Helga Pedersen – Parliamentary and deputy leader of the Labour Party (Ap) – answered criticism about how she has defended the directive in yesterday’s Dagbladet. Is Pedersen being sensible, or is it a case of mutton dressed up as lamb?

Putting the frighteners on

Pedersen comments about recent reactions to her having brought the terms “paedophilia” and “child pornography” into the debate, and has been criticised for using them in a renewed attempt to justify why Norway needs the directive.

In an earlier commentary, Marie Simonsen – Dagbladet’s political editor – writes that she wasn’t convinced by Pedersen’s tactics.

“When the deputy leader Helga Pedersen is to defend the introduction of the EU’s controversial data retention directive, she turns to a type of language she has experience with that most people understand. Scaremongering. It’s been used effectively in the debate about asylum seekers.”

Though few would argue that paedophilia is not a serious crime – and Pedersen herself writes that she isn’t accusing anyone for taking the Internet-based sexual assault of children lightly – the way she goes about it in her commentary can be called into question. As a “holier than thou” opener, she writes

“But I, in comparison to most of the others that have taken part in the debate so far, have chosen to focus on the victims of serious crime. To discuss the directive without focusing on the protection of children and other potential victims of serious crime would be meaningless.”

Seamless

Knut Storberget – the Minister of Justice – has already pointed out as the authorities already store data on an occasional basis in their fight against crime, and believes that the directive will mean little change to current practices.

Though Pedersen says that data retention is an essential part of investigations by the police, she gives the directive a little extra “value for money”, perhaps causing brows to furrow and heads to nod.

“Above all, the message from those at Kripos (the Criminal Police Centre) who work on systematically uncovering paedophile networks, and who point out that many can go free as a result of Norwegian data traffic information being erased too early, is thought-provoking.”

Paradox

But though Pedersen argues the directive will also prevent terrorism, preserving people’s freedom of speech, it doesn’t give access to information contained in text messages, emails, or details of which Internet sites have been visited.

Jenny Klinge on green background
sp_bilder/FlickrJenny Klinge – the Centre Party’s (Sp) political spokesperson for justice – believes the directive to be both inadequate and problematic for many reasons.

"It’s obvious that there are good arguments for the police being able to solve cases of paedophilia but we have to impose limits, rather than allow for the possibility of unlimited surveillance of everyone. However, when it comes to serious crime, it’s not enough just to record the when, where, or whom. Sp would like the police to be given proper and effective measures to combat it, amongst other things to have powers to record the what,” she tells The Foreigner

Klinge sees the directive as being a problem for personal privacy and the right to self expression.

“If we take what Pedersen says to extremes, retaining the content would be a big violation.”

She also believes the directive will lead to more, rather than less crime.

“The directive obliges phone companies and Internet providers to retain the information without financial compensation. Data security is an important dimension. Mass retention of data is not the answer, because there are several groups who wish to remain anonymous, or are worried that their information will be misused.”