Bodström Gone

Sweden's future looking brighter.

Get It Try It

STOCKHOLM (Radsoft) — Big Brother enthusiast Thomas Bodström has decided to leave politics and remain in the US with his family. There'll probably be demonstrations across the country with people rejoicing.

1. Bodström's the one who engineered the attack on The Pirate Party.
2. Bodström's the one who pushed the Data Retention Directive through the EU parliament.
3. Bodström's the one who's been nagging about more surveillance of the citizenry.
4. Bodström's the partner of rabid feminist Claes Borgström who came out of nowhere to represent Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilén in their accusations against Julian Assange and who forced the mostly dismissed case to be escalated to Marianne Ny where it's been stagnating for a month.
5. Bodström's the one who wanted to mutate the already notoriously ridiculous 'sexköpslagen' which cements the innocence of prostitutes but criminalises their johns.
6. Bodström's the one who wasn't even a member of the Social Democrat party until offered a cabinet post.
7. Bodström's the offspring of the somewhat disgraced Lennart Bodström.
8. Bodström's the one who wanted to further expand definitions of rape crimes to eventually include further definitions of 'sexual coercion' which with time would probably include 'soft music', 'soft lighting', flowers and chocolates.
9. Bodström's the one who so provoked the Swedish citizenry that they coined the expression 'Bodströmsamhället' - 'The Bodström Society' - to describe the obscenely Orwellian nightmare vision of life in Sweden as he would have had it.

Bodström's departure means the Social Democrats are further split. Things are getting very weak around their weak leader Mona Sahlin, writes Göran Eriksson for SvD. And perhaps Eriksson laments the loss of another 'leader' who can replace Sahlin (and she needs replacing badly) but most Swedes will probably be glad when both are finally gone.

Great Bodström Bites

'Otherwise people who run slave markets and run brothels could decide to start a newspaper and call their brothels newspapers so they couldn't be bugged.'
 - Bodström explaining why governments must be able to bug newspaper offices

'No one would have reacted if it had been a letter from a Norwegian feminist organisation that wanted us to clamp down on slavery and prostitution.'
 - Bodström comparing The Pirate Bay with slavery

'No I'm not afraid of technology. Things seem so difficult with user names, passwords, headlines. It wasn't long ago I learned how to use email and SMS. I've never before been able to record videos in advance and I have to ask the kids for help when I want to watch a DVD. But it costs to be a technological idiot. A few weeks ago I was traveling around and thinking. I thought it was difficult to force the petrol pump in the tank but I kept pushing and finally got it in. I got about 200 metres from the station and my diesel car stopped abruptly. Two hours to wait for a tow truck and $1500 poorer.'
 - Bodström on his blog

'Sweden has never had a minister of justice who in such a short time initiated so many repressive proposals as Thomas Bodström. He's a danger to civil rights.'
 - DN.se main editorial 22 December 2005

'Thomas Bodström will be remembered as the minister of justice who flushed the Swedes' civil rights down the head. He wants to eavesdrop on people who aren't even suspected of criminal activity, he wants to monitor all computer traffic, he wants to read all your email, he wants to store your telephone calls, and he wants to remove the prohibition against using the military against civilians.'
 - Anna Sjödin January 2006

'He's just rushed ahead in some areas. He doesn't always seem to spontaneously take along his checklist for civil rights and guarantees of personal integrity.'
 - Johan Pehrson op-ed DN.se 30 January 2006

'Bodström has put forth proposal after proposal after proposal to limit our personal integrity. More and more people are starting to feel a great uneasiness that something bad is happening with their lives. The more of this we tolerate the riskier it becomes.'
 - Maud Olofsson Centre Party

'The government are creating a society which in an extreme form makes the futuristic dystopia of 1984 pale in comparison.'
 - Oscar Swartz in television documentary 'The March to the Bodström Society'

'The Bodström Society clips our wings and ultimately threatens democracy by giving the powers that be huge opportunities to get at any enemy they choose.'
 - Oscar Swartz in television documentary 'The March to the Bodström Society'

'We've not had a minister of justice in modern times who's implemented as much repressive legislation as Thomas Bodström.'
 - Dennis Töllborg professor of political science 8 August 2006

Things are looking like Claes Borgström will have to run things by himself from now on. No more time for sucking up to the communist feminists, probably no time to represent Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilén either.

This is a great day for Sweden.

Investigations by Constitutional Committee

Sweden's constitutional committee (konstitutionsutskottet) investigated Thomas Bodström on four occasions.

2006-06-02. 050-3638-2005-06. Investigation into minister of justice Thomas Bodström's interference with the work of police and prosecution authority
http://www.riksdagen.se/upload/Dokument/utskotteunamnd/200506/KU/AnmG53_polis%20.pdf
'According to evidence presented by Swedish Television, the government of the United States was behind raid on The Pirate Bay. A delegation with representatives for the ministry of justice and the police met with US authorities in April 2006 who had taken up the matter on behalf of Hollywood's lobby organisation MPAA. The department of justice then asked the police and prosecutor to do something about the situation. But when they responded that the judicial situation was unclear, minister of justice Thomas Bodström's state secretary contacted the heads of the Swedish prosecution authority and the Swedish police and told them they were being given an order to act.'

2006-06-02. 050-3639-2005/06. Investigation of minister of justice Thomas Bodström's attempts to influence the police regarding their actions against The Pirate Bay
http://www.riksdagen.se/upload/Dokument/utskotteunamnd/200506/KU/AnmG54_polis.pdf
'Completely innocent corporations were harmed when the police weren't satisfied with confiscating the servers of The Pirate Bay but went on to empty complete server halls and thereby disconnected and walked away with servers belonging to completely legal websites.'

2006-06-26. 050-3918-2005/06. Investigation of minister of justice Thomas Bodström's actions concerning The Pirate Bay
http://www.riksdagen.se/upload/Dokument/utskotteunamnd/200506/KU/Anm_G_13_piratebay.pdf

2006-09-15. 050-4579-2005/06. Investigation of the actions of the minister of justice in connection with Sweden's proposal for the Data Retention Directive in the European Union
http://www.riksdagen.se/upload/Dokument/utskotteunamnd/200506/KU/anm_g_15.pdf

(The investigations ended abruptly after September 2006 for the simple reason Bodström's party lost the elections that month and he was voted out of office.)