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Dutch to Open Electronic Files on Children
Del writes "The Dutch government plans to open an electronic file on every child at birth as a tool to spot and protect the troubled kids of the future. All citizens will be tracked from cradle to grave in a single database - including health, education, family and police records."
And so what if one malicious worker has exclusive rights to view several hundred children? It doesn't matter if they have access to the whole database or not, even a "small pecentage" could be several hundred or thousand children. This is a pedaphile's ultimate dream.
The intention is to protect troubled children, Brouwer said. Until now, schools and police have been unable to communicate with each other about truancy records and criminality, which are often linked. "Child protection services will say, 'Hey, there's a warning flag from the police. There's another one from school. There's another one from the doctor," Brouwer said. "Something must be going on and it's time to call the parents in for a meeting."And how long exactly will these records be kept? Also, this would be a good way to usher in a country-wide database of this sortfor every citizen. Start with the children, saying its "for the good of the kids", and then slowly introduce a more inclusive database, which would go under some other guise. It would seem that a database of children "for their safety" might be easier to pull of then a citizenry-wide database at first.
Every child will get a Citizens Service Number, making it easier to keep track of children with problems even when their families move.This could have good uses, and assuming it was used exactly for the intent stated, this would be an excellent service. BUT, more often then not, these kinds of things get abused in some form or another. In every government there is some malicious back-room government worker who goes below the radar. These kinds of things get abused, and when it is a child at stake, the risks are even higher.
Like tags on pidgeons!
----- Concentrate on promoting more than demoting.
It's dangerous storing all information about people in one, most likely easilly hackable location.
"...if people respected copyright more, like you guys do with the GPL so religiously, [the DMCA] wouldn't be necessary."
Is this meant for control as in "Brave New World". Or is this meant for research? Knowing the Dutch, and the way this is worded, it seems to goal of this is noble. Whether it will stay noble is the question.
If what you are reading sounds funny, or sarcastic, lame, or stupid
it is because it is supposed to be. just laugh
Well, there goes Big Brother... again.
One good thing about the media in the Netherlands is that this new system has been visibly covered in the media. I can well imagine that it would have been swept under the rug in other places; after all, it's just various organizations dealing with children and their problems cooperating.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
What is really going on is that the already existing files of different agencies are being coupled in an attempt to keep children in difficult situations from falling off the radar when for instance they move to a different city. Child protection services often didn't know about children moving into the city with problems in their past - in the old database the record would be closed and they wouldn't turn up in the new one until something actually happened (which is usually too late).
So I hope this is not interpreted as a terrible invasion of privacy - all the information is already collected by local governments. The only change is that moving from one local government's area to another doesn't mean those services lose all information.
If these records are as exhaustive as they seem to be, what are the risks of blackmail?
High, IMO.
2)Find marketing company
3)PROFIT!!
THC in the blood stream...
why no country has attempted to do this sort of thing? For the entire world, there could be only 6 billion records - a single nation would need to have less than a billion - maybe a few million for most countries.
What can be the security implications for storing things like name, date of birth, sex, present address, etc. for all citizens? It's amazing that in these days of hi-tech gadgets and advances in storage, such elementary data is not available OR not reliably accurate.
Even population estimates have a more than 10% error rate for most nations. How can we plan for social welfare and emergency relief when we don't have accurate data? Amazing, really...
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
The blurb (and TFA) are a bit misleading. They suggest that Dutch citizens will now be tracked ``from cradle to grave'', whereas they hadn't been before.
In reality, what's happening is that schools, police, and various organizations for the protection of children, psychiatric institutions, etc. are already doing this tracking.
What's changing is that they will now exchange information about which kids have caused or otherwise been in trouble.
The rationale is that by improving communication between these institutions, kids can be more adequately helped. For example, a school can receive information from a child protection institution that says the child is having trouble at home, and link that to the fact that the child is often missing from school.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
On the other hand ... the presumption that a massive, government funded and maintained database is bad is good. Like any new power that a government attempts to arrogate to itself, it should be questioned and said government should be required to show that there are real public benefits, and that such benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
That's in an ideal world, of course.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
The funny thing is, in Belgium, our main ISP is indeed called Skynet.
The operative legal principle should be that our personal information belongs to the individual, and if someone (even someone who works for the government and who "wants to help you") wants to store data about you, they should be required to store that information on YOUR PODS (personally owned data storage). Easy enough to use a checksum to prevent you from modifying the information, but if they want to see it again, they should be required to say why, and you should have the right to agree or disagree to their proposed use of your personal information.
Trivial example, if you want to borrow money from a bank, then the bank would have good reason to query your PODS for information about your financial history. If you don't agree to provide enough information, then the bank is not going to agree to the loan. However, once they've made the decision to loan you the money, they should store the records on your own PODS, and erase most of the personal information at their end. Once you've finished paying off the loan, they'd have no reason to keep any of your personal information (though the records would still be stored on your computer if you want them again, as for another loan).
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
...in a country that is at the top of the list in terms of spying on its citizens. And they still can't keep people from getting killed or terrorist groups from forming or entering the country. Let this be a lesson to all you people advocating tougher laws to crack down on terrorism. It just doesn't work.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Schools are pedaphile's dream, and far easier to access too. The Internet also offers possibilities. Yet we didn't ban them. Geez. Ofcourse the system won't be 100% hack proof. No system can be. It's about the advantages (keeping troubled kids from going unnoticed by the right people) weighing against the disadvantages (chance of system abuse).
Creating this system country-wide for all citizens is probably the future. It's not creating a totally new system: we already have nation-wide systems for national ID, criminal records, taxes etc anyway. They're just not linked, causing everyone headaches and people can abuse *that* as well. And far easier, too.
Also keep in mind that we don't carry this US trauma of the government being evil.
...that each child will have to carry their own information in a frisbee glued to their backs.
People who are intolerant of other people's culture.... and the Dutch!
You would have thought the Dutch of all people would understand the dangers. In Holland before WWII the local authorities had records of the religion of their people. The reason was simple, so that contributions could be made to the churches on their behalf. All very reasonable and in keeping with tolerance and religious diversity. But come the invasion, it was very very simple to find everyone of a given religion.... It is not what these guys will use this stuff for, its what their successors may use it for.
The Netherlands also holds the record in the highest telephone tap rate of most western countries.
And does this system come with an auto-destruct build in? In case of invasion for example. So nice to have Scape-Goat Catagory A come out in handy alphabatized lists.
Maybe not likely at the moment, but the one of the things people gave their lives trying to do following the German invasion of the Netherlands was to make sure as many public records were destroyed, all paperbased then, but still very usefull for tracking down "unwanted" elements for deportation.
Far fetched? It happened before for crying out loud. Doesn't have be an invasion, a change of government for the worse would be enough. Oh, sure, we are in an enlightned "post" war society these days. Crap.
Safeguards mean nothing on a system where a government is able to give it self unlimited access at any time in the future.
Wouldn't it be nice to filter out each potential future muslim extremist, and assign a stasi member for regular check ups? Sure, they can already do that, but its probably not as easy yet.
Thing is, this process is unstopable, as of course its the next thing todo, and hey, its good for the children themselves.
We already do the same thing with cows. Might as well give children one of those big yellow plastic ID tags in their ears for easy tracking between farms/schools.
I suggest we do away with names altogether; just numbers for each person. No names, sex, religion or any other easily filtered information is to be stored. Be very suspicious when someone is saying "you are more than a number to us"
Ok, enough paranoia, some tea is in order.
as a dutch person, I have to agree
it seems that many of the new directions we are heading in are in the wrong direction.
and guess what... most of this new thinking direction is about fucking terrorism. to "protect" us.
laws are already being passed to arrest people who haven't yet commited a crime but "might" do so in the near future. (because it is not much use to arrest someone who is going to blow himself up after he commited the crime.
according to our government they would even like to expanding this by making adoration for terrorists a crime. thinks like "I think bin laden is a cool guy" or "man, really darn nice explosion a few weeks ago" could very well cause you big trouble.
the problem is this kind of thinking is that it could very well cause people who are actually joking or haven't done anything to go to jail, it is also a very usable power source if they would decide to use it for bad things. and it is also a first direction into the breaking down of our freedom of speech.
our government is heading in the wrong direction. and in general, there is no such thing as turning back...
just hoping this isn't a general scenario.
By keeping detailed files on every citizen "for their own good"?
A system which can later be handily used to flag if they're a Jew or not?
I don't know if it could be considered Nazi as such, but it certainly tends towards the Fascist nature.
It's nice that they're trying to help kids and all, but why don't they do something about the parents? I'm not so surprised that in a society where parents are both working (no attention for kids), divorced (psychological damage/no time and money for kids), or oppressive (e.g. certain muslim families), the kids might get into trouble with themselves.
So now these organizations come up with the good idea to warn each other of possible problems, but at the same time the government gives in to working parents by increasing subsidies on child care. I mean, if you find child care too expensive, why don't you just quit your job and, you know, raise your friggin kids?! Could cut you some stress, too, so that maybe you can stay together with your partner for more than 5 years?
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
In the past year, several times children have died because of molest, when several authorities where aware of things going wrong. In some cases ten or more different organisations where involved with a family but not knowing about each other. After the child died, it was realized that the life of the child could have been saved, if the organisations had been aware of eachother.
Sometimes things are just wrongheaded, no matter what the intentions. There's no reason the government should be taking this much personal interest in citizens. It's not just that it's ripe for abuse so much as it's an indicator that the Dutch have completely given up on taking care of themselves and their communities on any level other than a centralized beaurocracy. What does it say about a society when they feel the best way to Do The Right Thing is to keep a central database on each other and pay the government to track their children for them? I hope I speak for a majority of voters in America when I respectfully say please keep that shit on the other side of the pond. (To head off the knee-jerk reactions: Yes, I know America is a place devoid of compassion for the poor, and that we might do better with an Orwellian scheme like this than what we're doing now. I'm not saying America does things right, I'm just saying I hope that in attempting to fix our problems we don't go anywhere near this kind of 'solution'.)
There are strict rules with respect to which organisation are allowed to exchange information, and in many cases parents have to give written permission. I often had to sign such forms when dealing with various child health organisations and individuals.
One stop Identity-theft shopping!
Weee!
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
This is Slashdot. I frankly think that the item neglects some of the interesting facts. For example: how would the Dutch government store the data? Will our data be stored in some opaque Excel format, for example?
My Linux - (L)ove (I)s (N)ever (U)tterly eXPensive
I know you're playing a word game on PODS (personally owned data storage) versus Apple's iPod, but actually this is a good example of potentially significant information that you currently have pretty good control over, since most of it is in your control. You might be willing to share information about your musical tastes, for example to look for new friends with similar interests, or you might not want to. However, that decision should be YOURS, not Apple's. I don't yet know if Apple is making any sales pitches based on your musical preferences, but do you want them to?
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
They were Communist. From communist East Germany. You know, when Germany was split in twain for all those years after World War II. It wasn't that long ago, how come everybody forgets about that?
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
Indeed, you could steganographically hide your PODS data in the music collection on the iPod.
Of course, the very titles of the tracks could be used to hide data as well.
And of course people can, and will, draw their own conclusions on a person based on their musical taste (or lack of).
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
First off, the gestapo did a LOT more than just murdering jews. They spent a lot of time monitoring as many of their citizens as possible. Basically, you did not dare speak out, as the person next to you may very well be SS.
Next, we ARE a lot closer than what we were even a decade ago. Now, that gov. are tracking citizens and listening in their voice and internet coversations, how is that different than what gestapo did to the average german citizen? Likewise, the reason why so many fought against FDR's Social Security was that they were afraid that the SSN could be used in part of a national ID (interestingly, the republican party fought it hard based on that). The more that a gov. tracks and listens, the easier it is for the next one, to extend that further. They all say that is for the "good of the nation" or for "homeland defense".
A good example is China now has forced abortion on women and forced sterilization on both sexes. We are not talking a 1-2 months abortions, but 9 month (ready to deliver). Now, with this kind of tech., how easy will it be for a gov. to say, oh, we know that you are pregnant by listening in on coversations. And yes, if China is doing this now, how soon will other govs. decide to do the same? Perhaps, they have decided that junior there does not have the genetic make-up that is desirable. But of course, we both know that a gov. would NEVER take that step. Right?
And no western gov. would ever spend their effort listening in on all their citizens.
And no western gov. would ever control the press by locking up foreign journalist (say known musleum reporters in a war zone) or allowing their own press to be owned by just a few friendly companies in which the CEO and "moderators" decide what is ok to print/tell/view.
And no western gov. would try to control those who do have intimate knowledge of deals
10 years ago, I would have though ppl crazy for thinking that a DB is bad. Now, In light of what has happened over the last 5 years, I have changed my mind.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I would rather be concerned for countries which do execute people and do drag people to camps without judge or trail "for national security" and do invade foreign nations to expand their sphere of influence, all covered with a thick layer of propaganda and national pride. *That* is I call tending towards Fascistic nature.
But linking information that's already being gathered for decades without problems? That is, except the problems of unlinked databases, which stopped us from preventing several children from being murdered by their own parents recently.. How does wanting to prevent that even come remotely close to creating WW2 like scenarios?
It's the public consensus that creates WW2 like scenarios, not governments creating systems which could theoretically be abused if they really wanted to. They don't need new systems to be able to abuse them. You have to make sure they don't want to, thats the key.
For the first time in a long while I actually believe the end justify the means used. In an ever growing world we are seeing more and more systems pop-up that are able to classify and trace citizen in any country. Most countries that do this immediately label the system as an anti-terrorism system and basically make your life a living hell when you want to fly. Holland (where I life) is actually going to use this system to do good. Track citizens to make sure that nothing bad happens to them.
In the town where I live, we had a small child die when here parents severely abused her. This was such a shock to the nation that an investigation was started. All the instances that are normally involved in child protection had one complaint. There was no central system in place to track problem children in the country. Basically you could abuse your child in one town, get caught, move to the next town with a clean slate. This has happened several times and the government decided to solve this problem. I believe this will do good and I also believe that the Dutch government are not going to abuse the system.
The great thing of living in Holland is that we have privacy issues up the kazoeks. For example, in the rest of the world when someone gets arrested the media can actually use his full name in press reports, no go in Holland. The guy that killed van Gogh is called Mohammed B. and is last name is never used! But they (the gov.) do keep pushing the limits. A while ago they sent out a massive SMS round asking for witnesses to some football violence. They basically asked the telcos to provide the Cell numbers of everyone that was in the stadium or near it when the incident happened. Results: some people were pissed off (logically) but they managed to catch around 30 people with this action.
I am happy to live in Holland and to be honest when I compare it to the US I feel safer and have more trust in my government.
What this means is both that some grumpy social worker, on bad day, can flag a kid for life, and there is no way for anyone to put a judgement on the social workers decision.
What does the fact that the system work with flags have to do with how these flags are placed? You have no information at all about the process that sets these flags, so how a single social worker could do this, how this would flag someone for life, etc. has absolutely nothing to do with how it works technically.
My experience with the Dutch government is that they have extensive auditing on all these kinds of activities, monitored by independent control boards.
What a wonderful basis to build a totalitarian state on. Given the backlash against foreigners (dark-skinned, non-Christian foreigners, that is) in the Netherlands at the moment, this would really, really make me nervous.
Most foreigners seem to have a beautified picture of Holland, especially on the things you mention (drug use and prostitution). I'm a foreigner myself but I've been to Holland and know several people who live there, and the mainstream idea is that these 'experiments' have failed, and their result is a degeneration of society. This, and the problems with muslim radicalism, has resulted to a great increase of conservative thinking; the recent shut down of most pot shops is just one sign of that. I don't think we should discard an action like the monitoring of every citizen, which otherplace would be reson for major public outcry, just because 'the Dutch are basically nice people and they should know'.
Is that what they call a pedofile? /rimshot
Norway has this database actually. Everyone born or moving into Norway is registered and they keep track of your parents and grandparents, where you are born, the places you have lived, when you died and if you're married / living together with someone. Every appartment even has a unique number (Mine is H0101, which is the first appartment on the first floor) so in case of emergency they can pinpoint you fairly easily.
Harald
A similar scheme (http://www.politics.co.uk/public-services/hodge-c hildrens-database-will-not-be-it-disaster-$7765060 .htm) is being planned for the UK. It follows the high-profile death of an abused child who was "known" to a variety of agencies who failed to communicate with each other. Whilst the motives appear to be virtuous, the possible implications of the scheme are serious and the benefits extremely dubious.
Although I do not neccessarily agree with the method, there is a reason for this
The Netherlands have seen a sharp increase of parents killing their children in recent years. In many of these cases, it was found that there were definite signals which were known to one agency but not communicated with another agency that had the power to prevent the tragedy.
This is a measure to prevent these incidents.
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
Dutch Citizen Tracking Programme ..
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This particular database has no relation with tracking terrorists.
The proposal you refer to, does. You are right, we have a problem with politicians like Balkenende and Donner, who believe that they can control everything when they can monitor everyone.
But even more of a problem is that they believe that there is a war on terror to be fought against a hostile community. This belief came upon them when they had too close contact to the current president of the US. Said person indoctrinated them that troups should be sent to countries like Afghanistan and Iraq, to support a war against a phenomenon that they do not understand (and do not bother to understand).
As they really like to please people that appear to be powerful, the troups were sent. And now, they are faced with a "terror threat to the country". Instead of admitting that this is their own stupid fault, they try to cover their asses by inventing all kinds of stupid laws and regulations like the one you are referring to.
In fact:
- they are the real cause of the terror threat. when we had remained neutral there would have been no threat.
- they are exaggerating the threat, scaring people more than necessary
- the are introducing extra measures to constantly monitor people just in case
All in all they are just giving the terrorists what they want. First, give them a reason to attack. Then, scare their own people and take freedom-limiting measures.
Terrorists must be delighted by such a (mis)government! Everyone scared without having to throw a single bomb.
I can feel the glove up my ass already :(.
Will wank off Linus Torvalds for fame.
As far as I can tell, this is more or less what we have been used to in Denmark for most of my life; I have had a 'CPR number' (CPR = 'Central Person Register') for at least 35 years, if not longer. The system has its ups and downs; yes, the state can always find you and they can and will use it against you; though when I say 'the state' I mean the kind of people that work in the state bureaucracy. Not always the kind of people I would choose to trust, but then I don't have to, since I don't get the choice.
On the positive side it is more comfortable and safe in many ways. The hospitals can always find all your medical records, etc etc. There are situation where you will be glad that you can always be found.
But, all in all, I don't like it. Take social security - if I have an accident and can't work, the state will know, and I will get as much help as possible to get on with my life, and even a pension - that is definitely very good. On the other hand, if I then after a while find that I can earn a little to supply my income, the state will automatically cut your pension accordingly - this is bad, because it means that I'll think 'Why should I bother?'
Of course some will say that this is not because the state has a file on you, but the truth is that it enables the more anal-retentive of the state's beancounters (ie the majority) to take your money away if you are too alive, in effect knocking you down. The only (legal) way to counter this kind of shite is to change the laws - and as a result the Danish social laws are now incredibly complex - and tend to change very often as well.
...they threatened "this will go on your permanent record" and it terrified your young, naive soul? Now they mean it...
Anyone who still has the illusion that the Dutch have any better record, or are any less incompetent than other nations in handling things like child protection should read this article in this mornings Volkskrant newspaper on all the mistakes made in a murder-suspect case.
. html
http://www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/1126760833908
Just to translate the first paragraph:
It can't become any lonelier for a boy of 11. Your girlfriend has been murdered, the police doesn't believe you, and think you are responsible. The inspector assigned to assist him becomes a hard-cop interagator. The child phychologist there to protect him secrectly tapes "confidential" conversations and passes them on to the police.
A first child phychologist supports the boys story , but is then ignored and replaced by another who then continues to support the police in their interogations for days on end -- for crying out loud, the kid is 11.
Even when the police had already already arrested another suspect for the murder, the statements don't match the police "picture" of what happened and the boy is continuedly pressured to modify his story.
The tone of the article suggest something that not really the case.
First of all they won't suddenly start keeping a single, giant 1984 record. What they are proposing is to link the existing records of different agencies.
Second, while the road the hell is paved with good intentions they do have a good reason for this step: in many cases tragedy could have been avoided if agencies had known important information that others had. An example is the rise of loverboys in the Netherlands: young men who use the emotional fragility of teenage girls to get them in to prostitution. Often the police knows about the men, but doesn't know what or who are the likely targets, while child protection services knows the girls but has no clue about the men.
Thirdly: the right to privacy is protected much stronger in the Netherlands that in the US. As a result identity theft is almost never a problem and there are very few cases known of clear abuse of government databases.
It's certainly something to be watchfull about but the step in itself isn't too worrying.
The difference is the action that is being taken. With the Gestapo, you could get killed for venting your thoughts. No way that this is going to happen by action of the Dutch government.
I think the protection of children is a good thing. Personally, I'm against the right to have children as defined now. I think everybody should have the right to have children, but only after having done a course in raising a kid.
Personally, if I would have to give up a little privacy in order to give one kid a better life, I think it's worth it. If you look at the raising criminality and drug use among kids in The Netherlands, I think paying more attention to them wouldn't hurt anyone. Many parents don't do that nowadays - pay proper attention to their kids I mean.
Then again, given the current situation of The Netherlands, I think our government has much better ways of spending their money.
I bet every government does this -- to some extent. This is the one being honest about it.
Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy
>10 years ago, I would have though ppl crazy for
>thinking that a DB is bad. Now, In light of what
>has happened over the last 5 years, I have changed
>my mind.
Odd. 10 years ago it was already a horrendous idea. It's not like security has significantly changed for the better or worse in the meantime.
It's not the unlinked databases that 'stopped us from preventing several children being murdered'. It's simply incompetence of the organisations that are supposed to protect those children.
The cases that have been in the media in the last year (which are just a few examples, as 1 to 2 children *a week* are killed by abuse in the Netherlands!) are cases where the family was already under control of a child protection agency. The situation was known to the 'gezinsvoogd' (custodian? it's the person assigned responsibility over a child by the judge when there are serious problems) but they didn't react, or at least not very effectively.
The reasons this system doesn't work are simple:
1) The safety of the child is not a priority. In most of the agencies there is a huge pressure to make sure the child stays with the parents. Even if the parents have repeatedly physically abused the child! The reason given for this is that it is better for the psycologicaldevelopment of the child to stay with its parents. True, but first things first, please...
2) History is disregarded. Parents from who children have been taken because of abuse are allowed to keep their other children. Apparently this is a 'different relationship'. Go figure.
3) The organisations charged with protection of the children are both inadequately funded, and inadequately run. There is usually no clear structure or guidelines on how to deal with different cases, no place to get expert help (ie. no child psycologists available, and no budget to go to an external expert), no rules on how to keep records, even!
Fixing these problems is not done by linking databases. It's done by reorganisation of the system, and proper regard for children's safety as *the* primary requirement.
This isn't just the first step towards Orwell's "Big Brother Is Watching You!". This is IT! Another post mentioned secret files held by military and such; but this is centralized, out in the open, complete, and will certainly be oppressive, even if it's not flaunted by huge, everpresent murals of Big Brother watching you.
I, for one, do NOT welcome their always-surveilling overlords!
From TFA:Well, how about a system that allows them to share data on demand? Such systems exist in the US, and seem reasonable.
Procrastination -- because good things come to those who wait.
Leaving the privacy and political issues far behind... as a former Early Medieval Historian, I find this project absolutely fascinating and exciting. Imagine having this comprehensive database to examine in the future. So much of what we understand about England in the past comes from the Doomsday Book data, and this would be so much more comprehensive. (Think of the dissertations!)
Just like getting in to a slipery slope. Some 20 years ago, perhaps 25 years ago we all got a tax number somewhat like the ssn in the US. This was only possible on the strict promise it would limited to use of financial data, for tax purposes and only that. This was a public demand, just because of the gestapo reasoning.
Recently our Dutch government has made the decision to create a personal identification number just to gather personal data, like who's lending which books in the library.
This to illustrate how intentions can change on these subjects.
The reason for these changes is to fight terrorism. Yay for our (Dutch) government and our allies.
I'm just wondering how long it would take for them to create a red flag system based on this system, to include data about what books they might read, and when it will be used against you.
How long will it take for our government to reason, if you're not with us, you're against us, and therefor a terrorist.
Article 16 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child says:
1. No child shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his or her honour and reputation.
Not sure if this applies, it seems pretty vague.
I think this is a very bad move, mainly since this ensures the entire next generation will have a file, (not that they don't already?) which will be accessed by people who are not yet in office or even alive now. But it could be experimented with by starting with individuals in office. It would fit on a CD.
If the cases in the Netherlands are anything like the cases that have been cited here in the UK as the reasons for us having a National Childrens Database, then it was not the "linking of information that's already been gathered" that would have prevented the deaths but people doing their jobs properly.
I'd be very surprised if it was any different in NL.
No but, yeah but, no but...
For example, in a country with socialised medecine, what is wrong with a central database of treatments an individual has had? That's arguably a service. A social security number allows contributions when working for various employers to be summed and credited. But when we come to the concept of a 'troubled' family, or, as in my previous post, when we start recording the religious affliliations of a person, then we start to have real potential problems. After all, what is a 'troubled' family? Could it be one too preoccupied with vegetarianism, feminism, or naturism, academic excellence, untidiness, or something else a social worker doesn't agree with?
You can see this in the UK, with a recent proposal to track children from families with a criminal record, the idea being to 'support' them - they are after all 'at risk'. You saw it in Holland in 1940, when all an occupier had to do to round up people of a certain religion was use the municipal records.
The problem, surely familiar enough to /. readers, is, how to make sure that what gets in a database is factual, and objective, and relevant to the legally defined objectives of that database, not simply a collection of opinions and rumours to be used for any purpose a reader may choose.
In the end, the only way to sanitize is to keep out certain kinds of data, and this would precisely be stuff about 'troubled' families, whatever they are. Isn't the issue that, if there is a legally established history of child abuse, the penalties have to be got right for that offence, and the legally sanctioned powers of the courts have to be used to safeguard the children. This is what you need - something to tackle the particular problem, not some all inclusive database of...what exactly?
That's not true. We spend less money fighting drugs and have a smaller drugs problem than the rest of Europe. There are some cities that have put limits on the number of 'coffee shops' they wanted in town center, and perhaps a few had to close, but then normal bars and all other businesses are regulated too.
What's popularly regarded as failed is integration of minorites (i.e., muslim immigrants) into our society. There's a big divide there, mutual fear and anger, and the feeling that the values of Dutch society aren't shared by traditional Islam. That's what the big mess in our society right now is. Not a few harmless coffee shops.
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
Fixing these problems is not done by linking databases. It's done by reorganisation of the system, and proper regard for children's safety as *the* primary requirement.
The biggest problem here is finding the right criteria for taking the children away from their parents. Take away too few, and you end up with deaths, even if the agencies visit the family frequently. Take away too many, and you'll surely get a public outcry. If the safety of the child is the main priority, you can say 'we cannot afford to take chances' and end up letting the government take away and raise many children fitting a weak profile. Child's safety first. Also, it suddenly makes the government (politically) responsible for the actions of the parents: the government should have taken the child away if its abused. It's not a slippery slope, it's a direct consequence of saying 'the safety of the children is our primary concern'. If the child isn't safe, the government failed.
So what is the primary concern? It is finding a balance between the freedom in raising your own kids and being responsible for your behaviour, and the children's safety. A balance, because both extremes have undesirable consequences. Clear guidelines are indeed essential.
A clear and global view makes clear guidelines possible. It is essential to make informed decisions. A better record of the past, observations made by various people (doctors, police, whatever) put together help do this. Being able to keep the child you abuse merely because you move to another city is inexcusable. Not being able to prevent a child's death just because agencies didn't inform each other properly, is inexcusable too. Creating a system which collects the relevant information and can alarm the proper agencies, is a structural way to solve both.
I swear I'm trustworthy :)
No I'm serious, no one service can supposedly see all data from the other services, but some dba's and technicians will have the sa password surely
Artists against online scams http://www.aa419.org/
You're right in what you say - the US is (for all their talk of "t3h fr33d0mZ!!!!!1111!") far closer to becoming a fascist state than the Netherlands currently is.
Read The 14 Characteristics of Fascism by Dr. Lawrence Britt - the USA hits every single point square-on, with the possible exception of point 5 (rampant sexism), although the paper goes on to clarify "opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy", so maybe half a point then.
However, by instituting a system such as the Netherlands', they make it much easier to start monitoring their citizens and restricting civil liberties in the future - all you need is to not stop updating the database after the child passes 18, and you've got some of the scariest bits of 1984 right there.
Short version: The US is far further down the track, but the Netherlands just massively upgraded how fast they can catch up.
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
"The difference is the action that is being taken. With the Gestapo, you could get killed for venting your thoughts. No way that this is going to happen by action of the Dutch government."
Currently.
Ten years ago in USA you couldn't be arrested, detained without trial, denied even minimal Geneva Convention protections and tortured and abused without restitution merely for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And the USA was widely regarded as the shining example of representative democracy and civil liberties to the entire world.
Your point?
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
Danish Jew population before the war: a few thousand
Dutch Jew population before the war: a few hundreds of thousand.
The danish resistance had the convient luck that neutral Sweden was only 30 odd miles away over water. The ferried most of them over in one(!) night.
Yes, I'm dutch, yes my grandparents, greatgrandparents maybe didn't do everything they could to save the jews, but this comparison with Denmark, I've heard it before, and it's just too easy.
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
I'm a bit of a paranoid libertarian myself, but that link is horseshit. Fascism is a philosophy, not a mystery syndrome. And maybe some people in the Administration do have authoritarian leanings but... even under Dr. Britt's criteria we still fall short, if only by degrees
To say that the U.S. has military supremacy is the most far-fetched of them all. I could only find two cabinet secretaries who had military service listed in their Wikipedia biography: Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, and Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson. That's troublesome in its own right, but might explain why there are so many hawks in the Administration. Regardless, when you start getting into fascist military cults... you don't see Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld running around in military uniforms making up medals to give each other like Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, or dare I say it: Hussein's government in Iraq all did.
Again, it's not that I'm not scared: it could happen; we're inching towards it. But what's his face's attempt to force fit fascism into modern American society is a joke.
One might ask the same about birds. What ARE birds? We just don't know.
Yay! My first Freak!
;-)
But seriously, I wasn't trolling, I was attempting to make a serious point:
Merely because the current government in the Netherlands apparently isn't predisposed towards fascist/totalitarian behaviour, that's no reason to hand them the capability without thought.
Allowing the government additional powers isn't merely a question of "will they use it responsibly?".
It's actually a case of "will they, and every single government who comes after them, for the entire conceivable future of the country use these powers responsibly".
I'd submit that no "government" can be trusted for all time, since the people who make up each "government" change every few years, and while it's easy to restrict civil liberties and pass restrctive laws, these measures don't tend to be repealed by anything short of a revolution.
The (admittedly slightly emotive) example of the US was intended to illustrate this point - in the mid-90s you'd have been laughed at to suggest that the current situation would occur within 5-10 years, and yet the US has gone from shining beacon of liberty to the world to an unprecedented crackdown on civil liberties and an unprecedented drop in international esteem.
Apologies if you think I'm trolling, but that wasn't the intention at all. And when your Freaks list is at least as long as your Friends list, maybe you want to re-evaluate that hair-trigger on your killfile
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
It's instructive to note how few Dutch Jews survived the war with how many
Danish Jews did. In Denmark, there wasn't a population register with religion on
it, and the civil service behaved impeccably.
Impeccable? This is complete bullshit. You are comparing apples and oranges. Denmark never suffered an occupation regime:
"After the German invasion and military occupation on April 9, Denmark became an exception amongst the occupied countries. It formally remained a sovereign state and governed its own affairs, thus differentiating it with regard to international law and the practice of occupation. The situation in Denmark has even been characterized as an "anomaly" in German occupied Europe. This was foremost a consequence of a unique occupation regime. Unlike other countries, Denmark was not put under the control of a German civil or military administration. In theory, and more or less in practice, the basic social, political, and legal situation in Denmark remained intact."
In other words, Denmark was pretty much able to do whatever it wanted as long as it didn't provoke Germany into imposing a stricter occupation regime. Denmark did not defend itself, its government collaborated with the Nazis and never went into exile, and it was never part of the Allies.
In terms of occupation regimes, The Netherlands represents the complete opposite: a Nazi civil occupation regime. It was, like the states in Germany itself, and for instance Austria, and former Prussia in conquered Poland, ruled by a Nazi Gauleiter (Governor), the infamous Austrian Arthur Seyss-Inquart, from the outset. In all areas that were treated as original parts of the First Reich by the Nazis the jews nearly disappeared.
The Netherlands was militarily defeated, its government went into exile, it was at war with the axis nations, it never surrendered its sovereignty to anyone but only most of its terrirory, and the civil administration in the Netherlands was considered clearly illegitimate by the majority of the population.
The intermediate type of regime is represented by for instance northern France and the Balkan countries that merely suffered a German military occupation regime.
"Britt bent his data to fit his hypothesis."
Do you have any decent evidence to support this hypothesis? I'm not saying he hasn't, merely that your arguments seem deeply flawed, and are therefore no basis to allege such a conclusion.
"Why else would characteristic 3 include "terrorists" as a scapegoat when the regimes he allegedly used for the study never focused on such a group?"
Maybe because back then the word "terrorist" wasn't thrown around with quite such wild abandon as these days? Thesaurus.com gives us such synonyms as "agitator, insurgent, insurrectionist, malcontent, mutineer, nihilist, rebel, revolter, revolutionary" and "anarchist", and these have been used as scapegoats by authority figures since the beginning of time.
It's also interesting that Fascist states seem to have more problems with terrorists than non-fascist states, due primarily to their repressive and authoritarian actions.
"And since when is being a terrorist-- by definition someone who kills, steals, and destroys to force an agenda-- defensible? Are terrorists victims now? Lumping terrorists in with ethnic minorities and "liberals" (nice one, Larry) is suspect."
The point I think he's trying to make is not that these things are acceptable, but that they're scapegoated for things they didn't necessarily do, or their level of threat is wildly exaggerated to permit the authorities to become more repressive and have the population simply accept it.
Scapegoated has a different meaning from "rightly blamed", and scapegoating is always bad.
"Also, scratch number 4 (after all, the liberals keep telling me we didn't allocate enough troops to Iraq or Afghanistan originally and that costs money)"
Number 4 is not strongly so in the case of the US. Nevertheless:
1) Hypothetically, merely because the opposition is also arguing for a single "fascist" element that doesn't mean the party in power isn't also tending towards fascism. In addition, the "liberals" were initially campaigning not to go into Iraq. Now they've failed (and your troops are there), they're campaigning to at least give them enough equipment to have a chance of staying alive. This is very different to prioritising the overwhelming supremacy of the military, which is what the point is all about.
2) Bush is spending a disproportionate amount of money (and raising international tension) developing new high-tech military gadgets like bunker-buster nukes, SDI defence systems and the like.
The keyphrase here is "supremacy of the military", not "having more soldiers than anyone else", or "well-funding all aspects of the military equally".
"number 6 (please point out the state-sponsored censorship in the NYT, LA Times, or Air America Radio)"
Point six says "controlled mass media", not "rigid censorship". In fact it explicitely goes on to state "in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives".
I'm not being offensive, but did you even read the linked article, or just decide you didn't like what it was saying and skim over a few words of it?
"number 10 (haven't seen troops breaking up strikes lately)"
Granted, this doesn't apply too strongly to the US, but then the "labour vs. bosses" fight was largely over many years ago, and workers now have certin rights enshrined in law. In reaction, corporations are simply off-shoring jobs to third-world countries with no such labour laws (and cheaper expenses), as fast as they can. Several Bush economic policies have also eased this flood, not stemmed it.
"The rest could conceivably be argued by some radicals."
Hehehehe, are you serious? I'd have said the following
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
A course or a book cannot prepare you to raise children. These things can help, but the government is a poor entity to tell you how to raise your children. Most of your parenting skills are learned as a child, growing up in your own home. If you don't have that, then the next best thing is a willingness to learn from some elders who are great parents.
I am a parent of five children. Two of them were adopted through the foster care system. There is no way that the government is prepared to teach parenting! I have seen, first hand, how messed up social services are. I have met many good social workers, with great care and dedication for the children, but their hands are tied by an impossible bureaucracy and a legal system that is overwhelmed. Frankly, most of the problems with children stem from the breakdown of the traditional family.
www.mikesmind.com - www.daddyworkathome.com - www.freetofarm.org - www.tenfoottable.com
"children die because social services are hugely incompetent."
This should read "because PARENTS are hugely incompetent"
You're welcome.
The biggest problem here is finding the right criteria for taking the children away from their parents. Take away too few, and you end up with deaths, even if the agencies visit the family frequently. Take away too many, and you'll surely get a public outcry.
This is exactly the main problem. My wife and some of my friends work in the involved organizations in the Netherlands. They do very good work generally speaking, but the problem is that they basically have almost no clear criteria in making big decisions about other people's lives. They have too many families to look after, get death threats from parents, their interventions get regularly overturned by the courts for vague reasons, and the shortage of suitable places for children means that children who are taken away from parents can end up in jail because there are no better places.
In the nineties the media was ranting continually about child protection taking away children from innocent parents, based on stories of parents, and now they are ranting about a few cases of children dying because nobody interfered.
The Dutch historian Wesseling once made the famous statement that there cannot be such a thing as liberal art (as opposed to socialist, fascist, catholic art) since liberalism is constitutionally unable to define what art is good. We are talking about liberal in the sense of "tolerant", of course, and not the more limited (and in many ways opposite) American meaning of the word. I would add that liberal child protection cannot be too, since any definition of child abuse involves a government setting criteria for good child rearing, or even for good parents. The left-wing opposition and civil servants have for instance suggested that mentally handicapped couples should not be allowed to have children (which would really reduce the workload, to be honest), but most people simply don't want to face such choices.
Failing to set criteria is exactly what this Dutch government is good at: it talks about values all the time, but never creates any clarity about which (and whose) values they mean and they continually "deregulate" to "give people more responsibility".
Child's safety first. Also, it suddenly makes the government (politically) responsible for the actions of the parents: the government should have taken the child away if its abused.
The law does indeed state that the rights of the child as described by the UN declaration take priority, but the fact of the matter is that you can only get sued by adults. The UN declaration also states that children have a right not to be separated from their parents, which is extremely helpful for parents.
A clear and global view makes clear guidelines possible. It is essential to make informed decisions. A better record of the past, observations made by various people (doctors, police, whatever) put together help do this. Being able to keep the child you abuse merely because you move to another city is inexcusable. Not being able to prevent a child's death just because agencies didn't inform each other properly, is inexcusable too.
The main argument for the increasing decentralization of child protection over the last decade is that regions in the country are apparently so different that you cannot use the same criteria everywhere. The actual reason is that the child care subject is so impopular that the government wants to get rid of the responsibility for it. It is also a way to move responsibility for the budget to the municipalities, which saves money because municipal governments are poor anyway.
Creating a system which collects the relevant information and can alarm the proper agencies, is a structural way to solve both.
I think such a system is indeed part of the solution, but I doubt very much that the government actually wants to take on the real issue: setting the criteria. The government should also become better at parenting itself: taking away a child should be an improvement for the child. This is simply a mon
No, you don't really. You've shown that you missed the point of human rights. Human rights aren't something that should be observed only if it is convenient and popular.
Is it okay to steal as long as you don't murder ? I don't think so.
`You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.'
- Lyndon Johnson
Flags have been steadily vanishing in the public square compared to their post-9/11 prominence. They are also largely without power.
Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
The US Constitution provides expressly for many human rights. Our legal positivism is not dismissal of the value of human rights, only the acknowledgment that in the real world rights exist because governments grant them, not because of their value.
Identification of Enemies
Name me one world power in history that had no enemies. We don't scapegoat everything on terrorists, only what they do. And we make a distinction between Muslims and Islamists.
Supremacy of the Military
Ours is a civilian government. Military service does not grant significant advantage in elections. Many people do not like the military. Military recruitment has fallen. A large budget means that we are in an intractable war, not that we are a military state.
Rampant Sexism
First, opposition to abortion is not sexism. It really isn't. You can be pro-Life and a feminists. Secondly, opposition to abortion isn't that high. A majority think it should be legal, they just don't think it should be legal at all points and in all circumstances. As for homophobia, it goes both ways. Some states have civil unions, others have marriage bans. Many have some special protections in the form of hate crime laws.
Controlled Mass Media
The closest thing we have to state-run media is PBS and NPR. Tell me with a straight face that those are fascist propaganda machines. And before someone shouts Fox News, having one news source tailored to viewers of a particular political persuasion sympathetic to the current administration does not fascism make.
Religion and Government are Intertwined
American secularism, enshrined in the Constitution, specifically disentangles government and religion. Yes, members of the governing party use religious rhetoric, but they are not the majority of the government, and they represent people who genuinely care about it, not people who have been manipulated.
Labor Power is Suppressed
Unions are perfectly legal, and even given some protections. That unions are in trouble in America is due to the decisions made by the particular Unions (AFL-CIO, several of whose member unions left recently) and the pressures of globalization.
Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
Last I checked Ward Churchill could say any crazy thing that he thought up and nothing happened to University funding. He certainly wasn't hauled away. The US continues to be one of the top nations for scholarly institutions. As for art, refusing to give away money to artists isn't fascism, it is just a lack of socialism.
Obsession with Crime and Punishment
The police don't have limitless power, most people care about civil liberties, and the courts have repeatedly checked the power of law enforcement. I would certainly like for their to be greater checks on law enforcement, but it is not as if we have a secret police or suspension of habeas corpus.
Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
Federal corruption charges are not overly numerous, and the effects of cronyism are limited and temporary. It is not as if we have no problem with this, but again, not to the level of fascism.
Fraudulent Elections
Our elections are real. Sure they are flawed in ways that only rarely make a difference, such as in Bush v Gore, but those flaws are not systematically designed to benefit the ruling party, they are often due to human laziness and incompetence.
omnia tua castra sunt nobis