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Dutch Government: Number of Internet Taps Has Quintupled In One Year
vikingpower writes "A Dutch newspaper has a digital version of the letter Mr. Opstelten, Secretary of Justice and Security, sent to Dutch Parliament (PDF in Dutch), in which he quietly admits to 56,825 phone taps (a 3% rise in one year) and to 16,676 internet taps in 2012, a 400% rise, or a fivefold increase, in one year. An older report already exposed the Netherlands as one of the biggest wiretappers in the western world. Slate also knew, back in 2006, that Europeans actually love wiretapping and internet tapping. In the Netherlands, a country with a population of only 16 million, the practice has risen to the level of a staggering 1 in 1,000 phones being tapped."
I wonder if they took the 22,000 wire tap orders and an estimated 22 million phones and came up with that figure. That may not be accurate. Wire tap orders expire. There could be 12 wire tap orders to keep a 12 month watch on one phone. Multiple agencies may want information from the same phone; therefore multiple wire tap orders.
Blame Geert Wilders!
Blame one far-right candidate for the actions of the entire government? I don't think so, the problem is systemic.
FYI, I think the original comment refers to statements made by two old Prime Ministers that commented in a National Geographic Documentary about the Dutch Airforce and the possession of nuclear weapons in the Airbase Vokkel.
Which, really is a public secret, since most people know about it anyway since the 80's and our F-16's have a (non-standard)nuclear strike panel in the cockpit. It is reasoned this is influencing the decision to buy the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Which is now possibly causing a revolt in parlement, and comments have been made concerning a parliamentary inquiry to the acquisition of this aircraft. Even if this wouldnt be true then buying this aircraft would still prove difficult to the coalition, given that one of the two ruling party's always has been fervently opposed to this type.
Going back to the wiretapping, it also has been common knowledge that its a unhealthy ammount in The Netherlands, but for some reason it has never upset people enough, which quite frankly I find scary and saddening. Sometimes I feel that we are already further ahead on the slippery slope then some other les reputable countries(whatever that still means).
captcha: acceptor, how fitting..
Ignoring the human dignity issues, my question is what did they get in exchange for going NSA on their own asses?
Did it reduce the rate of crimes related to the wiretap investigations? I don't mean just raw numbers, I mean trendwise before and after the massive increase wiretapping what (if anything) changed?
The Netherlands doesn't start wars and doesn't join them if at all possible. The Netherlands isn't really racist enough against any group to make it a target of any great terrorist act. The only possible reason for this level of domestic spying in the Netherlands is to keep lazy overpaid government bureaucrats in jobs.
Your examples are not so much untrue as they are selective. In fact, they are mostly about a single incident, and the echoes of that event -- which included some predictable attempts by some opportunistic politicians, and hence the mainstream media, to frame it as a debate about ethnicity, race, religion and the Greatness of Our Heritage. Populist far right, that is, who seem to have moved on since to Eurobashing.
Obviously the murder of Theo Van Gogh was a terrible crime, and yes his murderer claims to have acted on religious impulse -- van Gogh was a buffoon who insulted people for his own amusement, and found an especially rewarding response when insulting Islam so he really went to town. I shouldn't have to point out that this doesn't warrant his death, and fortunately the culprit was tried and convicted.
But you'd be wrong, in my opinion, to say that this one guy represents his religion, whether he himself claims to or not. In the same way, I don't consider Protestants represented by some anti-abortion terrorists, the Catholics by some pedophile priests or the Jews by some murderous settlers.
It's just that, in his mind, "defending my group" is less dishonorable than the blind undirected rage that affected him as an individual. If not Van Gogh, this guy would have found some other victim and possibly some other non-justification. The more likely real reasons for such rage, in this case and certain others, is the fact that this huge part of the population in our major cities have long suffered injustice.
The first generation were proactively recruited from the lower to zero educated ranks of remote rural areas of (disproportionally) Turkey and Morocco, to leave their homes and lands and to do our shitiest jobs for peanuts. Hardly any attempts were made at integration. As long as you had a single guy per crew who knew five Dutch words you were good to go. Now everybody is surprised that their kids don't magically all graduate from universities and, in stead, feel marginalized and frustrated.
I don't expect, or even wish, for everyone in my country to share all my values. I expect to live in a country where systems are in place to determine some common denomination of all our values. And I still believe the Netherlands is such a place. Despite a very few, but in compensation vocal and and hysterical, voices to the contrary.
So really, everyday life in my country is not at all adequately described by the links you posted.
Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)