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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?"
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.
I've seen reports in a variety of places that wiretaps are far more prevalent in Europe than the US.
s ys tems.com/msg02595.html
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@wasabi
If I were a European citizen I would be asking some question of my government.
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.
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!
The Dutch people would be horrified at the prospect of that degree of home invasion by the authorities
. ht m
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
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.
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