| Summary: | The aim of this thesis is to contribute to a better understanding of the FRA-law. The focus of the study is to examine how Swedish politicians relate to the new draft of this law on intelligence. Key themes in the study are security, threats, surveillance and privacy. The power relationship between the individual and the state is also examined. Empirical data used in this study consists of a spoken plenary debate in the House which was held in connection with the adoption of the FRA law in June 2008. Norman Fairclough's Critical Discourse Analysis is the method we used to examine the plenary debate. The analysis focuses on three major issues: text level, discursive practice and social practice. Within the textual level, two different approaches to the Bill were found; the majority argues for security in the form of increased surveillance and the opposition argues for the protection of privacy. Within the discursive practice, two discourses were identified; individual discourse that contains liberal overtones and collective discourse that include socialist and conservative overtones. Within the social practice, it was found that politicians and media contribute to the reproduction of power. The politicians believe that the surveillance is both necessary and problematic in relation to the protection of privacy. The results show that, when creating legislation around intelligence, it can be both complex and difficult to find a good balance between prevention of external threats from being realized and ensuring individuals' privacy.
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