5 Mar 09

Lex Nokia

This is actually not a film-related article, but something I’ve been quite concerned about lately, so I’ll write about it here.

1984-not-handbook

Finland has been known for quite a long time as one of the most uncorrupted countries in the world. Yesterday, this was changed. A law dubbed as “Lex Nokia” was lobbied and steamrolled through in the Parliament of Finland. The law has received a lot of criticism from the law professors, general public and Internet actives because of it’s vague wording which, in the end, may give certain parties in Finland more power to watch over the Internet than for example police has nowadays. In addition to that, it has come clear that a lot of a bit strange lobbying and even threats have been attached to the preparation process of the law. It is said that Nokia has threatened to leave Finland and take the 16000 jobs with it, if the law doesn’t go through.

The law itself gives the right for the employers to monitor the emails of the employees, but the law extends also to other communities, like housing cooperatives, which makes it even more ambiguous and vague.

One of the saddest things was that some parties that I would’ve expected to vote against the law either staid out of the conversation, or changed their view in the end. The biggest disappointment was the Green Party (Vihreät), from where only Energia’s main favourite MP Jyrki Kasvi was doing the right thing and voting against it. Strangely enough, both Perussuomalaiset (far-right) and SDP & Vasemmisto (left-wing) both were collectively against the law, but all together almost 1/4 of the Parliament were not present at the voting, and it was smashed through with a clear majority voting for the law.

Here are the results of the vote.

Makes you think, makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

- Timo

Related Posts with Thumbnails
Share and Enjoy:
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Digg
  • Reddit
  • del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon

Tags:

80 Responses to “Lex Nokia”

Leave a Reply