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Dutch Wiretaps: Too Many To Bother Counting

Posted by timothy on from the just-trust-on-this-one-and-these-ones-too dept.

Brenno de Winter writes "While the U.S. wiretapped 1,350 phonelines, the Netherlands managed to wiretap approx. 10,000 phonelines in 1999. With the new Telecom Act the Dutch government could wiretap even easier and are doing it so much they cannot count it anymore. Bits of Freedom (BOF) requested statistics under the Dutch Freedom of Information Act and were denied it since it was to hard to gather the data. Even though telecom and internet operators regularly send bills for operational wiretapping costs, the ministry of Justice claims it doesn't keep account of the numbers. What scares you more a government that wiretaps or a government that wiretaps and doesn't know what it is wiretapping?"

57 comments

  1. It's well-known by orkysoft · · Score: 2, Funny

    Apparently, the police wiretaps not only criminals, but also the people they phone or get phoned by, and the people those contacts phone or get phoned by.

    I think the recursion stops there, but I'm not sure.

    --

    I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
    1. Re:It's well-known by stubear · · Score: 2, Funny

      Only three degrees of seperation? What, the Dutch don't care about Kevin Bacon?

    2. Re:It's well-known by orkysoft · · Score: 1

      s/criminals/suspects/

      --

      I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
    3. Re:It's well-known by mikehoskins · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      Mod me down, please, before the arrows start flying....

      Let's see, there's the Netherlands, a land of "freedom" and "openness" and virtually no laws -- i.e., basic anarchy, as long as you leave others alone, for the most part.... Just legislate laws away and you have no criminals, right?

      And then there's the U.S., a basically free country, which has too many laws to count, and plenty of laws which contradict other laws, and many times more population.... It's the country most lived in and hated by vocal Slashdotters -- most of the non-vocal probably disagree, with the vocal ones, but who can prove that, either way. (I am not the typical vocal Slashdotter, when it comes to my views of the U.S. Perhaps, warts and all, I love my country more than most.)

      Hmmm, there was an almost 10 to 1 wiretap ratio between the Netherlands and the U.S, before the Netherlands stopped counting!?!?!?! Does this come as a surprise to me? Not really. It's just amusing.

      Well, I have no point to make, except that the grass isn't necessarily greener everywhere else than the U.S. (No "grass" pun intended, BTW; we are talking about the Netherlands, after all.)

      Of course, I believe that Windows XP and M$ DRM is a big commercial wiretap, but that's a different story.

    4. Re:It's well-known by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Its 6 degrees of wiretapping, the fun new game you can play with all your friends.

    5. Re:It's well-known by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And then there's the U.S., a basically free country, which has too many laws to count, and plenty of laws which contradict other laws, and many times more population.... It's the country most lived in and hated by vocal Slashdotters --

      You're painting with a broad brush. I've never seen any "vocal Slashdotters" saying anything about "hating" their country.

      most of the non-vocal probably disagree, with the vocal ones, but who can prove that, either way.

      In other words, unless someone specifically says otherwise, their silence should be taken as agreement with you and your own opinions.

      (I am not the typical vocal Slashdotter, when it comes to my views of the U.S. Perhaps, warts and all, I love my country more than most.)

      The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Mere flag waving doesn't make you a patriot.

    6. Re:It's well-known by Badger · · Score: 1


      The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Mere flag waving doesn't make you a patriot.

      Being constantly negative doesn't make you one, either.
    7. Re:It's well-known by Badger · · Score: 2, Interesting
      It's the country most lived in and hated by vocal Slashdotters -- most of the non-vocal probably disagree, with the vocal ones, but who can prove that, either way. (I am not the typical vocal Slashdotter, when it comes to my views of the U.S. Perhaps, warts and all, I love my country more than most.)
      It's a popularity thing. It's cool to bash the US and uncool to mention that other "civilized" countries might actually have problems of their own.

      Most non-vocal Slashdotters learned long ago that fighting "the cool thing" was swimming upstream. It's much easier to laugh and remember that if you aren't a liberal at 20, you have no heart, and if you aren't a convervative at 40, you have no brain.

    8. Re:It's well-known by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      People always have these weird ideas about the Netherlands. Whatever made you think that we have 'virtually no laws'? We have countless laws, rules, and regulations, that control and regulate *everything* in life from the color of my front door to the height of my living room, from the locations where I'm allowed to park my bike to the time at which I can go to work.

      And sure, I can ignore most of that and get away with it, but let's face it, this is a country where even the lowliest wretch can cause you misery simply because you broke some stupid, irrelevant "rule" that somehow became "law". And this is on all levels of society: I distinctly remember the asshole back at university who only sold required study materials during those hours you were supposed to be in class. If you came 3 seconds late, he would smile, say "rules are rules" (ie. not even a "sorry"), and ignore you, even if your life depended on it.

      As for the often-heard allegation that this country is awash in drugs, that's just silly. Just because there is a large criminal circuit that is apparently allowed to go about its business unchecked, does not mean that every dutch citizen is a drug user. The percentage of the population using drugs is lower than in most other countries.

      Not everyone here appreciates those 'liberal' and 'tolerant' policies. It has let us to a society where nobody gives a shit about anything anymore. The streets are littered with trash, buildings are covered with graffiti, and noone gives a damn. The community has more or less fallen apart, and we are now a collection of uninterested individuals.

      Comparing with the United States (which I've visited), I find the US overbearingly nationalistic (what is it with those flags every 20 meters?), but people *do* care about things, which is good, and I liked the fact that its cities and countryside were so clean. Reflect on that for a moment...

      In a recent poll, over half of the people in the Netherlands were *not* proud of their country. I'm one of those people not proud of it (anymore). I guess it stopped feeling like "my country" a long time ago. Now it is a country populated by disinterested dorks who know every letter of the law but none of its spirit; people who'd spit on you if you lay bleeding on the pavement.

    9. Re:It's well-known by Rosonowski · · Score: 1

      I can't remember who said it, but I heard it said

      "It only takes 20 years for a conservative to become a liberal without changing a single idea"

      --
      01101001 01100001 01101101 01101110 01101111 01110100 01100001 01101100 01100001 01110111 01111001 01100101 01110010
    10. Re:It's well-known by Badger · · Score: 1

      Shouldn't that be reversed? :-)

    11. Re:It's well-known by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Mere flag waving doesn't make you a patriot.

      Being constantly negative doesn't make you one, either.


      Of course not. That's what the finger-pointing is for.
  2. I Don believe this! by Ribert · · Score: 1

    I find this to be very disturbing news. I doubt that its true. Being dutch i know that the Dutch are pretty incompetent with important information. I guess some guy at the ministry just took a number for the amount of wiretaps.

    1. Re:I Don believe this! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No really, it is. Why don't you call the PR department of xs4all, I am sure that they can tell you more.

    2. Re:I Don believe this! by orkysoft · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Their incompetence means a reduced efficiency, which they have to make up for with many more wiretaps. Or something like that.

      --

      I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
    3. Re:I Don believe this! by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I've seen reports in a variety of places that wiretaps are far more prevalent in Europe than the US.

      I also remember a flap last year caused by the Dutch goverment requiring all ISPs to install wiretaps.

      The following is an article discussing some of the Dutch wiretaps issues:

      http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@wasabis ys tems.com/msg02595.html

      If I were a European citizen I would be asking some question of my government.

    4. Re:I Don believe this! by maelstrom · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Sorry, it is EU policy to encourage its citizens to ask hard questions of the American government and to question the freedom of Americans every chance they get. The theory goes if they are too busy out protesting how much of a cowboy Bush is being, they won't have time to realize how much their own rights are being systematically stripped away by the European governments and the European Union.

      --
      The more you know, the less you understand.
    5. Re:I Don believe this! by dbrutus · · Score: 1

      According to the article, the 10k number came from a parliament member's question. If they're lying, it's likely a felony.

    6. Re:I Don believe this! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about we look out for ourselves AND each other? What happened to solidarity?

    7. Re:I Don believe this! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you think that *that* is bad, read this (sorry, Dutch only).

      In short, it explains that Dutch wiretapping equipment is actually bought from an Israeli company, who is allowed to spy on Dutch phonecalls using their installation.

      And it tells us that 300,000 requests for personal information are sent to ISP's and telecoms every year! A number which is expected to rise to 900,000 in a few years!

      No wonder the Dutch government doesn't want to provide us with numbers - if this is any indication they are tapping just about every phoneline in the country!

  3. TIA by stuuf · · Score: 1

    What if they had Total Information Awareness?

    --

    Everyone is born right-handed; only the greatest overcome it

  4. Wow, is this for real? by /dev/trash · · Score: 1

    And I am told everyday that the US is a bad place to live. I guess not.

    1. Re:Wow, is this for real? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      HEH, unfortunately it's not that easy. How does it help you to know that it's worse elsewhere? With this way of thinking you can accept all bad things, because technically it could be worse - or is, somewhere else.

      And it's still bullshit: while the Netherland thingy sucks... do you even have the SLIGHTEST clue of all the implications of the Patriot Act? Inform yourself, and don't lull yourself with this. No one ever said the USA is the worst of all places in all respects. That's not what this is about.This black/white thinking seems very widespread these days, and it's stupid and dangerous.

  5. Not Good.... by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Given that the US also has a population more than 15 times that of the Netherlands that means somebody living there is more than 100 times more likely to be wiretapped than in the US.

    That seems to be pretty incongruous for a country that prides itself on the personal freedoms of its citizens.

    1. Re:Not Good.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If this *is* true, and I were Dutch, I actually complain first that they were wasting so much money!!! In the U.S., if the gov't wastes $100 someone flips out, but pointless surveillance costing thousands goes uncriticized.

    2. Re:Not Good.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And how do you know that 1350 is correct and not a lie?

  6. Where are all the comments? by Badger · · Score: 0

    Come on! We need 50 comments saying how everyone's moving to Canada now!

    What would be the Canadian equivalant for the Netherlands, anyway? Denmark? (yes, I know they don't actually border...)

    1. Re:Where are all the comments? by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 3, Funny

      Canadian equivalant for the Netherlands, anyway?

      Finland, eh?

    2. Re:Where are all the comments? by Ribert · · Score: 1

      IM moving to BELGIUM~!!

    3. Re:Where are all the comments? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      The Dutch make gentle fun of Belgium, which is a small country on our southern border. "How can you make a Belgian go mad? Put him in a round room and tell him there is a bag of fries in the corner."

      We also make (more serious) fun of Germany, which is a large country on our eastern border. Jokes tend to involve the second world war.

      We *never* make fun of the North Sea, which is a sea on our northern and western borders. It has invaded us too many times for us to make fun of.

      In truth, we like both the Belgians and the Germans (the generations that remember the second world war are dying, and the new generations do not feel any resentment or anger). We also like the North Sea, as long as it stays put.

      If pressed, most people here will confess to hating the French. As one of our government ministers said a few years ago: "French is a beautiful country. It's just a shame the French live there." Instant political fireworks ;-)

      As a rule, we like the USA, although we are a little bit peeved that you granted yourself the right to invade our country if any american soldiers ever end up in the International Court of Justice in The Hague. If you *do* decide to invade, please make sure you get the right coastal town - I live in the next one to the north, so this matters a lot to me.

    4. Re:Where are all the comments? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You know the Netherlands doesn't border on Denmark, AND your American? I'm impressed =) I bet your doesn't know that much ...

      (Yes, of course this flamebait, I'm kidding! Relax!)

    5. Re:Where are all the comments? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Leiden?

  7. it could be worse! by fogpilot · · Score: 2, Interesting

    some years ago the dutch telecomcompany and a technical university recorded ALL phonecalls from fixed (identifiable) lines during a six month period, to "research voice-printing and speech/pattern recognition". wonder what they are doing with that big fat and very handy database!

    1. Re:it could be worse! by orkysoft · · Score: 1

      Is that documented?

      --

      I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
    2. Re:it could be worse! by SN74S181 · · Score: 1

      Compressed with MP3, that would make a nice box set of DVD-ROMs.

  8. "We know no wiretapping!" by Synic · · Score: 1

    "What scares you more a government that wiretaps or a government that wiretaps and doesn't know what it is wiretapping?"

    How about a country that claims to not wiretap but does so anyway? (FBI, NSA, CIA in the USA)

    1. Re:"We know no wiretapping!" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      technically the nsa doesn't wiretap. They just happen to have interception stations near all major telcom transmitters. it is estimated that 90% of phone calls go through one of these. its not wiretapping if you just happen to pull stuff out of the air. wiretapping requires a court order and has oversight.

    2. Re:"We know no wiretapping!" by jilles · · Score: 1

      The US government is currently waging "a war against terror". Billions of dollars are allocated for this war which mostly consists of intelligence gathering. Then there is a "war on drugs" which is also costing billions of dollars annually. This war on drugs also involves massive attempts to gather intelligence. Probably more people are making a living tapping other people in the US then are tapped in the Netherlands.

      I don't see how the US government would be doing all of this without violating peoples constitutional rights on an enormous scale. Probably the US government no longer bothers to go by the book when it comes to wiretapping. If I lived in the US that would worry me.

      --

      Jilles
    3. Re:"We know no wiretapping!" by daoine_sidhe · · Score: 1

      You are absolutely correct. I live in the US, and I can tell you, I'm scared. The FBI has a long history if oppression and illegal wiretaps (i.e. McCarthyism, back in the 50's, the protests in the 60's and 70's, etc.) Tell me, does anyone know what the state of civil rights is in New Zealand? How about the Telecom. market? Could they use one more project manager/estimator? Because it's starting to look better and better every day...OH GOD, WHAT IF THEY'RE READING THIS POST RIGHT NOW!!!

  9. The U.S.A. is the converse of the Netherlands... by strat · · Score: 1

    Someone I know in Amsterdam once put it this way...

    The American people seem willing to put up with searches of their houses and no-knock warrants all of the time, but are horrified at the prospect of someone tapping their phone.

    The Dutch people would be horrified at the prospect of that degree of home invasion by the authorities but seem pretty resigned to the idea that their phones might be tapped.

    I found it to be an interesting converse.

  10. Re:The U.S.A. is the converse of the Netherlands.. by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The Dutch people would be horrified at the prospect of that degree of home invasion by the authorities

    Then please explain how we have the Dutch authorities working hand-in-hand with the DEA conducting raids complete with 17 search warrants.

    http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/pressrel/pr112200. ht m

    I bet the real story is just like the wiretaps - Dutch citizens are brainwashed that their country is free when in fact the rate of government intrusion into their lives is much higher than they realize.

    The fact that the wiretap rate in the Netherlands is 100 times higher than the US per capita really should be a warning that you may need to rethink your assumptions.

  11. Re:The U.S.A. is the converse of the Netherlands.. by gilroy · · Score: 1
    Blockquoth the poster:

    I bet the real story is just like the wiretaps - Dutch citizens are brainwashed that their country is free when in fact the rate of government intrusion into their lives is much higher than they realize.

    Hmmm... it seems they have more in common with us Americans than we thought...
    --
    The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
  12. Re:The U.S.A. is the converse of the Netherlands.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We ALL have more in common with each other than we're lead to believe =)

  13. Re:The U.S.A. is the converse of the Netherlands.. by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 1

    it seems they have more in common with us Americans than we thought...

    At least when your door is getting kicked in your KNOW that a government intrusion is going down.

  14. dabodebabo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    abee bada boom

  15. Eigen Volk Eerst! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Makakken buiten!

    -Pim

    ( CP'86 forever! )

  16. Re:The U.S.A. is the converse of the Netherlands.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah, unless it's somehow related to a "terrorist investigation", then the FBI can search your home and seize evidence without telling you there were there. And they can come to your business, seize records and you're NOT allowed to tell anybody they were there.

    All courtesy of the Patriot Act. Enjoy.

  17. I'm so scared now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    I live in Holland and I'd really love to say how terrible this is for my privacy. But somehow I think that when I make a phonecall, It's far more likely that some UK or US system listens along then a Dutch investigator...


    Or have we all forgotten echelon?

  18. Re:The U.S.A. is the converse of the Netherlands.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hmmm... it seems they have more in common with us Americans than we thought...

    Yeah, it is a small world isn't it?

  19. Dutch sense of "rights" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As a Yankee living in Amsterdam for the last 4 years allow me to give a little perspective -- the concept of individual rights is a little different here.

    In the US, you will not get in legal trouble for saying "homosexuals are sick, diseased animals." In Holland, you will. You do not have the right to say that publicly.

    In Holland, you will go to prison for a maximum of about three years for the US equivalent of aggravated murder. In the US, you may go to the chair for the same crime. Holland gives you the right to not be punished.

    Handguns are forbidden in Holland and your right in the US. Marijuana is forbidden in the US and your right in Holland.

    Not saying which is good or bad. The thing to keep in mind is that rights are not universal concepts, and not universally implemented.

    1. Re:Dutch sense of "rights" by nursedave · · Score: 1

      YEah, and don't dare to get into a discussion of Holocaust occurances/nonoccurances. Although those who are deniers are more than a little bit blind, its sad when a group can completely take over a discussion just by saying, "anti-semitism!" with no real points to argue. You can have a logical discussion of the number of Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans killed by the Japanese during and leading up to WWII (over 12 million), the number of Russians killed by Germans in WWI/WWII combined (around 12million), the number of Soviet citizens killed in Stalins purges (around 20 - TWENTY Million!!), the number of Chinese killed in Mao's cultural revolution (ditto, around 20million); but question even for a second the number, method, or whatever of Jews killed in the camps and you get immediately shut down. They drag out the Holocaust every 5 minutes, saying, "Never again," which many would agree with, but how many of the Jewish leaders, or how many Israeli troops, sign up to fight the same sort of situation happening elsewhere? Like, say, Palestine? No, they only mean, "Never again for us!" But bring this up in Holland or Germany, and you can actually be arrested. Scary.
      That's the problem with liberalism - you have tons of rights, as long as they agree with the liberal mindset.

      --

      The Democratic Party: We've been pussies since 1968!

  20. So What? by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 1

    I live in the Netherlands, and frankly, this doesn't bother me at all. After all, anyone can overhear a phonecall, and tapping Internet connections is not exactly hard. There are just so many people who may be listening, with possibly worse intentions than the government. Actually, it makes me feel kind of proud that nl is so well-organized we can tap 100 times more than the USA. With regard to the counting thing; who says the numbers for the US are accurate, nith all those agencies that officially do not exist?

    ---
    Life is too short for sentences that begin with "Life is too short for".

    --
    Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
    1. Re:So What? by metallic · · Score: 1

      It's not a "well-organized" thing. It's just so freaking hard to get a wiretap warrent in the United States. You have to have some very, very, very good reasons in order for the judge to grant you the warrant, that in most cases it's simply not worth the trouble.

      In a nutshell, I guess the disparity in the numbers is a cultural thing. Americans have always been paranoid about the invasiveness of government in every day life so we have built in great protections against this kind of thing into our government. I havent done any research, but I would suspect this is the exact opposite of the Netherlands.

      --
      Karma: Positive. Mostly effected by cowbell.
  21. Policemen (Policepersons?) by Crash42 · · Score: 0

    I'm not surprised. The Dutch DoJ also can't tell how much policemen there are.

    --


    ....Excuse me, but ... ah, forget it...
  22. Some first hand info by Xenna · · Score: 1

    I work with a small Dutch ISP and we recently had the 'pleasure' to have to cooperate with an e-mail tap against one of our customers.

    I was surprised to find that the people I dealt with hardly knew a thing about e-mail tapping. It took them more than a week to find out who was handling the customer's e-mail (no idea about mx records) and when we asked them where to forward the 'tapped' mail they came up with a 'free' e-mail address (say like a hotmail address).

    The free e-mail box quickly filled up and started bouncing. If I hadn't fixed the envelope-sender addresses the whole thing would have been exposed. Maybe I shouldn't have done that... ;-)

    Anyway, I came up with the thought to regularly sen myself e-mails whith linked tags (an old spammer trick to see if a mail is actually being read) and monitor the link image to detect if anyone is reading my mail without my knowing it. The amateurs are using OE, so that should work pretty well.

    Xenna.

    1. Re:Some first hand info by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wel, we should asume that every contry has its ways of listening to phone-cals,emails and other electronic devices. Accept it. We live in a real world, so what did you expect.

      The biggest problem is that there is a big knowledge gab between what politians know about what is currently happening and the justice-departments. This is the case in the Netherlands.

      By the way, they use Israeli equipment for the phone-tabs. The USA uses the same system i belive.

      Problaby most are drug-related investigations, asked by the US-justice department and DEA to the Dutch authorities to do something about our "drug-problem" . Wel we don't have the problem, the US have, and they pressure the Dutch goverment to do something about it, or else we suffer economic sanctions from the US. Thats the real world.

      To all the Americans who wonder why they attacked the TWIN-TOWERS (it was a sad and bad act, but partly youre own fault), besause the US-goverment is suppessing other goverments into doing what they want, or at least to some extent force them.

      Next time you wonder why these thing happen, think first, instead of japping about other contries.

      Currently the Dutch Justice department are under great pressure about their listening practices.
      Even at the political level.
      Maybe something good wil come from this.

      Thank you for youre attention,
      A free Dutchman.