CENTRUM FÖR RÄTTVISA v. SWEDEN JUDGMENT
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enforcement or crime prevention, which come under the mandate of the
Police Authority, the Security Police and other authorities and which are
regulated by different legislation. However, authorities that conduct foreign
intelligence may support authorities dealing with law enforcement or crime
prevention (section 4). Examples of such support are cryptanalysis and
technical help on information security (preparatory works to amended
legislation on foreign intelligence, prop. 2006/07:63, p. 136).
9. The collection of electronic signals is one form of foreign
intelligence. It is regulated by the Signals Intelligence Act (Lagen om
signalspaning i försvarsunderrättelseverksamhet; 2008:717), which entered
into force on 1 January 2009. Several amendments were made to the Act on
1 December 2009, 1 January 2013, 1 January 2015 and 15 July 2016.
Supplementary provisions are found in the Signals Intelligence Ordinance
(Förordningen om signalspaning i försvarsunderrättelseverksamhet;
2008:923). The legislation authorises the National Defence Radio
Establishment (Försvarets radioanstalt; henceforth “the FRA”) to conduct
signals intelligence (section 2 of the Ordinance compared to section 1 of the
Act). During signals intelligence all cable-based cross-border
communications are transferred to certain points of collection. No
information is stored at these points and a limited amount of data traffic is
transferred to the FRA by signals carriers (parliamentary committee report
SOU 2016:45, p. 107) The FRA may conduct signals intelligence within the
area of foreign intelligence only as a result of a detailed tasking directive
issued by the Government, the Government Offices, the Armed Forces and,
as from January 2013, the Security Police and the National Operative
Department of the Police Authority (Nationella operativa avdelningen i
Polismyndigheten; hereafter “NOA”) (sections 1(1) and 4(1) of the Act) in
accordance with the issuer’s precise intelligence requirements. However, the
direction of the FRA’s “development activities” (see further paragraph 14
below) may be determined solely by the Government (section 4(2)). A
detailed tasking directive determines the direction of the intelligence
activities and may concern a certain phenomenon or situation, but it may not
solely target a specific natural person (section 4(3)).
10. The mandate of the Security Police and the NOA to issue detailed
tasking directives aims to improve these authorities’ ability to obtain data
about foreign circumstances at a strategic level concerning international
terrorism and other serious international crime that may threaten essential
national interests. At the time of introduction of the new rules, the
Government stated in the preparatory works (prop. 2011/12:179, p. 19) that
the mandate is in accordance with the prohibition on conducting signals
intelligence for the purpose of solving tasks in the area of law enforcement
or crime prevention.
11. According to the Foreign Intelligence Ordinance (Förordningen om
försvarsunderrättelseverksamhet; 2000:131), a detailed tasking directive