Nils Torvalds

Nils "Nicke" Torvalds
Member of the European Parliament
for Finland
Assumed office
5 July 2012
Preceded by Carl Haglund
Constituency Finland
Personal details
Born (1945-08-07) 7 August 1945
Ekenäs, Finland
Political party Swedish People's Party of Finland
Residence Helsinki
Website www.nilstorvalds.fi

Nils ”Nicke” Torvalds[1] (born August 7, 1945) is a Swedish-speaking Finnish broadcast journalist, writer and politician, who is currently serving as an MEP. Torvalds is the son of the poet Ole Torvalds, and the father of the software engineer Linus Torvalds of Linux kernel fame.[2]

Political activity

Torvalds was elected to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Finland in 1982.[3]

In 2007 Torvalds was elected to the post of the third vice chairperson of the Swedish People's Party.[4] In 2008, he was elected in Helsinki City Council for term 2009–2012.[5] Torvalds was a candidate for European Parliament election in 2009 on the Swedish People's Party list. He got 14,044 votes which was insufficient for a seat.[6] On July 5, 2012 he was installed in the European Parliament, after the resignation of Carl Haglund. As a MEP[7] he is vice-chair of the Fisheries committee (PECH) and member of the committee for Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE).

Works

Linux kernel statement

Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel, joked during a LinuxCon keynote in 18 September 2013 that the NSA, creators of SELinux, wanted a backdoor in the kernel.[8] However, later, Linus' father revealed that the NSA had actually asked for the installation of backdoors in Linux.[9]

When my oldest son [Linus Torvalds] was asked the same question: “Has he been approached by the NSA about backdoors?” he said “No”, but at the same time he nodded. Then he was sort of in the legal free. He had given the right answer, [but] everybody understood that the NSA had approached him.
Nils Torvalds, LIBE Committee Inquiry on Electronic Mass Surveillance of EU Citizens - 11th Hearing, 11 November 2013

References

  1. "About Me Nils Torvalds". Nils Torvalds homepage. Retrieved 2015-12-28.
  2. Torvalds, 2001
  3. SKP:n ylimääräisen edustajakokouksen valitsema keskuskomitea (Kommunisti 5/1982, p. 471)
  4. Sfp valde orförande och viceordförande, energipolitiska ställningstagandet remitterades (SFP 10.06.2007)
  5. Kaupunginvaltuuston puoluejakauma kaudella 2009–2012
  6. "EUROPARLAMENTTIVAALIT 7.6.2009 - Tulos - Koko maa" (in Finnish). vaalit.fi (the Official Results by the Ministry of Justice). Retrieved 2009-06-13.
  7. "Nils Torvalds". European Parliament. Retrieved 2015-11-08.
  8. "TechWeekEurope: Linus Torvalds Jokes The NSA Wanted A Backdoor In Linux". Linux Foundation. 2013-09-19. Retrieved 2015-11-08.
  9. Engström, Christian (2013-11-17). "NSA Asked Linus Torvalds To Install Backdoors Into GNU / Linux". Retrieved 2015-11-08.
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