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Dutch Wiretaps: Too Many To Bother Counting
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?"
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.