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Dutch Bill Seeks To Give Law Enforcement Hacking Powers
An anonymous reader writes "The Dutch government today presented a draft bill that aims to give law enforcement the power to hack into computer systems — including those located in foreign countries — to do research, gather and copy evidence or block access to certain data. Law enforcement should be allowed to block access to child pornography, read emails that contain information exchanged between criminals and also be able to place taps on communication, according to a draft bill published Thursday and signed by Ivo Opstelten, the Minister of Security and Justice. Government agents should also be able to engage in activities such as turning on a suspect's phone GPS to track their location, the bill said. Opstelten announced last October he was planning to craft this bill."
Ah good - they've been paying attention and made sure to include the good ol' "child pornography" bit in the list of reasons as justification for breaking into someone else's machine. No bill can be taken seriously without that think-of-the-children element added to it.
they would still be criminals in the other countries. might be troublesome if they plan to travel, while having wire fraud and computer crime charges on their heads...
and well, they're part of the eu so that too, might be unavoidable to remain and not extradite to other eu countries.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Really no difference to Chinese state-sponsored hackers. For anybody else, these people are just an (advanced) persistent threat, as they will not go to jail if identified, at least not in their own country. Treat them no different than any other criminal hackers from a different country.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
The Netherlands has seen some high profile DDOS attacks on both its banks and a government service that allows login to government sites (DigiID), The re emerging of this idea is therefor no surprise. It has not been successful so far.
The reason is simple, Americans might complain about the two-party system... well... we got about a dozen. And not all that different in size either. Our current government is "VVD" (Think business rules all democrats) and PvDA which used to be the labour party (socialist) but only if you think Blair was a socialist.
And that is just the politicians. VVD is often the socially acceptable extreme right wing party (same as Republican is the socially acceptable alternative to the KKK) and many a PvDA member is still red and jealous of the red of the SP (Socialist Party).
You can possibly imagine there is some strive, not between the politicians perse but in the fight for both parties to keep their members believing their party is still their party. An example is the current attempt to make being present in Holland illegaly, illegal... it is part of the agreement between the two ruling parties BUT the PvDA has a hard time selling it to some of its backers. (PvDA is really a mix between the Blair type, hard-core sociasts (who were against immigration to begin with) and bleeding hearts, constantly fighting over who is the REAL PvDA).
To understand Dutch politics you got to look at its drugs policy. Blowing, smoking pot, isn't actually legal, it is condoned. But mayors (responsible for the police in their city) want to combat excesses like drug dealers near schools. So they introduced local ordinances to ban selling in some areas.
HOWEVER, Dutch law prohibits the passing of local laws that make things illegal that are ALREADY illegal to begin with. Smoking pot is already illegal so you can't pass a local ordinance banning it near schools. BUT it is also condones, so you can't act against it either. Meaning drug sellers actually won a court case banning them from selling in some areas...
Remember Americans, you might not like your two party system but are you ready for a system in which EVERYONE must be kept happy/miserable?
This new law has little chance, it is just a way to get in the papers.
Exactly. When governments give themselves freedoms while taking the same freedoms away from their citizens, something is wrong. Unfortunately this seems to be de rigueur, lately.
If the hack is at such a level that they have system write access (e.g.. to place taps on communications) then the defence case has a much stronger case just by asking whether the the same channel could be use to plant evidence, whether by the law enforcement agency or by a third party.
This sig is a figment of your imagination.
I thought WW3 was supposed to be starting somewhere in the Middle East? If Dutch cops think they can hack around the globe - and announce they'll be doing so whenever the mood takes them - won't that upset any country who has already stated that incoming hacks will be treated as an act of war?
They must be smoking some good shit there these days!
It has been argued that one of the real reasons behind this bill is the lack of resources with the police to follow-up all the now already available means of tracking down offenders. Appearantly, it is much cheaper to use hacking tools than to do some old style research and detective work. Or at least that is the impression given by those marketing these hacking tools.
Sadly, I have to admit he IS just that stupid.
He's been busy trying to kill privacy while turning a dozen bureaucratic police corpses into a single grand paper mill with vast investigative powers and near-zero investigative ability. Percentage of crimes solved is historically low. Priority appears to be crimes that aren't (example: 440 man DAYS burned on a single 4Chan message of a schoolkid threatening to set his school on fire), as well as traffic violations (effectively turning the police into an extended tax collection agency).
Sadly, he's not going anywhere until the next elections.
No, this is completely normal. For example, governments have a monopoly on violence (see wikipedia). Citizens don't have the freedom to shoot each other, for example. A police officer does have the right to shoot under certain circumstances.
This isn't something from the past few years. Governments have reserved certain rights to itself for many centuries, in order to maintain civil order and sovereignty.
So, it's also completely normal that the government reserves the right to hack into computers under certain circumstances. For example, permission from a judge is needed. You can compare this to a search warrent for a private home, also the exclusive right for the government.
This is your sig. There are thousands more, but this one is yours.
Lately? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Every government in human history has enjoyed powers that were denied to individual citizens. That's pretty much the point of the institution we call a government. We don't want individuals making and enforcing their own laws or drafting people into private armies...
Life needs more saving throws.
What is missing in the article is that the same hardline minister also put in that law the option for the prosecutor (not even a judge, just a prosecutor with a vested interest in a case) to order a suspect to decrypt encrypted files, punishable by max. 3 years in prison if he does not comply. It remains to be seem what the judges will do with "I forgot", or "I destroyed the keyfile" or "there is no hidden volume". So he leaves the inconvenient "not guilty until proven guilty" and "you have the right to remain silent". This could be overruled by the European court for the human rights but that takes a lot of time.
That's all fine and dandy as long as they are doing it to Dutch citizens. It's the same as searching a suspect's house, warrant in hand. The problems I can imagine arising from this bill will come when they hack into some foreign entity's computers. Jurisdiction, anyone? "Look boss, our suspect works for the American Department of Defense. Let's go hack the Pentagon!" Next thing you know, Amsterdam is bombed back to the stone age.
Yes.
Next question?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Since the average judge would see such a "hack" as something much less invasive than a search warrant, he's also more likely to grant it on flimsy, if any, leads.
That makes for an interesting double standard.
(Monday)
Cop: "Your honor, we'd like to hack into this guy's computer to see if he's a criminal."
Judge: "Meh, no biggie. Here's your warrant."
(Tuesday)
Cop: "We got him, Your Honor! Turns out he was hackin the webs and rippin the disks and things."
Judge: "Hax?!? On the computorz?! This for serious! 50 years in a federal 'pound me in the ass prison!' So let it be written. So let it be done. Also, bricks without straw because apparently for the purpose of this joke I'm also Pharaoh."
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.