Yes, they did exactly that, but unfortunately for them there was a power change in Sweden a few years ago, and it became clear that many of unpopular laws being passed by this government had actually been drafted by the last one.

The current Swedish government has rushed through a number of privacy encroaching laws regarding the Internet, which have been deeply unpopular with a large part of the population, and yet have had the support of all the mainstream parties. These have included:

- Unlimited wiretapping with court order of all International data traffic for the intelligence services (and remember that in a country of 9 million, a lot more traffic is international than say in the US - in fact a lot of domestic traffic is routed internationally!)

- Forced data retention laws for ISPs, forcing them to keep information about all incoming/outgoing email as well as TCP connections.

- Laws enacted to help the music/movie industry allowing them to demand ISPs reveal the identity of Internet users with little court oversight.

These things, much more than the takedown of the pirate bay, has influenced people to vote for the Pirate Party, who have presented the only political opposition to them.

In fact, my 58 year old mother just called me to tell me she voted for PP (and I didn't even ask her to). I promise that she has never torrented anything in her life - yet she doesn't like the government spying on her more than anybody else.