[messo]

Norwegian politicians are required by law to only use official channels of communication (government email, phone etc) when discussing anything related to their public service. Citizens can demand to get access to these communications, even anonymously. This has made it possible for regular citizens to uncover both small and big abuses of power through the years, most recently exemplified by a close connection between the Police and a private anti-drug-lobby organization that has had a big influence on drug policy for decades.

I have, however, heard that apps like Signal has become more common among politicians, but using it for official business is still illegal.

[ed_balls]

> Norwegian politicians are required by law to only use official channels of communication

Is it really enforacble? What are the sanctions for breaking the law?

What if someone says it's a national secuirty matter?

Scenario nr 1: You are a misiter and you are discussing possible scenarios about a given event (let say something like an abortion). Should pulbic have full access to it?

Scenario nr 2: You are a minister and you are negotiating a new factory in your country. Foregin corporation wants to keep it secret before the deal is reached. How can you communicate?

If politians would be given a device from the deep state to handle all communication then they would have to use is exculsivly, you are givin the deep state an enormous power.

[kilotaras]

> Foregin corporation wants to keep it secret before the deal is reached. How can you communicate?

Foreign corporation wants to do X but X is banned in country.

We don't accept that for minimum wages, discrimination laws, pollution laws, etc. Why should communication laws be any different?

[ed_balls]

But there are law that limit the communications e.g. insider trading.

Imagine a public corporation that wants to build a factory, but wants to keep to secret for now, cause they don't want the competition to know or affect the share price.

[messo]

The law ("Offentlighetsloven") is quite nuanced and take into account a lot of different situations and edge cases. The law does not only apply to politicians, but to every public servant in any position.

The law is available in Norwegian here, if you want to run it trough a machine translation service and have a look: https://www.regjeringen.no/no/dokumenter/nou-2003-30/id38285...

[brokenmachine]

If it's a national security matter then they should definitely be using the official channels.