This blogtext was first published the 23 of march 2015.
It is twenty one days since I started writing about FRA and myself. Hm! It is a sensitive issue indeed. Not as easy as criticizing the security agencies NSA and CIA in the US or the spymasters in GCHQ, MI5, MI6 in Great Britain, or all the other spymasters in all the other countries for that matter. It has been difficult to, in print, describe the country Sweden where all this craziness began and where I still live. It is like being run over by the train, the Swedish train, over and over again. It hurts too much. No wonder that I only wanted to escape.
Somewhere, in the spring of 1994 it was on the go, a positive letter about unemployment and a simple suggestion, that only showed why unemployment always is an economic question of destiny for a country, besides the individual of course. The way to think about it is as enduring today as it will be in the future. The letter was written to Bo Lundgren, minister in the Swedish government with Carl Bildt as prime minister. I’m sure he got lots of letters, so an answer was all but given. There was no answer. But, with the letter it started, my life was changed for ever and knowing the facts I should never have sent the letter, not ever. Some foreign threat that had to be surveilled for national security reasons, I was not. Exactly when I noticed when I was surveilled, I don’t remember, but that they were was never difficult to understand, as easy as it was to recognize that the substance in the letter had glued significantly. You could hear that by their way of expressing themselves on the subject and particularly subsequent to a second letter I sent the same year when a new government with social democrats won the election of 1994. I wanted them to take part of the idea of the first letter too. And finally there they stood in the debates and bragged like roosters in the henhouse that both parties new. Of course I was proud! They had read the letters and listened.
Did I like being surveilled when it all started? Of course not, but because of the reason that I then knew of, that was positive, it was possible to deal with mentally in a different way. You don’t have anywhere to go, knocking on their door and complain that you are being watched, and that they should stop doing it, you have to find other means. They have though put their big ears into action, it seems that they want to hear things. That is how you react. In the beginning I don’t think I even talked to them at home, maybe a comment now and then. It took a while until there was a “conversation”, and then other things had occurred that I had no knowledge of until June 2013.
That there was some kind of gossip out there from mouth to ear was obvious to me for real somewhere around the year 2001-2002 and soon after that I thought that they ”listened” in an inconvenient way. Everything had gone too far and had consequences that was not reasonable. O My God, there was a considerable amount of facts that I didn’t have around that time.
Following a particular incident in the year 2002, which I choose not to describe exactly what it was, but something I said were used, and because of the circumstances people got hurt and killed. I was truly horrified and scared by the news. I felt somebody had to take responsibility and bring this unsound “listening” to an end. I stopped reading newspapers and watch the news to not encourage myself or anybody else. I definitely wanted the surveillance to stop and the easiest way was not to know what they were doing or what was happening out there in Sweden or in the rest of the world. I understood that it would take time before they would loose interest and that was why it was even more important not to vibe if they were still there. Just dump the shit! And so I did, for seven years, until January 2009. Then I started reading again and watching the news like in the good old days. I had written a book that was released 2008 – En annan historia (Another story) – that I had difficulties to sell and job searching was tough, I was sad and troubled and needed something else to think of and do. If that decision was a mistake only the future will tell, a fem months later I realized that the surveillance fanatics at FRA but even others like GCHQ and NSA were still there. The vibes that surpassed a few times and a total denial that they had ANY reason whatsoever to still be there, was untrue. I could not lie to myself anymore, no matter how unbelievable it was – they were still there!
I believe it was in May 2009, it wasn’t a mental crash, but I expressed a very clear warning – If you do not put an end to this surveillance there might be more people than me who could get hurt – You have to stop! I had never expressed myself that way to them before. It was total despair. Despite the warning I continued to push for the book and seek employment. It took until September of 2010 after yet another small book – Vägen fram mot rikedom (The road to prosperity), then I had even more of a hard time to look past that they were intercepting and they listened in as before very far away. Suddenly they stood there at the UN in New York at the yearly gathering and one speaker after another had apparently caught up on what was described in this second book and yet it was hardly sold at all in the coming half a year. Finally David Cameron, the prime minister of Great Britain, begins his speech and after a while he said “And then we have these new ideas…” It was in combination with what others had said such a clear example to me that it had spread in a way that was impossible. It was a Sunday, on Monday I couldn’t take it any longer, I totally broke down in tears, either I had to get out of this intercepting business or I couldn’t live with it at all any longer. I was shocked and terrified. The first 16 years of incubation was over, now it was really life threatening. I just couldn’t stand that they were there all the time, they took away everything from me. But still I had the positive interpretation in my head of why they were listening in. They are here to take part of something they really listen to. They were no thugs, it was just impossible to live with the blood drain and a total outcast where others hade a ball with things I did or said that they liked. Wow! That was really the “nice” interpretation. Still I had absolutely no idea what they had done very early on probably already from the start 1994, and unfortunately with the help of media and media consumers.
Rumour has it that direct communication between human beings is difficult. I believe that my experiences can nail that as a fact pretty hard. It is much easier to be fed the gossip tune and then not only mouth to ear but from your home through the digital technique with cable or not from more or less smart telephones, computers, more or less smart TV, radio wave traffic, satellite and other techniques as well, to FRA, or likewise technical experienced (there are a big bunch out there I suppose) and then to the gossip masters super transmitter media in all its variants who will in all circumstances have deniability, source protection, which makes them the “perfect” channel for communication that will never ask unnecessary questions, and finally it reaches other peoples ears and eyes from radio, TV, computer, mobile phones, newspapers and not the least all kinds of culture you can imagine. How does one say in Swedish at least – dear child has many names (that is still the “nice” interpretation) you can really apparently describe someone out there without that persons name or picture ever being showed and get the gossip published. And if you publish somebody out there, who doesn’t know about it and nobody says anything then it is all about damaging the victim, the one you are gossiping about. Except that you are being surveilled, your intercepted privacy is being spread as a humiliating action, maybe as a warning. A very bad one since I never saw or heard the warnings how could I? Or only so I can not affect things in a wrong way. What that is supposed to be? If they “are listening” or not is really about the listener! It usually is the opposite that you have a hard time making people listen to what you say, in this case they want to blame the victim the one who is being surveilled – as long as you open your mouth even if you protest being surveilled it is your responsibility that we “hear” anything at all. That kind of technique of a humiliating moving of guilt from the offender to the victim is what I have been appalled about since June 2013, and that has probably been done very early on, but then without my knowledge. Blaming the victim is a classic in abusing situations. Another reason could be that the interceptor wants surveillance in a privileged way, that the victim becomes only giver and not receiver. And in that case the ones who listen in could really be just anybody, as long as they have the technical skill. And then if you have bragged as much as you have of what you are doing and how you do it, but in the gossiping way of “nick names”, then there are no boundaries. Everybody does what they like, with that person, it is only the victim that doesn’t know who else is hanging on the “line” and at the same time humiliating the victim in the most awful bullying spirit. Even about how incompetent the person is that doesn’t get any personal profit out of the intercepting situation that’s gone wild. It’s really everybody against one and a clear bullying, abuse, torture, psychological rape situation. And at the same time difficult to solve, for instance it was never possible to talk about the surveillance and once I did June 2013 the reactions were a disaster. It was heavy evidence how much people around me had known, but not asked or said anything, but that the bullying will continue because we have such a great time doing it, or even worse reason we believe that we can control you if we don’t talk to you directly about it, only doing so in a bullying way. Using untouchable “nicknames” (?!), fairytales or sneaking in tiny but very private things in conversations behind my back or in front of me all the time with the big guys and girls in the leading roll. How despicable! It is evidence that you have not understood that because of the publishing of me by others not myself, and it only takes one to feed them all on the web, but about what I have said change everything. Your way exaggerate this whole crazy situation, the forced outcast that makes that person have to fight for his or her freedom no matter how alone they really are. That makes what she says will affect in the same way it has until now. Not less, only more! Then neither You nor I have reached anything of what we want, except the ones who like entertainment is just anything no matter how serious the situation is. The reasons from the beginning why things have happened at all are definitely unclear. The difference between the casual rumour mouth to ear is huge, since no unknown physical person is in your home. Without the amazing technique you and I had never known about each other. And you can really be just anybody and I may be anonymous in the beginning. Well, and you have really known, haven’t you – Wow! The life threatening chock June 2013 – I still don’t know how I survived and survives for nothing has ceased to be. And you just love to put the blame on me, for there is real anger. My share of web trolling couldn’t come the usual way because I had no twitter account or any blog. When I created them in October 2013, maybe to normalize a somewhat awkward dialogue, you were apparently such cowards, angry with me and obviously more loyal to others you felt had been hard hit by my struggle to be free from surveillance and possibly it is a little easier to go on as you have done for a very long time through the media, it reaches more people. And you don’t have to take responsibility, do you. You can hack me to pieces every day, and I can’t even defend myself because you are using other names, twisted fairytales. I can assure you who are known in the more natural way and not the backdoor – the secret FRA gate – that gossip without your own name and picture is not at all more comfortable, more anonymous or integrity friendly, it’s total humiliation already from the beginning, you don’t even know that it’s going on and you can’t respond and when you know you still can’t answer because it is not your name or picture, it’s another bloke or gal, and if you answer you will get mentally cornered and called an idiot. Now it has gone on for such a long time, I have certainly seen and heard enough to be sure, so I do respond whenever I feel like!
Be sure, this little conversation between you and me will continue the rest of my life. That unquestionable path you share with politicians and security agencies such as FRA, media with its source protection and people in general who love all forms of entertainment no matter physical or mentally hurting or even killing, where what is said or done in somebody’s private life has to go out and get humiliated eternally in one stranger version after another, in the thinly veiled pleasure of owning a secret together, a secret that can be so torn that only one person doesn’t know about what others do with that persons life and that made it even funnier, an extended form of FRA with clear qualities of Stasi, that brings the old school bullying on the playground to the time of dinosaurs. Not even bullying within a group on a yard, stays there today, it might be published by one of the kids and be reached by the meanest people you can think of. There she stands the little child and tries to stand up being bullied and maybe she or her parents will ever know exactly where that heads to finally. The one who today think they know what others know about them or what others think of them or what their life is affected of, is deeply deceived, we have less control than ever and we are being adjusted by others in certain directions, just because we are reachable in so many ways. But the experience is the opposite, that we have more ways to fiddle with people or things and we feel like we are in more control. Ask someone who really have felt the consequences. All this will be debated over and over again and if I am the only one who talks about it – I most certainly have a fine “listener” group out there who has had a pure hell being able to stop listening, they have tried every collective pesticide time and time again. It’s still better that I know what you know, as you so dramatically shown to me, but to make that unveiling to a life threatening game, is as much of a signature you can get of the whole situation and what the so called professionals do to me that I can not hinder, but really try to. If you want to play the game, and it is hard not to get pulled in these modern times since we are so reachable, don’t think for a moment that you know what the game is all about, none of us know. We are all players and victims, with a chain reaction that starts with a heroic thought and well articulated idea but you can never choose who will join you and it can end with people getting hurt or killed. The opposite is true as well, if someone of anger is out to hurt or even kill can end with that positive thing happen instead. Never think that you know the rules of the game, there are no rules. Never believe that you are safe from surveillance or bullying I have experienced, the reasons can be so different, technical knowledge have so many. Enemies, we all have them. It only takes one enemy to feed them all out there on the web. That is the big reason that the old rules don’t apply any longer. Proportions have changed for ever and at the sate time they are fast to change again. To hide, escape the radar, draw back yourself to your home, lick ones wounds, is almost impossible once you have someone out there that really want you to be seen or heard by others. That is the common effect that scandal in media can lead to that the person get so pulverised that they don’t ever want to be publicised again. Now the same dealing leads to an enhancement of the scandal, harassment or bullying. This person’s defence even if it’s done within the frame of the intercepting arena in your private home or in your car becomes an endless circle of feeding the hyenas. And to silence and stop taking part of what is going on at the intercepting arena wasn’t the solution at all. Been there, done that for seven years!
How was it, what was the reason that it all started and who rolled out the big red carpet into my home into my private life and finally invited you all. According to the FRA annual reporting it says so clear who can give them assignments. Very not so strange is that the Swedish government can give them that. At the same time Sweden have, as many democratic countries, laws that make surveillance of Swedish citizens a no go, and these are the arguments that in the beginning of the leaks of Edward Snowden the governments gave to calm down the situation despite that one of the very first revealings was that all metadata from all telephone calls made in the USA was collected by NSA. And above all the debate afterwards, what these metadata can be analysed to, and that they give more information than you believe at first, but also that the exact meaning of metadata gets interpreted very widely – as most everything in these organisations – and naturally that if they will need the substance of the calls they have every incitement to prepare that beforehand. Afterwards it is too late. Most democratic countries have laws that don’t permit surveillance of its own citizens but it is their duty to spy on all the rest of the world for national security. What is the practice? Well if all other countries in the world can spy on Swedish citizens legally and Sweden has to protect the country from foreign intelligence duties it is not enough that Swedish security agencies spy on all the other territories out there. The threat is certainly not always far away but rather the closer it is the sharper it gets and that applies to within its borders and even Swedish citizens who can get used by foreign spy agencies or willingly take part in actions against Sweden as a country. The laws are an adjustment to the democratic rules that must be, or else we are not better than North Korea or Iran on the surveillance arena. What about me, I was and I still am surveilled and from the beginning a 28 year old who was no threat to anybody, quite the opposite. Yes, I was and I am being surveilled and not only that. If security services have been turned a little inside out through the Snowden leaks and if you compare how politicians and head of security agencies have expressed themselves during the time directly after Usama Bin Ladens attacks 11th of September 2001 and until now after Snowden revelations it gets clear how big lies they have arrogantly told their citizens and how similar they are in different countries as an explanation what they really do. Sweden is no exception and by the time my story develops and I can put more together, there will be more untruths expressed who at first gets soaked in delinquently in the right part of the brain and sounds assuring but one little comparing with what have already arrived since June 2013 until now and what is reasonable makes a compelling case – it is time for them to stop the lying. Even if you just take part of what have happened in the USA and Great Britain since June 2013 the text of FRA annual report becomes a strange experience. That is what happens when nobody says anything and just accepts the difference between what they say what they do and what they actually do. They smile not only on the inside but on the outside too. They take it as acceptance that you now know the truth they can not talk about and more that than that they delivered a lie that you have swallowed. A little bit like we raped you but you didn’t resist and you didn’t call the cops and therefore it wasn’t a rape. Unfortunately intercepting is a little bit more difficult to notice than a rape. And I can assure you that it is exactly how it feels being mentally raped, day in and day out, once you realized that they will not leave and that they are absolutely not so nice that they want to look like. Unfortunately that goes for you other people out there too. Media do the same thing, with this beautiful source protection and a need for endless gossip. Their sources could be experts from FRA but doesn’t have to be as I have written before, all it takes is technical experience. The one who sell or provide information does not have to put up a sign exactly who they are, to deal with people for one or other reason. And that reason can be no reason at all, I am the evidence of that.
And the rest of you, you never said anything, you never asked anything. Still you haven’t even opened up a dialogue all the way. And the accusations when I have asked for help have been horrifying, but also evidence how organised the resistance is out there and above all how conscious you are that you have done something wrong, otherwise you would have talked to me at once June 2013. You didn’t! I really want to hear what you have to say for yourself out there. You have to start some time – otherwise there will be more who suffer. FRA and the politicians risk absolutely nothing, they have all the support they need. Look at USA and Great Britain for instance. The risk is greater that they think about their occupations and less about the private citizens they are and will be. A warning is that the time for incubation is long. You can experience surveillance and have a little fun in the beginning, it doesn’t end there, believe me. It is better to talk about things in time. Nobody has the more righteous opinion, but everybody has the right to be heard in the right way, that applies to me to. The technical fight for freedom from integrity violations has only just started and unfortunately I am no better than anybody else but I am certainly more surveilled by them who have assets and motives. Don’t bother about them and talk to me anyway, anonymously if you want. I promise we sit in the same boat, so even the ones who work at FRA and the politicians, but they should know better. We have to talk to one another to learn about what has happened and why. I don’t want my life to be totally steered be a presidential election in the USA or a Swedish government that have the wrong reasons to “screw” me, they will do that anyway, they have never stopped. This game allows a lot and they use everything and everybody. Believe one that have been trapped far too many times and besides with you as a public and not always a passive one. And it will happen again, of that I am sure. We live in a time where humiliations in all its forms get used for all purposes. But we also live in a time where the echo goes all the way, laugh at somebody else and you might have laughed at yourself without knowing it.
And if you think I have pressured the ones responsible too hard or been angry this revolutionary times September 2010 and until now, remember – you have received facts correct or incorrect about my private life since far away – I could never defend myself because I didn’t know about the publishing – and I live in an environment that none should ever have to experience, it is not something to endeavour for you either. Don’t make it more difficult for me then you only squeeze yourselves – next time it could be you who need help, it only takes one unfriendly individual who find the right technique and you can end up being published for everybody to do whatever they want, and you can’t be sure you will know when it begins either, or you might never know it has happened. And that is not a positive thing, you will never know how your life was affected. It isn’t just Orwellian, it doesn’t belong to this universe. It’s a shame to this world. How did we get there?
If you should interpret the annual report of FRA the experts wants to protect certain government functions but the rest in the country have to protect themselves in the extended cyber world. That means that a violation of Swedish airspace of Russian air force that is being followed with every precision, doesn’t alarm if Russia’s president Putin wants to spy on companies, organisations and private citizens every day in Sweden. Do you understand the difference, do you see how far behind they are in the thinking how to protect a country and its citizens from a violation of integrity with stolen material, stolen knowledge or worse a stolen life. And at the same time they use intelligence services, cyber defence – cyber attacks in a more penetrated world. And the more they do the more individuals are caught up. They needed mountains, islands, rivers and cities to defend us. Your private lives, your professional secrets, your computer, your smart phone, your smart TV, the space where all the information transfers or is getting stored, there they lost the feeling for what a defence is all about, much because it has been a secret room for them to do exactly what they want with who they want for how long they want. You and I must be superior at discover what they do and what they might want to do, we must help them find their way back to the defence that they proudly talks about. What is a territorial integrity trespassing by a foreign submarine in the Swedish archipelago they say that they work to stop, against a constant trespassing of integrity on yourself all the way by all countries in the rest of the world if they feel like it and have the capabilities and by the way lawfully too! It’s time to stare not only on the surface of the seawater but underneath all the time for you and me, with technical help of course. I would be happy to see a redefinition of what kind of defence Sweden has anyway, and there are more things that need to be redefined. I believe that my own experiences tell a very different story both citizen dealt with but also how I have been constantly intercepted and hacked by an outside world that has done everything they wished to and more. When was I part of a community were I had to be protected from outside interference? And likewise when did I become an enemy of the Swedish state?
It is You and I that don’t want it this way – they have in the best case scenario more motives than one and in the worst case only one motive and that doesn’t have to be the finest motive of them all – ask one who knows!
My name is not Edward Snowden, whom I admire very much, and not even Monica Lewinsky, that I have a problem with, my name is Ulrika Barkström and I am neither the world’s first or last surveillance activist on the arena where the intercepting occurs. I am sorry that you had to “listen” to all the hard arguments and the tears and sadness September 2010 and until now but I didn’t know in what way you were there until June 2013. I tried to talk and yell to security services and responsible politicians that take part of their reporting, it was the only one’s I expected to find there. There is a lot more to talk about and discover for all of us. Among many things intercepting activism have happened and happens without you knowing about it in many different ways! With one thing in common – this is absolutely not acceptable and has to stop! It is no merit to be on there list to be surveilled, it’s nothing you cry out to people around you. The reason can be nationality or religion that makes them more susceptible to pro terrorist surveillance, that is neither anything they want to shout out to the world, that is why there are not many that rise up and tell that they are being surveilled and why. That has to change! And the one who has the courage to tell and ask for help must not have a psychosis or delusional diagnose thrown in their face that is as shameful as any discrimination and make that person punished several times. If you do that when you know that others take part in what happens then you are members of the Stasi archive directly not as a victim but as an oppressor on the surveillance arena where none of us should be any way!
En tiger som inte tiger - A tiger talks 