Pirate Party Publishes Manifesto

The Swedish PiratPartiet published their manifesto online on August 29th, a translation for English speakers is below:

The Pirate Party Election Manifesto 2006

Preface
The election program of the Pirate Party consists of various nautical
charts, describing what we want to do in each of the areas within the
Pirate Party policies. These charts are divided in sections based on
deadline and what is to be done on a Swedish and on a European level.

As an introduction to these charts, we describe our ideology and our main policies.

Protected integrity in an open society
The development of technology has made sure Sweden and Europe stand
before a fork in the road. The new technology offers fantastic
possibilities to spread culture and knowledge all over the world with
almost no costs. But it also makes way for the building of a society
monitored at a level unheard of up until now.

In no time, the monitoring state has advanced its positions strongly
in Sweden. This development threatens equality and safety before the
law, and nothing indicates that it even adds to security. The Pirate
Party believes this is the wrong way to go.

The right to privacy is a corner stone in an open and democratic
society. Each and everyone has the right to respect for one’s own
private and family life, one’s home and one’s
correspondence. If the constitutional freedom of information is to be
more than empty words on a paper, we much defend the right for
protected private communication.

The arguments for every individual step towards a monitoring society
may sound very convincing, but we only have to look at the recent
history of Europe to see where that road leads. It is less than twenty
years since the fall of the Berlin wall, and there are numerous other
terrible examples. To claim that it’s only those with something
to hide that has anything to fear is simply lacking knowledge of
history, and lacking courage.

We have no problem with police monitoring and spying on suspected
criminals. That is exactly what the police is suppose to be doing. But
routinely monitoring ordinary citizens hoping for something suspicious
to turn up is not only a gross violation of the privacy of honest
people. It is also a waste of valuable police resources.

We have to pull the emergency break on the train running towards a
society we don’t want. Terrorists can attack our open society,
but only governments can disband it. The Pirate Party wants to ensure
that this doesn’t happen.

Private communication and file sharing
A driving force behind the current monitoring hysteria is the
entertainment business, which wants to prevent people from file sharing
copyrighted material. But to achieve this all private communication
must be monitored. To know what ones and zeros make up a movie, the
ones and zeros has to be analyzed. It is the same sort of ones and
zeros that is sent, regardless of if it makes up a piece of music, or a
letter to a doctor or a lawyer.

Therefore society ha to choose: do we want a possibility to trustingly communicate over the Internet to exist?

If your answer is yes, it means that also those that shares copyrighted material can use these possibilities.

If you answer is no, it means that you abolish the right of
information, the right to mail secrecy and the right to a private life.

There are no other answers.

It is not possible to claim that society should allow mail secrecy
for certain purposes, but not for others, since it is impossible to
separate the different cases without breeching the secrecy. It is the
same types of ones and zeros being used, and only by opening the
message, it is possible to see what it contains.

The current copyright legislation can not be combined with freedom
of information and protected private communication. Since the
fundamental principles of the open, democratic society is more
important than conserving old business models within the business of
entertainment at all costs, copyright has to fold.

But this is not negative. A reformed copyright legislation,
expressing a balance between different interests in society instead of
being an order form from the large media companies, has its own
benefits. It is a possibility for Sweden and Europe, not a threat.

The spreading of culture and knowledge is a positive thing
Thanks to the Internet it is today possible for everyone with a
computer to take part of a fantastic treasure of culture and knowledge.

Instead of being limited to a cultural canon decided from above, the
youths of today has access to the music, theater and pictures of an
entire world. This is something we should embrace, not something we
should try to forbid. File sharing is good for society and its people.

All non-commercial acquiring, using, bettering and spread of culture
should be actively encouraged. The Internet is filling the same
function today as popular education did a hundred years ago. It is
something positive and good for the development of society.

The copyright legislation must be changes so that it is made
perfectly clear that it only regulate use and copying of works done for
commercial purposes. To share copies, or in any other way spread or use
someone else’s work, should never be forbidden as long as it is
done on an idealistic basis without the purposes of commercial gain.

Unfortunately, the legislation has developed in quite the opposite
direction. On July 1, 2005, a million ordinary Swedes were suddenly
turned into criminals over night, simply because they download movies
and music. This doesn’t only hurt our possibilities to take part
of culture. In the long run it undermines the trust of our entire
judicial apparatus. This development has to end.

In a similar fashion, patents are used to inhibit the spread and use of knowledge, which hurts society as a whole.

Medical patents make people in poor countries die for no reason. It
twists the priorities in research and makes the costs for medications a
problem in every health care budget.

Software patents inhibit technical development within the info tech
area and presents a serious threat against small as well as mid-sized
businesses and individual developers. They run the risk of putting the
power over the Internet completely in the hands of a small number of
multi national businesses.

We want to release knowledge, and have specific suggestion on how to
avoid the negative consequences that the patent system means.

Sweden and Europe has everything to gain from choosing the path of openness.

No other issues
The Pirate Party does not have any policies on issues that
traditionally concerns the left-right scale, or any other issues
outside of our program of policiies.

We particularly does not concern ourselves with the division of
wealth. We are not after dividing money between different groups in
society. None of our propositions costs any money for the state, and
several of them may potentially save money in the budget. Because of
this, we can place ourselves outside of the struggle concerning the
budget, with good faith, and leave it to the old parties.

We are ready to support a social democratic as well as a
non-socialist government, we claim that both Göran Persson as well
as Fredrik Reinfeldt are well capable of taking the role as the head of
government in a satisfactory manner. We do not believe that the
differences between them are that big, in reality, and every one of us
are ready to live with any of them as our prime minister.

The only thing that concerns us, is the protection of our open
society and democracy, that the march towards a controlled society is
cancelled, and that culture and knowledge are set free.

Our goal is to reach the parliament and being in a position where we
can tip the scale. If we succeed in this we will talk to both
Göran Persson and Fredrik Reinfeldt alike. We will explain what we
want, and point out that our policies in no way differs from either
traditional social democratic policy or traditional
liberal/non-socialist policy.

After that, we will support the person aspiring to form a
government, who is ready to make the best deal with us on our policies.
On any matter outside of our policy statement, we will support and vote
for the current government, no matter what we believe individually on
different matters.

Due to the fact that we do not have a view on everything on this
earth, but concentrate completely on the issues where we have formed a
policy, we can promise a result if we make it to the house of
parliament in a scale-tipping position. That makes us unique in Swedish
political history.

We are the only party that will never deal away our free and open society for the benifit of any other issue or interest.

More on the Pirate Party tipping the scale
The Pirate Party does not take a stand in issues generally associated
with the right or left, or any other issues that are not part of our
declaration of principles. We are ready to support a socialdemocratic
as well as a non-socialist government. The only thing that concerns us
is that the march towards a controlled society is cancelled, and that
culture and knowledge in society are set free,

On of the factions within Swedish politics has really anything to
lose in reality by satisfying more or less all of our demands. Neither
Persson nor Reinfeldt have any personal interest in keeping the
absurdity that is current copyright legislation. The fact that things
look like they do, is primarily due to lack of interest in the area,
and that they have therefore allowed the ‘experts’ (i.e.
the lobbyists of the entertainment industry) have their way.

In a situation where they can gain position of forming a government
by striking a deal with us in an issue that they, themselves, believe
to be less important, there is every reason to believe that they will
be eager to find a solution.

But in either case, there are three possible scenarios:

1) One of the factions agree to our demands, and
the other does not. Then we will choose the faction that agree with us.
Whether this is the red faction of the blue faction is of no concern
for us. As long as we see that they are doing their best to seriously
run our issues, we will support the government in all other issues as
well, without questioning.

2) Both the factions agree to our demands. If there
are differences of nuances making one faction looking slightly better
than the other, we will choose this faction. If both are exactly as
good, we will support the faction with the more votes. This way we
won’t influence the balance between the factions in Swedish
politics. As long as the government is running our issues, we will
support them in all decicions, just as in the first scenario.

3) Both the factions refuse to meet our demands.
This is the more complicated case, but we can handle this one too.
Initially we will support one faction, and make a government possible.
Most likely this will be the ones with the less votes, so that the
others, the ‘victors’, will feel that they have lost power
they were entitled to. They can, however, not do much about it, since
we will support the government without questioning in anything that
does not involve our principles.

When the “victors” are safely placed in the penalty box
of opposition, we start our businesslike, low-voiced conversations with
them, until they realize that our proposals are not, in fact, that
dangerous, and that they can only win from working with us. When they
have seen our arguments in the glow of the miraging governmental
position for a while, there are good reasons to believe they will agree
with us. This is when we will call for a vote of non-confidence and
change the government. After that, the Pirate Party with support the
new government without questioning, in all issues, as long as the
government runs our issues forcefully, just as in scenario 1 and 2.

This is our entire strategy. This way we can guarantee that our policies will have a break-through.

Questions and answers about our scale-tipping strategy
- How do we handle parliamentary votes that do not include any issues that the Pirate Party runs?

We will support the government in office, no matter what our personal opinions might be.

- Will the party try to make deals with other parties (”if
you vote for us on issue “X” and “Y” we will
help you with “Z”)?

No, we will talk to the party in office. As long as they do as we
want in our issues, we will support them in all other matters. We do
not wish to try shopping a la carte from different parties (if we do,
we will only be shoved aside). If the government stops this manner of
cooperation, we will change the government, but as long as we tolerate
a government, we are completely loyal to them in all other issues,
those not in our program.

- …or not vote?

If the government needs our support in the parliament it can count
on it. We will not cancel our votes if this would affect the turnout
against the government.

- …or let the individual MPs decide for themselves?

Under no circumstances. The day we start voting after personal
preference, we have nothing more to offer the other parties in a
negotiation. If this happens, we can no longer benefit from our
position, and have no longer any means to influence the policies that
is the closest to our hearts.

- But in the third scenario (that is if none of the factions wants
to offer anything at all, even though we are tipping the scale), why
would we want to support the government? We should obviously be able to
offer them to vote, from their perspective, in an unseemly manner? It
seems a bit awkward to give them what they want first (by support) and
then trying to negotiate.

The idea in the third scenario is that we help a government form,
that we ourselves aren’t happy with, but who we choose to support
indefinitely anyway. Principally only to tease the opposition, in other
words. When the opposition has spent a few months being grumpy because
they can’t form a government even though they think they won the
election, they have two alternatives to choose from. They can either
stay grumpy for the next four years, or they can start talking to us to
find out if they can “talk sense in to us” and have our
support.

The big prize is the government, both for the left and the right,
and they have nothing to lose from having a dialogue with us. With
that, we’ve managed to initialize a discussion with the
opposition concerning these issues. Since our proposals does not, in
any way, clash with the basic values of neither the left wing nor the
right wing block, and since they are good proposals, objectively, for
Sweden, there is no reason to believe that they would prefer to stay
grumpy for the next four years instead of making a deal with us.

But until they have done so, we will consistently vote with their
opponents (i.e. the government that we support even if we think they
are no good). That way the opposition will have an even bigger reason
to strike a deal with us, even more so than if we voted without a clear
direction. The more votes the opposition loses concerning health care /
education / taxes / disbanding of military units, the more eager they
will become to have a change of government.

The government that is in power even though we think they’re
no good will perhaps feel happy to be able to carry through whatever
they want without giving us anything in return. But they will know that
all it takes for them to lose office is one word from the opposition.
So the joy they’re feeling will hardly be very deep or long
lasting.

The point of helping a government to form even if none of the
players gives us what we want is that we want to add to stablity and
let things calm down a bit. One can’t postpone negotiations about
the government more than a couple of weeks after the election. If we
can’t have a government that we want because it promises to see
our points and work for them, it’s still better to help a
government we don’t like. The country needs a government.

Parliamentarism is such an ingenious system because the parliament
can throw out the government in office whenever a majority of its
members wish. The leader of the opposition will know this, no matter if
his name is Persson or Reinfeldt. So why would he not talk to us to see
if he can create a majority for a vote of no confidence? And why would
he not meet our demands when he has had time to think about them, and
realize that they do not oppose his own ideology or any core party
issues in any way?

If we make it to the parliament, but can not tip the scale
Even if we would not reach a position where we can tip the scale, we
can still do a lot of good in the standing committees. Much of the
malfunctioning legislation that is voted through is often voted through
because the established parties do not understand the Internet and all
the new technology. They have not thought through the consequences of
building a controlled society to conserve the old instead of embracing
the possibilities we have in our time.

They often blindly trust what lobbyists and civil servants at the
departments tell them to think. They do not see these issues as
important enough to put down time getting an informed opinion.

We can hopefully change this, simply by being part of the
committees, pressing the fact that these are important issues. Neither
social democrats nor moderates really want to make it illegal for small
businesses to develop new software, after all, or put all Swedish
youths in prison. The fact that they still make or argue for laws that
has these consequences is mostly due to lack of knowledge. We can
supply the standing committees with a well needed competence and a
valuable perspective.

- If we can’t tip the scale, will we try to negotiate about individual issues?

In this scenario, negotiations will hardly be our most important
tool, simply because we wouldn’t have much of a negotiation
position. If they can create a majority without us, they won’t
need to negotiate with us at all.

But this does not mean that all would be lost. We could still add a
lot, simply by being constructive in our committee work. Much of the
worst legislation is due to the fact that the established parties lack
knowledge and interest in our issues.

- …or will we simply cancel our votes?

In a situation where there is a parliamentary majority without us,
it wouldn’t matter how we voted, and then it doesn’t make a
difference. The simplest thing would be to simply not vote.

- …or do we present bills that are promptly turned down?

We might want to present bills as part of our work to clarify the
choices our society has, but the purpose then would only be to raise
these issues. We would probably have to spend more time discussing the
pros and cons of the bills that are about to be clubbed.

- …or should we simply stay home with our kids?

Participating in the committees in a constructive manner aside,
there will be much work to be done on the European level. Some of the
decisions we want carried through can only be made in Brussels.
Therefore we have all reason to do what we can to support our sister
parties in other countries, and help them get started. So there might
not be much time for vacation, even if we don’t get to support a
government.

The Pirate Party | Piratpartiet