With the Swedish elections coming up, the Pirate Party is making news.  International news.

The Pirate Party was founded in Sweden in 2006.  Since then, it has made news by working to overhaul copyright laws while also calling for government transparency.  The party has come so far as to have two representative elected to the European Parliament.  It continues to grow and has support from many young Swedes.  The election of the Pirate Party to the European Parliament briefly made international news.  This past weekend, the Pirate Party has once again made international news.  With a little help.

As mentioned, the Pirate Party is working towards more government transparency.  So it should come as little surprise then that an organization like WikiLeaks would be interesting to them.

WikiLeaks, of course, has been dominating the headlines lately after having released thousands of classified documents about the US war effort in Afghanistan.  The organization was criticized for being a bit too transparent.  Names of Afghans lending assistance to coalition forces were left in the documents.

And so, this past weekend, the Pirate Party agreed with WikiLeaks to host the website on servers in Stockholm.  The hope is that by forming an agreement with a political party, WikiLeaks will be better protected from threats.  Whether those threats are lawsuits, hackers, or even government raids.

Many see organizations like these as pioneers in the digital freedom.  But for an organization like WikiLeaks, I wonder if making agreements with political parties actually hurts their future credibility.  Suddenly, possible conflicts of interests arise.  Suddenly, their transparency comes into question.

At the same time, they have partnered with a political party that champions government transparency.  But where does that transparency end?  Clearly, the backlash to the release of so many names in the Afghan papers has made the organization think twice.  They have been delayed with releasing a second round of classified papers as they censor them.

Regardless of the outcome, the agreement has thrust the Pirate Party back into the news.  And just in time for the elections.  Fortuitous timing, but will it result in stronger election results for the party?

For more on the agreement, and some practice with your Swedish, check out the article at svd.se titled: Piratpartiet samarbetar med Wikileaks