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Snowden Document Says Dutch Secret Service Hacks Internet Forums
vikingpower writes "In the ever-longer wake of the NSA scandal, much-respected Dutch newspaper NRC today reveals, in English, as mandated by the gravity of the occasion, that the Dutch secret service, the AIVD, hacks internet forums. And yes, that is gross misconduct against Dutch law. The service, whose headquarters are in Zoetermeer, did not yet comment upon the divulgence of the document from Edward Snowden's collection. Incensed Dutch parliamentarians are calling for an enquiry."
People who are intolerant of other people's cultures, and the Dutch
Surprise! Every govt has an intelligence service and every intelligence service spends at least part of its time spying on its own citizens. If this is news to you, then you will surely be traumatized when you find out that every country tortures people during wars and most torture a few during times of peace. Who do you think Lady GaGa sells most of her recordings to?
Last sentence of the TFA:
Incensed Dutch parliamentarians are calling for an enquiry
Are the politicians really incensed ?
Aww ...
Please don't disappoint me.
Please don't tell me that the Dutch politicians are all angels !!
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
The Dutch normally speak Dutch, because, well, it's their native tongue. Dutch itself is pretty close to German, but neither are world-popular language. As such, most people in the Netherlands speak English as well, because they're a hub of business. Publishing this in English ensures it's widely readable to the rest of the world.
Just because so many governments do it, it doesn't make it any more right. Quite the contrary. This revelation only removes "the Moral High Ground" from another nation's people.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
It might not be news, but it is still stuff that matters!
I want the world I live in to be a good place, not a place where, as you put it, people are tortured and spied upon. I want to be able to sleep at night, knowing that my government works for basic human rights, including the right to privacy and the right to not be tortured in some prison camp!
The more the wrongdoings of the governments of the west are exposed, the easier it is to stand up against them using non-violent means like voting and demonstrating. So, don't come here and tell me that it isn't in the category news and/or stuff that matters. I for one don't accept the world I live in, and I want to change it for the better.
Do not worry, there is a dutch version as well: http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2013/11/30/aivd-hackt-internetfora-tegen-wet-in/
Sick of this "Everyone does it!".
Child trafficking is rampant.
So it's OK if I do it?
The real question is: how did the NSA know that the Dutch secret service was doing this?
Either the NSA is spying on the spies, or they're sharing data.
but [German is not] a world-popular language.
Yet.
Send in the panzers!!!!
You thought all those comments about grammar-nazis were just jokes, eh?
Today your diction... tomorrow the world!
The AIVD did comment, even before the NRC published the article: https://www.aivd.nl/actueel/@3033/interception/ (Dutch)
And after the article was published: https://www.aivd.nl/actueel/@3034/reactie-nrc/ (Dutch)
According to them, this is allowed by the current law. However, a lot of parties in parliament and expers don't agree with this assesment and are starting actions to disallow this kind of investigation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE_IUPInEuc if you want to learn a bit about Dutch and The Netherlands.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
(Don't bother: if you did not read the article, you will not understand the comment)
Haha... very clever -- nearly tricked me into reading the article! We on Slashdot know better than that!
Reality is vomit-inducing. It's not his fault.
- post (damn Slashdot constraints on the length of the subject)
It looks like the scandal in The Netherlands about the NSA from what is revealed by Snowden, is mainly the *lack* of anything scandalous at all. There was a four-page article in a leading newspaper the other week about it, and the most it could claim was that we were infiltrated from 1947 until 1968 and that, every now and then, they might take a poorly protected mySQL database on some poor slob's website.
I don't mean to sound like those other 'security experts' who feign fatigue and familiarity with NSA's practices, but this one mainly stood out by its complete and utter boringness, I tell you.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
Eh.. because 'friendly' spying agencies are well-known for the way in which they exchange this kind of information?
/ Seriously.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
I'm a Dutch, living abroad.
What I can say is that the situation has deteriorated over the past decade. Mostly thanks to kowtowing to the US. Nowadays everyone has to carry ID all the time; that's since just over a decade (and the rule was implemented remarkably silently). You have to give fingerprints for your passport, officially to make it more secure (but does it? Last summer I didn't see fingerprint scanners at the border, for example).
Overall I think the Dutch do not fear their government (not like in more totalitarian states like the US, where everyone seems to fear their government), at least I don't exactly fear the government. It is chosen democratically, high degree of freedom of expression, and a free and strong press takes care of providing a proper counterbalance.
The police in general do not abuse their power. Though over the past ten years there are more and more laws that give the police opportunities to abuse power, like the right to conduct random searches of people and vehicles. Police for example can at any time without giving a reason cordon off a street and search anyone that happens to be in that area.
This AIVD thing is different, though. I don't consider AIVD to be government, they're more like police or judiciary: paid for but independent of the government. They have a mandate, to collect intelligence, and there are laws regulating what they can and can not do. Governments of all countries do this, it's normal part of police work too.
What happened here appears to be outside that mandate (it should be, imho, but I don't know what the law says or what exactly happened). If they want info from a forum, they can just register as user (may need some undercover work, whatever), and read all posts on that forum - like any user can. It's not OK to hack into a server, and download complete databases, that's going too far. In case of a known criminal link, it's defensible, but in this case there seems to be no such suspicion.
I am the original poster. Snowden never alleged that this is against Dutch law. The newspaper that published this ( in the very early morning hours, btw, they did not wait for daybreak and people getting out of bed ) alleges it. So do I. I read the law that governs the AIVD's activities. This is clearly outside of the framework set by that law: "... and [ is allowed ] to infiltrate organizations which endanger national or public security...". Now, an internet forum is not an "organization which endangers national or public security", unless you live in Iran, North Korea or China.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
some of the users might be which is presumably the justification - its the same when you tap the phones ATT isn't the target one or more of the users of the service is
Whether it`s Dutch, German or English, it should be fora... not forums.
rm -rf --no-preserve-root /
Actually, both are equally correct in Dutch.
And on the Eighth Day, Man created God.
I've also personally witnessed that the Dutch tend so speak a much, much better English than the rest of Europe. I'm saying this as a French, who is generally a people who don't speak other languages very well. I believe this is because in the Netherlands almost no English program is dubbed, so people develop a good skill for the language. Since I travel across all of Europe, I've noted that countries that usually dub the English program (Germany, France, Spain, Italy) tend to have a lower English level than the countries who don't (Portugal, Netherlands, Nordics, ...).
I'm all for preserving languages with a strong literary background (I'm mostly familiar with France's, obviously, but I do believe it's known worldwide thanks to people like Victor Hugo, Balzac or other great authors), but when it makes those people basically speak only their native tongue it's a little sad.
I agree and as I am English (and thus speak only one language) I should be able to judge their aptitude. In fact, the Dutch seem to be amazingly good with languages and often their English is better than native speakers.
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
When I was in the Peace Corps (American) in Africa, I met several Dutch Peace Corps volunteers. They were all multilingual and their English was almost perfect. They told me that when you come from a small country surrounded larger countries that speak other languages, you learn their languages. They were all great people. The world could use more people like the Dutch.
Since when is "public safety" the root password to the Constitution?
The problem is precisely that this absurd interpretation of the words "criminal organisation" is used with regards to internet forums. Apparently, the fact that some people on forums might be dangerous terrorists (of the Muslim persuasion, according to the AIVD, because as we know extreme right movements never bomb anything...) means that the whole forum can be considered a criminal organisation and makes it okay to siphon up all user data, including that of innocent users.
The other problem is that the law is not adapted well to modern times. Now, the 'solution' the organisation supervising the MIVD and AIVD is advocating is changing the law to retroactively allow the previously described behaviour. This is all very strange, because this supervising organisation is supposed to be independent from both security services and is also meant to keep both in check with the law.
Ronald Plasterk, who is responsible for both the AIVD, the MIVD, and the supervising organisation, is claiming that all is according to the law (when it is not). So now various MPs are calling for a parliamentary investigation into the use of illegal investigation methods by the secret services and he is even being criticised by his own party members. Hopefully this will happen.
The lackluster reaction by Mark Rutte (the prime minister) and several other people in power is quite worrying though...they just don't seem to care.