The Pirates campaigned with a program that advocates more Government transparency, more involvement for citizens, less copyright monopolies and the use of free software.

This message was received well by the public as 21 Pirate Party representatives were voted into regional parliaments. In addition, several other Pirates gained seats through the lists of other local parties.

One of the biggest victories was booked in Mariánské lázně where the Pirates came out as the biggest party with 21% of the total vote. This means that the Czech town may soon have its first Pirate mayor.

The Pirate Party also did well in the capital city of Prague where it received 5.3% of the vote. This translates to four seats in the local parliament.

Despite the successes the Pirates don’t expect that they will govern in many regions. This may happen in a few places, but only if they can agree on a good program with the other parties.

“Generally we are against coalitions, especially in Prague, but in some regions with parties and people who are closer to our program we might govern,” Pirate Party’s Markéta Gregorová tells TorrentFreak.

According to Maša Čorak, co-chairperson of Pirate Parties International, the Czech success was welcomed after several disappointing results in other European countries. Talking to the Pirate Times, she says that the victory will carry over to other countries.

‘I have no doubt that every single Czech pirate that succeeds in being an elected official will do a tremendous job in promoting our core goals and ideas and putting them back in the public spotlight. That is, after all, the beauty of this movement; a victory in just one country can be and will be a huge step forward throughout entire Europe,” she says.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Most recently Austrian anti-piracy group VAP completed its mission to have two streaming sites – Movie4K and Kinox – blocked by local ISPs. The achievement was the culmination of years of work through the Austrian courts right through to the European Court of Justice and back again.

Several local ISPs (UPC, 3, Tele2 and A1) are now all blocking the sites and it’s widely expected that not only will VAP return for blocks of additional sites, but it will also be accompanied by recording group IFPI who will take on Pirate Bay and other sites.

In the meantime, however, the Austrian division of the Pirate Party is complaining loudly about what they view as web censorship. So today, just a few hours from now, they intend to give the Hollywood-affiliated group a small taste of their own medicine.

At 2pm Austrian time, party members and their supporters say they will descend on VAP headquarters in Vienna to air their opinions on blocking and other censorship measures. The organizers hope that their small offline ‘blockade’ will in some way mirror those experienced online.

Under the slogan “Block the Blocker”, the pirates say they will form their own symbolic obstruction outside Wiedner Hauptstrasse 63, 1040 Vienna, to raise awareness of why web filtering is highly problematic and useless for protecting artists. It’s a position broadly shared by several political parties in Austria including the Greens.

Of course, the pirates won’t be able to fully block access to VAP’s building, since that would be against the law. However, if they did manage to achieve that somehow – even unintentionally – VAP employees could simply enter their workplace through another entrance, or perhaps an adjoining building.

And with Kinox now circumventing the ISP blockade after adding a new .TV domain, there won’t be a pirate present today who doesn’t appreciate that irony.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

In more than a dozen countries local Pirate Parties were also present at the ballots, with serious ambitions.

During the last elections in 2009 the Pirate Party surprised friend and foe by gaining two seats at the European Parliament. This year they hoped to equal or improve upon that success, but the goal proved out of reach.

The final results show that the German Pirate Party is certain of a seat, with 1.4% of the total vote. This means that 27-year-old Julia Reda will represent the Pirates in Brussels during the next five years.

In the Czech Republic the Pirate Party came awfully close too. They achieved 4.78% of the total vote where 5% was needed, just 3,337 votes short of a seat in Brussels. The party has announced that it will appeal the 5% barrier.

In Sweden, where it all started, the Pirate Party managed 2.2% of the total vote. That’s down from 7.1% during the previous European Election and not enough for a continued stay in Brussels for the Swedish Pirates.

In Luxembourg the Pirate Party did very well with 4.23% of the total vote. However, this doesn’t translate into a seat since the country only has six seats available. The result does mean that the party will receive funding from Europe during the years to come, which was an aim they had shared with us two weeks ago.

In all the other countries where Pirates were on the ballot the achievements are also below the threshold for a seat.

This includes Finland where Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde participated. Sunde is the most popular Pirate there, but the party only managed 0.7% of the vote, not enough for him to be elected.

While many had hoped for at least two seats, or more, the German seat is still quite an impressive achievement.

When the Swedish Pirate Party entered the European Parliament five years ago most people thought it was a fluke. However, the Pirates managed to stay in Brussels, supported by the votes of close to a million people all across Europe.

This sentiment is shared by Rick Falkvinge, founder of the first Pirate Party. “As a movement, we went from two seats to one, being ridiculously close to three seats,” Falkvinge tells TorrentFreak.

“Still, there’s no points for a near-hit in any game. The most important thing was that there would be Pirates in the European Parliament after this election day, and we achieved that. The story continues, and there’s representation on the inside,” he adds.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

During the last elections five years ago the Pirate Party surprised friend and foe by gaining two seats at the European Parliament. This year it is hoped that this success will be equaled or improved upon, a realistic aim according to current polls.

To increase the chance of a good result the Pirate parties have been on the campaign trail over the past few weeks. Today, these efforts are increasing thanks to a secret weapon no other party has access to: The Pirate Bay.

The Pirate parties struck a deal with the notorious torrent site which is now displaying localized banners in ten countries. The banners are featured on TPB’s homepage and replace the site’s iconic logo. This is in addition to a general Pirate Party banner that had been up and running for a few days already.

The prominent placement guarantees hundreds of thousands of eyeballs per day, some of which may end up in the voting booth. Rick Falkvinge, founder of the first Pirate Party, is delighted with the “pirate” partnership.

“I’m very happy that our brothers in arms are providing this great exposure to the political arm of the movement”, Falkvinge tells TorrentFreak.

“Most offline-born politicians wouldn’t realize that this exposure roughly equals buying the whole cover of every single newspaper in Europe, every day for the whole duration of the campaign.”

As in previous elections, the Pirate parties are calling for more transparency, better privacy protections, and decriminalization of file-sharing for personal use. The latter is of course a good match with TPB’s core philosophy.

And there’s another Pirate Bay connection in this year’s election race. In Finland, TPB co-founder and former site spokesman Peter Sunde is one of the candidates. Sunde is also calling for changes to current copyright laws.

“Non-commercial file sharing should of course become legal and protected, and we must re-think copyright all together. Copyright is not the thing that makes ARTISTS money, it’s only for their brokers and distributors,” Sunde told us previously.

While a few Pirates in Parliament might not get this done without help, the track record of the current Pirate MEPs, Christian Engström and Amelia Andersdotter, shows that a difference can be made.

Below are the banners for all the Pirate parties that are currently being promoted through The Pirate Bay in their respective countries. In a few days we will know whether the Pirates can continue their presence in the European Parliament and with how many.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

In roughly two weeks time, people all over the European Union will be going to the polls to elect the next European Parliament. Five years ago, the Swedish Pirate Party had a substantial victory with over 7% of the vote, and while the German Pirates didn’t get a seat, they did claim over two hundred thousand votes.

Now, five years later, more Pirate parties are now in a position to contest the election.

Today we provide a quick run-down of the Pirate candidates in the various countries, sorted by incumbency and seat apportionment (Note: many links are to non-English language websites)

Sweden (20 seats)

The only country with incumbent MEPs, the order of Sweden’s two main candidates is unchanged from 2009, with Christian Engstrom first, followed by Amelia Andersdotter. Amelia, the youngest ever MEP when she was elected, is also one of the candidates for the EU commission presidency.

Christian told TorrentFreak: “The struggle to protect freedom on the Internet will continue, from defending net neutrality to fighting against mass surveillance. We must explain to the politicians from the older parties that the Internet is not a toy, and that we must defend our fundamental rights as vigorously in the online world as in the offline.”

The full list of candidates competing for the 20 seats is available here.

Germany (96)

Competing alongside Sweden in 2009, Germany also has the most seats of any country, with 96 up for grabs. While they didn’t quite hit 1% last time, they’ve been doing well in various regional elections for the last year or two, and they’re hardly a new ‘unelectable’ party either, with 250 seats at various state and local governments. The 5% election threshold was ruled unconstitutional in 2011 and a proposed value of 3% was also struck down a few months ago, meaning that just over 1% of the votes are needed to start winning seats, well within their grasp.

“Our vision for Europe,” lead candidate Julia Reda told TF, “is based on the Internet: on sharing, collaboration and a community of peers. We need Pirates in the European Parliament to reform copyright and enable the sharing of culture and knowledge across national borders.”

France (74, contesting 56)

France is one of a select few countries that use a regional constituency system, rather than a national list. The French Pirate Party is running 13 candidates in the North west, 20 in the south west region, 26 in the South East, 10 in Centre, 30 in Ile-de France (which includes Paris) and 9  for the overseas territories of France.

Interestingly, there are at least twice as many candidates on each regions list than there are seats available, meaning that at least half the pirates are never going to be elected no matter how well they do.

United Kingdom (73, contesting 8)

Like France, Poland and Italy, the UK is also split into several constituencies, with the UK Pirate Party only contesting one, their headquarters region of  North West England. They’re focusing on this area after having had some success in local elections in the recent past, beating, or equaling the coalition-government party candidates. In keeping with the open nature of the party, they’re also raising money for the election via crowdfunding platform Pozible.

Candidate Jack Alnutt is firm on why people should vote Pirate. “The European Union needs more transparent and open governance, more democratic involvement with increased powers for the Parliament and better protection of our fundamental rights. The only way to make this happen is to vote Pirate in May.”

Spain (54)

The situation in Spain is more complex than normal. There have been two competing pirate groups for a while, Partido Pirata – the national party formed in 2006 which covered the whole of Spain – and a group of regional parties that have now banded together under the banner Confederacion Pirata. It’s this latter group that is running candidates nationally.

Their list of 50 candidates is headed by Dario Castañé from Barcelona, a 29-year-old computer engineer who describes politics as “a passion of mine”.  With seats being awarded on just 2.5% of the vote last year, they have a strong chance of getting at least one Pirate into the European Parliament.

Poland (51, contesting 16)

Poland is another constitution-based system. Here only 6 pirates are running for election, but they’re also running in a coalition, with the Direct Democracy party, the Libertarian Party, and a number of independent candidates.

Four of these are going to compete for the 4 seats in Łódź [district 6] (spots 1, 3, 4, and 5), with the other two pirates on the ballot in the Silesian area [district 11] to the south (second on the list), and Lublin [district 8] to the east (fourth on the list).

Netherlands (26)

The ten Pirates contesting the Dutch seats are led by scientist Matthijs Pontier. They recently celebrated the first elected Pirate to the Board committee of Amsterdam West with 3.6%, and fell just short of other seats in the Amsterdam South committee (3.5%) and city council (1.8%)

With no threshold to win seats, getting a seat is not outside the realms of possibility for them, especially if they can keep the momentum going.

Czech Republic (21)

The 21 seats in the Czech Republic will be contended by a full spread of Pirates. Leading the list is 34-year old Dr Ivan Bartos, Ph.D, an expert in database systems and part-time musician.

Current polls have them running a little short of their target to get a seat, but as with the Swedish party five years ago, they’ve a strong youth following which may be underrepresented in the polling. This gave them a ‘win’ in a student mock EU election with 19.2% of the vote from the 25,000+ students aged 15 and older polled. Worst case, that’s another few thousand votes next time.

Greece (21)

In Greece, the Pirate-Green cooperation that has existed in the European Parliament has continued, with a coalition list comprising candidates of both the Greek Pirate Party, and the Ecologist Greens party, along with several independent candidates.

In 2009, the Ecologist Greens won one seat with 3.9% of the vote. What impact the Pirates will have on any Green candidates is unknown, but with a formal alliance, it’s certainly expected that there will be some.

Austria (18)

Another party in an alliance, this time though, the coalition of three parties, all without national-level representation, as well as a few independents. Instead of a coalition with the Greens, as in Greece, the Austrian Pirates have instead joined forces with the Communist Party and the Change party to form the group ‘Europe Anders”.

The list is headed by current MEP Martin Ehrenhauser (elected on a pirate-like anti-corruption and pro-transparency platform via the “Hans-Peter Martin’s list” in 2009) with the first Pirate in fourth. There is a 4% threshold.

Finland (13)

Finland uses a non-preferential list, meaning that (as we understand it) you vote for candidates, which also count for the party. The party is allocated seats based on the votes for all its candidates, and party fills those seats based on the vote count for the candidates.

Their most obvious candidate for a seat is Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde, whose campaign launch we covered recently. He was also nominated as the Pirate Party Europe candidate for Commission President with Amelia Andersdotter as mentioned earlier.

Croatia (11)

It’s almost déjà vu for Croatian Pirates. They are one of only three Pirate parties to have previously contested a European parliament election, along with the Germans and Swedes. In their case, however, it was during an extraordinary election last year on their acceptance to the EU, where they scored 1.13% of the vote, putting them 12th of 28 parties.

This year it appears that most parties have joined into a few coalitions or partnerships, with several European group affiliations mixed, but there are still 25 groups listed on the ballot. It certainly makes for an interesting election for the 13 pirates on the Croatian Pirate Party list who are bucking the local coalition trend and standing alone.

Slovenia (8)

In Slovenia, they’re being a little more “realistic” (in their own words) and fielding only a single candidate. Rolando Benjamin Vaz Ferreira is a translator specializing in English and German as well as his native Slovenian.

The feeling is upbeat and positive though, telling TF: “We’ve received incredible support amongst those who know of us, may it be voters, journalists, civil servants and even other party officers. Our biggest limiting factor is how many people we can reach in time.” In 2009, 9.7% was needed to win a seat, a figure that might be possible if the anti-corruption sentiment that has swept the country leads to a strong pirate vote.

Luxembourg (6)

As one of the smallest and most overlooked countries with only 6 seats available, the barrier is high (some 15%) but  party president and list-leader Sven Clement is a mixture of optimist and realist. After getting 2.96% in last October’s national election he’s hopeful for an improvement, but a double-digit increase is unlikely.

Clement told TF that despite that, people should still vote Pirate to ensure they can receive the kind of public financing the larger parties enjoy, enabling them to compete on a more level field.

Estonia (6)

The Estonian Pirate Party is also not running any candidates of its own in this election. They are, however, endorsing an independent candidate instead. Silver Meikar supports the Pirate platform, and has reportedly agreed to include a Pirate adviser as a member of his staff, if elected.

As with Luxembourg, with only six seats available, there is a high threshold for election, but only 8.7% of the vote was needed in 2009 for a seat.

Italy (73)

There is some debate about Italy and if they are running a ‘pirate’ candidate, hence its entry at the end of the list. As far as we can tell, the Italian Pirate Party is acting as an advising party on digital rights for the coalition “The Other Europe”, a left-wing coalition that includes the Communist Refoundation Party, Left Ecology Freedom, and the Labour party.

Italy, like France and the UK, uses a regional constituency system. However, which candidates in the coalition’s regional lists are Pirates (if any) are not known to us at this time.

Belgium (21)

Belgium is one of the earlier casualties. Despite having produced a candidate list for both it’s Dutch and French-speaking regions, they were unable to collect enough public signatures in time to make it onto the ballot.

Election dates

The European Parliament elections will take place on the following days

• May 22nd for the Netherlands and the United Kingdom,
• May 23rd for Ireland and the Czech Republic.
• May 24th you can vote in Latvia, Malta, Slovakia, and the French Overseas territories and a second days voting in the Czech Republic
• May 25th is for all other EU countries.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Just a few days ago Vice President Joe Biden questioned how a country could consider itself “a law abiding nation”, “when they are stealing the most valuable intellectual ideas of our country.”

Few civilized country’s escape the wrath of Biden and his friends in Hollywood and yesterday news broke that after continuous pressure from the studios, the Australian government will soon consider the introduction of two new anti-piracy mechanisms.

The first, the graduated response, has been documented many times before and is already present in several countries. Site blocking is more controversial though, since despite being demanded by Hollywood abroad, the same is not practiced at home.

Today the Australian Pirate Party says that it will do all it can to ensure that neither mechanism lands on Aussie soil. With the launch of a petition resting on the notion that neither technique has been shown to be effective against piracy, the Pirates hope to stop the juggernaut in its tracks.

“There has been no evidence advanced that graduated response regimes are effective. In fact, academic literature on the matter has been skeptical that they have any measurable impact on reducing file-sharing,” Brendan Molloy, Councillor of Pirate Party Australia, told TorrentFreak in a statement.

“Our petition is intended to remind the Senate of its obligations as the House of Review. It lays out detailed reasons for opposition to the proposals — including that neither will work — and calls on the Senate to reject any legislation instituting either a graduated response scheme or website blocking.”

Research is available to back up the Party’s stance. A paper published in January 2014 by U.S. and French researchers found that three-strikes-style regimes did little to reduce piracy. Also in January, the Court of The Hague ruled that the web blockade previously ordered against The Pirate Bay was not only disproportionate, but also ineffective.

Like many before him, Molloy says that something needs to be done about Australians being treated as second-class citizens when it comes availability and reasonable pricing of content. Dealing with these key areas will go somewhere towards solving the piracy conundrum.

“Geographical market segmentation is causing Australians to pay more for digital content. Is it any wonder Australians are called ‘the world’s worst pirates’ when we are paying significantly more than everyone else? Surely these issues are more deserving of attention than attempting to introduce schemes that have been proven to be ineffective?”

The Pirate Party petition can be found on Change.org.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The nature of the Pirate Bay founder’s detention has been highly controversial. His reputation as a master hacker led authorities to treat him with fear, placing him in solitary confinement, severely restricting his interaction with other inmates and limiting his access to books. Magazines sent in from outside were also off-limits, since prison authorities feared they may contain encrypted messages.

These extraordinary conditions prompted the creation of a petition by the Free Anakata Campaign. After a gentle start the protest gathered momentum hitting 50,000 and then 100,000 signatures. Speaking with TorrentFreak, Gottfrid’s mother Kristina said that the petition had put tremendous pressure on the authorities, leading them to ease her son’s book restrictions and interactions with other inmates.

After exceeding 106,000 signatures the petition was delivered to the Danish government yesterday. The Danish Pirate Party had the honor of handing it over to Minister of Justice Karen Hækkerup.

The Internet petition, which reached 106,538 signatures, was printed out onto 2,600 sheets of paper and presented to the minister in a box covered in pirate wrapping paper.

“In my eyes he is in solitary confinement for no reason. I mean, he is being treated worse than a serial killer,” said Rolf Bjerre from the Pirate Party after the handover.

DR.DK legal correspondent Claus Buhr said that Svartholm’s adverse conditions are a product of the authorities’ lack of experience of dealing with someone with the Swede’s capabilities.

“If he was a killer or suspected of drug crime, they are accustomed to those kind of suspects and know what they’re capable of. However, a possible super-hacker is someone the Danish police very rarely have to deal with,” Buhr said.

“This is probably the reason why he is being held under the strictest lock and key, simply because it’s not fully understood what he can do, and whether he’s able to get information in and out of jail.”

Even though Gottfrid has been held in Denmark for more than five months, the investigation against him is still underway with no immediate end in sight. In the meantime he’s being allowed just one hour a day outside and a single controlled visit with his mother, who travels from Sweden to Denmark each week to see him.

The case is expected to go to trial in the early days of September 2014 and it’s hoped the petition will ease his conditions before then.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The Massachusetts Pirate Party – one of the few that has managed to negotiate the US’s labyrinthine laws to become registered – is allowed to collect Bitcoin donations.

A few days ago the Pirates received a response back from the Director of the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance (OCPF).

“A political committee can accept contributions in Bitcoins,” it said, marking a strong positive for the use of the cryptocurrency. However, the Bitcoin blessing is not without its share of restrictions.

As with any other donation, Bitcoins can only come from a US citizen or permanent resident and there is an annual limit of $500 per person.

In addition, within five days the Bitcoins have to be converted into US dollars “through a high-volume public Bitcoin exchange open to transactions in the US.”

Another restriction is that the Pirate Party cannot spend the Bitcoins themselves. In this, it’s considered no different from stocks and shares.

Perhaps less favored by potential Bitcoin donors is the requirement to have an accurate name and residential address for every donation. This is somewhat of a blow for its advocates, but standard procedure for political contributions.

Now that the approval is in, the Massachusetts Pirate Party aim to be ready to accept donations in Bitcoin within the next two weeks.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Finding that the block had proven ineffective and had restricted the ISP’s entrepreneurial freedoms, the Court ruled in the ISPs’ favor. In response the ISPs vowed to unblock The Pirate Bay immediately.

Needless to say, BREIN is bitterly disappointed and is currently investigating its options, which includes taking the case to the Supreme Court. But while BREIN plans its next move, other entities wrapped up in the whole Pirate Bay censorship debate are planning theirs too.

Moving into the spotlight as a potential beneficiary of this week’s ruling is former BREIN ‘victim’ the Dutch Pirate Party.

Following the original blocking ruling against the two ISPs, traffic surged to an existing Pirate Bay proxy (unblocking) service run by the Dutch Pirates. By unblocking The Pirate Bay the party were undermining BREIN’s efforts and as a result the anti-piracy group took the case to court. That action culminated in an April 2012 ruling from The Court of The Hague which ordered the Pirate Party proxy service offline with immediate effect.

With this week’s lifting of the injunction against Ziggo and XS4ALL, questions are now being asked about the validity of subsequent bans against the Pirate Party’s proxy and others that were issued on the back of the now-overturned ruling.

“You can not evade a judgment that does not exist,” Dirk Poot of the Pirate Party told Webwereld.

Mark Krul, a lawyer with of WiseMen Advocaten who worked with the Pirate Party in its fight against BREIN, informs TorrentFreak that while the ruling offers promise there are still hurdles to be overcome.

“Now that the Court of Appeal has decided that the providers Ziggo and XS4ALL cannot be forced to block The Pirate Bay, this means that The Pirate Bay can be visited again by the Dutch public,” Krul explains.

“In this respect, there is no need for the Dutch public to use any proxy. But, since there are blockades of The Pirate Bay worldwide, there is still a need for proxies to ensure that internet users in other parts of the world have the freedom to decide whether they want to use a website such as The Pirate Bay or any other website.”

Stressing that the first proxy offered by the Pirate Party was an open one which gave users’ access to any blocked website, Krull says that this week’s decision by the Court of Appeal can only mean that offering even dedicated Pirate Bay-proxies is allowed. However, in the case of the Dutch Pirate Party he wants the court to say so.

“There still is a valid order from the Dutch court that says that the proxy is infringing the rights of the entertainment industry, represented by BREIN. And this order must be destroyed by the Court of Appeal,” Krul says.

“These proceedings will come to an end, probably by the end of this year. Unfortunately these proceedings take time. I am still reviewing the decision of the Court of Appeal to see if we can ask the court for suspension of the first court order in which the court decided the proxy is illegal.”

While things sound promising, Krul says that all of the decisions thus far only affect the parties involved and it is certainly possible that BREIN might try to have other Pirate Bay proxies shut down. However, in Krul’s opinion BREIN probably wouldn’t enjoy success.

“In my opinion, with the decision in the Ziggo/XS4ALL case, it is clear that a proxy is not illegal. But as said, BREIN is not totally defeated yet. They can – and probably will – take action against anyone offering services to visit The Pirate Bay. But then they will also have to act against other torrent websites such as Kickass.to and Torrentz.eu. This will of course be very complex to initiate.”

In conclusion, Krul says that this weeks Court of Appeal decision is “truly important” in light of fundamental rights to freedom of speech and the freedom to receive information.

“As a lawyer I am therefore very happy with this ruling,” he concludes.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

So, when the Swedish Pirate Party found out that their local intelligence agency FRA was helping the NSA to spy on Russian leaders, something had to be done.

Turning the tables on the spying agency, three members of the Swedish Pirate Party’s youth division drove up to FRA’s headquarters yesterday, hoping they could find out more about the agency’s secretive plans.

“No politician or FRA executive wants to tell the public what they actually are doing. So we thought that we need to do a bit of signal intelligence ourselves,” Gustav Nipe, Chairman of Young Pirate tells TorrentFreak.

Armed with a large antenna the Pirates parked their purple van a few meters outside the FRA building. However, before they could set up their surveillance rig armed guards came rushing in to put a stop to their plans.

The ‘spies’ were held for 45 minutes while their vehicle was searched, with the guards filming every minute detail. The pirates were eventually released, but not before they were warned that any attempt to activate their equipment would lead to their arrest.

Looking back, the Young Pirate chairman is surprised that they were approached this aggressively, as they were not trespassing or carrying out any other type of illegal activity. “Everybody is allowed to scan the air for signals in Sweden,” Nipe tells TorrentFreak.

“It’s clear that FRA have something to hide, otherwise they wouldn’t have sent armed guards at us,” he adds.

The Pirates hope that their actions have at least helped to raise public awareness about the secret surveillance practices, and the fact that those who are responsible refuse to explain what they are doing, and why.

“It is up to us citizens to try to find out what is going on. Who and what is FRA spying on? Our constitution states that all public power emanates from the people, but when we are not entrusted to know what is done with this power, we need to seek the answers ourselves,” Nipe concludes.

Perhaps a drone may come in handy next time? That worked pretty well for the German Pirate Party.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.