenska myndigheter att vi aldrig tänker placera några Googleservrar inom Sveriges gränser om det här förslaget går igenom.

IW: Vi kan helt enkelt inte kompromissa med våra användares integritet och låta svenska myndigheter ta del av data som kanske inte ens rör svensk aktivitet.

DN: Vi kan helt enkelt inte kompromettera våra användares integritet genom att ge svenska myndigheter tillgång till data som kanske inte ens har med svensk aktivitet att göra.

IW: Förslaget är sprunget ur en tradition inledd av Saudiarabien och Kina och hör helt enkelt inte hemma i en västerländsk demokrati.

DN: Det här förslaget liknar något som hittats på av Saudiarabien och Kina. Sådant bör helt enkelt inte ha någon plats i en västerländsk demokrati.

It is worth noting that quotes are also protected by copyright, according to professor Jan Rosén at Stockholm University, and that newspapers in the past have criticized each other for exaggerated or improper use of quotes.

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TeliaSonera to sell iPhone in Nordic and Baltic region

This could possibly be the shortest press release this year, but the 30 words issued this morning from TeliaSonera will still create a significant buzz in the market. The Swedish-Finnish telecom operator has signed an agreement with Apple to sell the iPhone in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia “later this year”.

IDG has an “interview” with a press officer at Telia who does not reveal anything more than the press release. Quite amusing.

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