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Dutch Wiretaps: Too Many To Bother Counting 57

Posted by timothy from the just-trust-on-this-one-and-these-ones-too dept.
Brenno de Winter writes "While the U.S. wiretapped 1,350 phonelines, the Netherlands managed to wiretap approx. 10,000 phonelines in 1999. With the new Telecom Act the Dutch government could wiretap even easier and are doing it so much they cannot count it anymore. Bits of Freedom (BOF) requested statistics under the Dutch Freedom of Information Act and were denied it since it was to hard to gather the data. Even though telecom and internet operators regularly send bills for operational wiretapping costs, the ministry of Justice claims it doesn't keep account of the numbers. What scares you more a government that wiretaps or a government that wiretaps and doesn't know what it is wiretapping?"
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Dutch Wiretaps: Too Many To Bother Counting More

Dutch Wiretaps: Too Many To Bother Counting

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  • Apparently, the police wiretaps not only criminals, but also the people they phone or get phoned by, and the people those contacts phone or get phoned by.

    I think the recursion stops there, but I'm not sure.
    • Only three degrees of seperation? What, the Dutch don't care about Kevin Bacon?
    • s/criminals/suspects/
    • Mod me down, please, before the arrows start flying....

      Let's see, there's the Netherlands, a land of "freedom" and "openness" and virtually no laws -- i.e., basic anarchy, as long as you leave others alone, for the most part.... Just legislate laws away and you have no criminals, right?

      And then there's the U.S., a basically free country, which has too many laws to count, and plenty of laws which contradict other laws, and many times more population.... It's the country most lived in and hated by vocal Slashdotters -- most of the non-vocal probably disagree, with the vocal ones, but who can prove that, either way. (I am not the typical vocal Slashdotter, when it comes to my views of the U.S. Perhaps, warts and all, I love my country more than most.)

      Hmmm, there was an almost 10 to 1 wiretap ratio between the Netherlands and the U.S, before the Netherlands stopped counting!?!?!?! Does this come as a surprise to me? Not really. It's just amusing.

      Well, I have no point to make, except that the grass isn't necessarily greener everywhere else than the U.S. (No "grass" pun intended, BTW; we are talking about the Netherlands, after all.)

      Of course, I believe that Windows XP and M$ DRM is a big commercial wiretap, but that's a different story.
      • And then there's the U.S., a basically free country, which has too many laws to count, and plenty of laws which contradict other laws, and many times more population.... It's the country most lived in and hated by vocal Slashdotters --

        You're painting with a broad brush. I've never seen any "vocal Slashdotters" saying anything about "hating" their country.

        most of the non-vocal probably disagree, with the vocal ones, but who can prove that, either way.

        In other words, unless someone specifically says otherwise, their silence should be taken as agreement with you and your own opinions.

        (I am not the typical vocal Slashdotter, when it comes to my views of the U.S. Perhaps, warts and all, I love my country more than most.)

        The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Mere flag waving doesn't make you a patriot.



        • The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Mere flag waving doesn't make you a patriot.

          Being constantly negative doesn't make you one, either.

      • Re:It's well-known (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Badger ( 1280 )
        It's the country most lived in and hated by vocal Slashdotters -- most of the non-vocal probably disagree, with the vocal ones, but who can prove that, either way. (I am not the typical vocal Slashdotter, when it comes to my views of the U.S. Perhaps, warts and all, I love my country more than most.)
        It's a popularity thing. It's cool to bash the US and uncool to mention that other "civilized" countries might actually have problems of their own.

        Most non-vocal Slashdotters learned long ago that fighting "the cool thing" was swimming upstream. It's much easier to laugh and remember that if you aren't a liberal at 20, you have no heart, and if you aren't a convervative at 40, you have no brain.

      • Re:It's well-known (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        People always have these weird ideas about the Netherlands. Whatever made you think that we have 'virtually no laws'? We have countless laws, rules, and regulations, that control and regulate *everything* in life from the color of my front door to the height of my living room, from the locations where I'm allowed to park my bike to the time at which I can go to work.

        And sure, I can ignore most of that and get away with it, but let's face it, this is a country where even the lowliest wretch can cause you misery simply because you broke some stupid, irrelevant "rule" that somehow became "law". And this is on all levels of society: I distinctly remember the asshole back at university who only sold required study materials during those hours you were supposed to be in class. If you came 3 seconds late, he would smile, say "rules are rules" (ie. not even a "sorry"), and ignore you, even if your life depended on it.

        As for the often-heard allegation that this country is awash in drugs, that's just silly. Just because there is a large criminal circuit that is apparently allowed to go about its business unchecked, does not mean that every dutch citizen is a drug user. The percentage of the population using drugs is lower than in most other countries.

        Not everyone here appreciates those 'liberal' and 'tolerant' policies. It has let us to a society where nobody gives a shit about anything anymore. The streets are littered with trash, buildings are covered with graffiti, and noone gives a damn. The community has more or less fallen apart, and we are now a collection of uninterested individuals.

        Comparing with the United States (which I've visited), I find the US overbearingly nationalistic (what is it with those flags every 20 meters?), but people *do* care about things, which is good, and I liked the fact that its cities and countryside were so clean. Reflect on that for a moment...

        In a recent poll, over half of the people in the Netherlands were *not* proud of their country. I'm one of those people not proud of it (anymore). I guess it stopped feeling like "my country" a long time ago. Now it is a country populated by disinterested dorks who know every letter of the law but none of its spirit; people who'd spit on you if you lay bleeding on the pavement.

  • I find this to be very disturbing news. I doubt that its true. Being dutch i know that the Dutch are pretty incompetent with important information. I guess some guy at the ministry just took a number for the amount of wiretaps.
    • Their incompetence means a reduced efficiency, which they have to make up for with many more wiretaps. Or something like that.

    • Re:I Don believe this! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by the eric conspiracy ( 20178 ) on Saturday March 01, 2003 @06:08PM (#5415131)
      I've seen reports in a variety of places that wiretaps are far more prevalent in Europe than the US.

      I also remember a flap last year caused by the Dutch goverment requiring all ISPs to install wiretaps.

      The following is an article discussing some of the Dutch wiretaps issues:

      http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@wasabis ys tems.com/msg02595.html

      If I were a European citizen I would be asking some question of my government.

      • Re:I Don believe this! (Score:4, Interesting)

        by maelstrom ( 638 ) on Saturday March 01, 2003 @06:49PM (#5415360) Homepage Journal
        Sorry, it is EU policy to encourage its citizens to ask hard questions of the American government and to question the freedom of Americans every chance they get. The theory goes if they are too busy out protesting how much of a cowboy Bush is being, they won't have time to realize how much their own rights are being systematically stripped away by the European governments and the European Union.
    • According to the article, the 10k number came from a parliament member's question. If they're lying, it's likely a felony.

  • TIA (Score:1)

    by stuuf ( 587464 )
    What if they had Total Information Awareness?
  • And I am told everyday that the US is a bad place to live. I guess not.

  • Not Good.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by the eric conspiracy ( 20178 ) on Saturday March 01, 2003 @05:55PM (#5415039)
    Given that the US also has a population more than 15 times that of the Netherlands that means somebody living there is more than 100 times more likely to be wiretapped than in the US.

    That seems to be pretty incongruous for a country that prides itself on the personal freedoms of its citizens.

    • Someone I know in Amsterdam once put it this way...

      The American people seem willing to put up with searches of their houses and no-knock warrants all of the time, but are horrified at the prospect of someone tapping their phone.

      The Dutch people would be horrified at the prospect of that degree of home invasion by the authorities but seem pretty resigned to the idea that their phones might be tapped.

      I found it to be an interesting converse.

      • Re:The U.S.A. is the converse of the Netherlands.. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by the eric conspiracy ( 20178 ) on Saturday March 01, 2003 @10:44PM (#5416381)
        The Dutch people would be horrified at the prospect of that degree of home invasion by the authorities

        Then please explain how we have the Dutch authorities working hand-in-hand with the DEA conducting raids complete with 17 search warrants.

        http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/pressrel/pr112200. ht m

        I bet the real story is just like the wiretaps - Dutch citizens are brainwashed that their country is free when in fact the rate of government intrusion into their lives is much higher than they realize.

        The fact that the wiretap rate in the Netherlands is 100 times higher than the US per capita really should be a warning that you may need to rethink your assumptions.

  • Come on! We need 50 comments saying how everyone's moving to Canada now!

    What would be the Canadian equivalant for the Netherlands, anyway? Denmark? (yes, I know they don't actually border...)

    • Re:Where are all the comments? (Score:4, Funny)

      by the eric conspiracy ( 20178 ) on Saturday March 01, 2003 @06:11PM (#5415150)
      Canadian equivalant for the Netherlands, anyway?

      Finland, eh?

    • IM moving to BELGIUM~!!

    • Re:Where are all the comments? (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The Dutch make gentle fun of Belgium, which is a small country on our southern border. "How can you make a Belgian go mad? Put him in a round room and tell him there is a bag of fries in the corner."

      We also make (more serious) fun of Germany, which is a large country on our eastern border. Jokes tend to involve the second world war.

      We *never* make fun of the North Sea, which is a sea on our northern and western borders. It has invaded us too many times for us to make fun of.

      In truth, we like both the Belgians and the Germans (the generations that remember the second world war are dying, and the new generations do not feel any resentment or anger). We also like the North Sea, as long as it stays put.

      If pressed, most people here will confess to hating the French. As one of our government ministers said a few years ago: "French is a beautiful country. It's just a shame the French live there." Instant political fireworks ;-)

      As a rule, we like the USA, although we are a little bit peeved that you granted yourself the right to invade our country if any american soldiers ever end up in the International Court of Justice in The Hague. If you *do* decide to invade, please make sure you get the right coastal town - I live in the next one to the north, so this matters a lot to me.

  • it could be worse! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by fogpilot ( 647176 )
    some years ago the dutch telecomcompany and a technical university recorded ALL phonecalls from fixed (identifiable) lines during a six month period, to "research voice-printing and speech/pattern recognition". wonder what they are doing with that big fat and very handy database!
  • "What scares you more a government that wiretaps or a government that wiretaps and doesn't know what it is wiretapping?"

    How about a country that claims to not wiretap but does so anyway? (FBI, NSA, CIA in the USA)
    • The US government is currently waging "a war against terror". Billions of dollars are allocated for this war which mostly consists of intelligence gathering. Then there is a "war on drugs" which is also costing billions of dollars annually. This war on drugs also involves massive attempts to gather intelligence. Probably more people are making a living tapping other people in the US then are tapped in the Netherlands.

      I don't see how the US government would be doing all of this without violating peoples constitutional rights on an enormous scale. Probably the US government no longer bothers to go by the book when it comes to wiretapping. If I lived in the US that would worry me.
      • You are absolutely correct. I live in the US, and I can tell you, I'm scared. The FBI has a long history if oppression and illegal wiretaps (i.e. McCarthyism, back in the 50's, the protests in the 60's and 70's, etc.) Tell me, does anyone know what the state of civil rights is in New Zealand? How about the Telecom. market? Could they use one more project manager/estimator? Because it's starting to look better and better every day...OH GOD, WHAT IF THEY'RE READING THIS POST RIGHT NOW!!!
  • I live in the Netherlands, and frankly, this doesn't bother me at all. After all, anyone can overhear a phonecall, and tapping Internet connections is not exactly hard. There are just so many people who may be listening, with possibly worse intentions than the government. Actually, it makes me feel kind of proud that nl is so well-organized we can tap 100 times more than the USA. With regard to the counting thing; who says the numbers for the US are accurate, nith all those agencies that officially do not exist?

    ---
    Life is too short for sentences that begin with "Life is too short for".
    • It's not a "well-organized" thing. It's just so freaking hard to get a wiretap warrent in the United States. You have to have some very, very, very good reasons in order for the judge to grant you the warrant, that in most cases it's simply not worth the trouble.

      In a nutshell, I guess the disparity in the numbers is a cultural thing. Americans have always been paranoid about the invasiveness of government in every day life so we have built in great protections against this kind of thing into our government. I havent done any research, but I would suspect this is the exact opposite of the Netherlands.
  • I work with a small Dutch ISP and we recently had the 'pleasure' to have to cooperate with an e-mail tap against one of our customers.

    I was surprised to find that the people I dealt with hardly knew a thing about e-mail tapping. It took them more than a week to find out who was handling the customer's e-mail (no idea about mx records) and when we asked them where to forward the 'tapped' mail they came up with a 'free' e-mail address (say like a hotmail address).

    The free e-mail box quickly filled up and started bouncing. If I hadn't fixed the envelope-sender addresses the whole thing would have been exposed. Maybe I shouldn't have done that... ;-)

    Anyway, I came up with the thought to regularly sen myself e-mails whith linked tags (an old spammer trick to see if a mail is actually being read) and monitor the link image to detect if anyone is reading my mail without my knowing it. The amateurs are using OE, so that should work pretty well.

    Xenna.

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