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Dutch Court Says Government Can Receive Bulk Data from NSA
jfruh (300774) writes Dutch law makes it illegal for the Dutch intelligence services to conduct mass data interception programs. But, according to a court in the Hague, it's perfectly all right for the Dutch government to request that data from the U.S.'s National Security Agency, and doing so doesn't violate any treaties or international law.
Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason. -- Mark Twain
I love how pretty much every country has come to the same conclusion: We can bypass our own laws if we have someone else do it for us.
They've all decided, well, we can't spy on our own people, but if the Americans do it for us it's all good.
Essentially reciprocity means that any laws which are intended to protect you will be bypassed as people get other actors to do it for them.
So, it's illegal for the Dutch to spy on their own people, probably illegal when the US spies on the Dutch, but since they've already for the information, why not?
Pathetic. Free societies aren't maintained by using loopholes to get around laws intended to control how your citizens get spied on.
What horsehit.
When governments are getting the take from the blanket surveillance the Americans (and really, the rest of the world), they have very little incentive to actually stop the surveillance in the first place.
Some days it seems like the US has more or less subverted the privacy and rights of everyone on the planet, and every other government is deciding the information sharing is too valuable to recognize they're just lying to us and doing it anyway.
At this point, I don't believe any elected official, or member of any of these state security entities deserves any privacy rights at all. Because they've all decided we don't.
The dystopian future is alive and well, and getting worse every day.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I love how pretty much every country has come to the same conclusion: We can bypass our own laws if we have someone else do it for us.
Well, if the US government charges a hefty fee for this - say a percentage of a country's GDP - we could be an exporter of Big Brother services.
Just think, based on the economic principle of Comparative Advantage, we, the US of A, can spy on the rest of the World (think how much money the Chinese would pay us to watch their citizens!) while they pay us percentages of their GDPs.
Think about it, we could sit on our asses in leisure while they all bust their asses growing our food, making our clothes, etc ... and if they step out of line, well, we KNOW where they live!