The country that scored highest in Freedom House’s 2007 survey of political rights and civil liberties and ranked fifth among 195 countries on its 2008 Press Freedom Report has given its intelligence services broad new surveillance powers.

Under a law approved June 19, Swedish authorities now can read all crossborder e-mails and faxes and listen in on overseas telephone conversations without first obtaining a court order. Supporters claim the measures are necessary to protect Sweden’s security from those who are using communications technology to plan attacks.

But the law faces strong opposition from civil liberties advocates and Sweden’s news media and blogging community. Agneta Lindblom Hulthén, who chairs the Swedish Union of Journalists, told Sweden’s The Local that privacy safeguards were under threat. As a journalist, Hulthén expressed specific concerns over being able to protect her sources and their rights to anonymity.

In a June 18 USA Today article, Arne Konig, president of the European Federation of Journalists, said, “The tapping of journalists’ telephones compromises the watchdog role of the media and puts at risk the right to inform the public.”

Challenges to the new law are sure to follow, but in the meantime, Swedish journalists are adapting to an age in which countries struggle to reconcile heightened security concerns with long-cherished freedoms.