[HN Gopher] Dutch Police intelligence services unlawfully spied ...
___________________________________________________________________
Dutch Police intelligence services unlawfully spied on whole
population groups
Author : belter
Score : 260 points
Date : 2024-02-08 13:45 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nltimes.nl)
(TXT) w3m dump (nltimes.nl)
| RamblingCTO wrote:
| > Between February 2023 and July 1, 2022, that did not happen in
| three investigations, the CTIVD said. The supervisory body did
| not say which communities were involved but did explain that by
| "community," it means a population group "based, for example, on
| ethnicity, religious belief, or occupational group." So,
| theoretically, the police intelligence services may have been
| spying on visitors to a certain mosque or protesting farmers.
|
| We really have a problem with targeted surveillance of specific
| communities like visitors of a specific mosque? Or a pub
| frequented by known nazis? I don't get it. The article doesn't
| have enough details to form an opinion!
| n4r9 wrote:
| I'd be miffed if the police sidestepped the law and tracked my
| whereabouts just because I was in an organisation where a
| couple of other members have suspicions raised about them.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| I think that's exactly how it works. If you associate with
| sketchy people or groups, you automatically become a target
| for surveillance.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| I was just thinking this.
|
| I mean, we're talking about tracking those hanging out at
| places where terrorists are known to gather, and
| associating with said terrorists, however casually? That's
| just military sense. Are we just supposed to let the known
| terrorist go to the bar, have his/her coded conversations
| with an unknown subject, and then let that subject go on
| his/her merry way without looking any further into the
| matter? That would be naive in the extreme.
| repelsteeltje wrote:
| Might be a legitimate concern, but not enough evidence
| for Police surveillance. You mention "military sense",
| but this isn't a war. If there is terrorist suspicion,
| I'd say it is more in the intelligence jurisdiction.
| n4r9 wrote:
| Firstly we're not talking about "terrorists" but people
| who intelligence services have "received a signal" about.
| That's pretty ambiguous but sounds like it could mean an
| anonymous tip-off or information from another department.
|
| Secondly, no one's suggesting that they let everyone go
| their merry way without looking into anything. Only that
| widespread surveillance must be justified e.g. the
| evidence must pass some threshold and other responses
| have been ruled out.
| ramon156 wrote:
| This shouldn't be news to anyone
| blueflow wrote:
| Guilt by association?
|
| Also, some tiny question: People you think you associate
| with or people the Police think you associate with?
| VoodooJuJu wrote:
| No, you're not guilty by associating, you're potentially
| useful and potentially sus.
|
| When investigating serious crimes, there is no such thing
| as too much information. If you say hello and chit-chat
| with Bomberman every Sunday, I want to know what you talk
| about, I want to know what he wears, when he was sick and
| didn't show up, I want to know how he smells, I want to
| know everything, and given that you associate with him, I
| was hoping you could provide some information.
| input_sh wrote:
| Being at the same spot doesn't make you "associated" with
| everyone else that's in that same spot.
|
| I'm no religious person, but I would imagine praying in a
| mosque is very different to personally knowing everyone
| else that's praying in the same mosque. Even if you do meet
| everyone it's not like they're gonna introduce themselves
| with "hi, I'm $stereotypicalMuslimName, and I plan on doing
| a terrorist attack next month".
|
| The connection needs to be _far_ more substantial than that
| to warrant surveillance.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Not religious either, but my understanding is that
| churches/mosques/etc are often the hub of social life for
| religious people, and the regulars definitely know each
| other.
| n4r9 wrote:
| A mosque can have hundreds of worshippers who turn up
| every Friday like clockwork. Each might know the 20-30
| other people from a similar geographic background and
| barely talk to the rest, let alone have any idea that
| they're up to something nefarious.
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| I don't think we have to live in that kind of world. The
| problem with that is $GOOD_GROUP and $BAD_GROUP are
| subjective judgements. That's why you need cause for an
| investigation.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| One person's freedom fighter is another person's
| terrorist. See also this famous "Our Blessed Homeland"
| comic: https://i.kym-
| cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/002/355/607/670
| coryrc wrote:
| Yes, nothing different between our homeland and theirs,
| it's not like women are literally property and they have
| millions of slaves.
| tomrod wrote:
| Some aspects of every culture are morally reprehensible.
| This is orthogonal to legality, socially taboo, and other
| categorizations.
| Thiez wrote:
| Are you referring to the US, where women have no freedom
| to decide what happens inside their uterus and slavery is
| still allowed for their millions of prisoners?
| krageon wrote:
| There is a dragnet law, this will happen to you and it is
| legal
| mplewis wrote:
| The events described in the article were explicitly
| illegal.
| n4r9 wrote:
| Sounds like a US-specific law? I'm from the UK and the
| article is about the Netherlands.
| repelsteeltje wrote:
| Suspicion by association.
|
| I guess I'm a suspect for doing banking at a large bank know
| to also cater for criminals. Should probably look for a
| different bank. ...Oh, wait.
| arp242 wrote:
| This really depends on the details.
|
| If, say, one member of a mosque is under surveillance for
| good reasons and then you extend that to everyone attending
| the mosque for no particular reason other than "well, maybe
| we'll catch something, doesn't to try": that's probably not a
| good thing.
|
| On the other hand, if the imam is preaching violent rhetoric,
| multiple members are under surveillance for good reasons, and
| there's good reasons to believe that the violence is an
| important part of the mosque community in the first place
| (rather than a relatively small detail): then that's perhaps
| not such a bad thing. You don't "accidentally" associate with
| that kind of thing.
|
| Or: you probably don't need detailed reasons to put someone
| in Don Corleone's employ under surveillance.
| piva00 wrote:
| Would it be ok to surveil you just because you are a Twitter
| user, a known place for nazi gatherings? I'd say it's not ok.
| ramon156 wrote:
| I'm biased though. Spy on me all you want, i got nothing to
| hide
| saikia81 wrote:
| Read up on what happened in the Netherlands when the
| Germans wanted to identify Jews.
|
| If we allow all our data to be centrally stored your
| children/neighbors/lover might not be safe.
|
| Those who would give up privacy for security will get
| neither.
| weberer wrote:
| Why stop there? I hear Nazis use the internet. By that logic,
| all internet users should be tracked.
| krapp wrote:
| All internet users _are_ tracked, either by American and
| American-allied intelligence services or their own
| governments, all the time. If you 're in the Western sphere
| of influence everything you say and do on any internet
| connected device goes to an NSA server for analysis,
| assuming they don't simply have direct access to your data
| through PRISM or secret warrants. And we kill people over
| metadata.
|
| You can assume that what the Dutch are doing here is
| standard operating procedure everywhere, and that any laws
| to the contrary are just a facade.
| piva00 wrote:
| Tracked is different than surveilled. Being actively
| surveilled is much more intrusive than the gobbling of
| data done by the NSA.
| krapp wrote:
| Fair but I think the difference is minor, given just how
| much you can learn about people from their data alone.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| >All internet users are tracked, either by American and
| American-allied intelligence services or their own
| governments, all the time. If you're in the Western
| sphere of influence everything
|
| Curious how you imply in both of these statements that
| this is a uniquely "western sphere" government activity.
|
| I suppose that the governments of China, Russia and all
| the myriad states that aren't part of the western sphere
| are simply privacy and freedom-loving paragons of not
| being irresponsible with state power?
| krapp wrote:
| >Curious how you imply in both of these statements that
| this is a uniquely "western sphere" government activity.
|
| I didn't. The purpose of the clause "or their own
| governments" in the part of the comment you copied was to
| contrast the clause "American and American-allied
| intelligence services" (collectively referring to the
| "western" sphere of influence), inclusive of _non-
| western_ spheres of influence, such as China and Russia.
|
| Please, put in the minimum effort to read and understand
| all of the words people write, rather than simply
| scanning them to find some bad-faith interpretation from
| which to engage in political sniping. I am not the
| strawman living rent-free in your head. I never said
| anything about any non-Western government being freedom-
| loving paragons.
| tzs wrote:
| Twitter has over 300 million users. A pub frequented by known
| Nazis has 5 or 6 orders of magnitude less users.
| Doxin wrote:
| The point here is that this _is_ something the intelligence
| agencies are allowed to do but _only_ if done for a well
| grounded reason. It seems that step has been skipped.
| MisterSandman wrote:
| > We really have a problem with targeted surveillance of
| specific communities like visitors of a specific mosque?
|
| Yes? Have you opened a history textbook, like ever?
| beeboobaa wrote:
| I have, and it's pretty obvious that religion causes a _lot_
| of violence
| noir_lord wrote:
| So does politics, sports teams, newspapers, TV, radio,
| various websites and humanity generally.
|
| We surveil everyone all the time then?
| beeboobaa wrote:
| It's a matter of severity. If (fans of) a sports team
| frequently vandalizes a town after their team plays then
| yes, they absolutely should be surveilled.
| vouwfietsman wrote:
| Maybe everyone who worships divine literature that calls
| for indiscriminate violence, seems like a good start.
| tomrod wrote:
| Those occur way less than the religious pipeline of
| radicalization.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Not as much as police.
| beeboobaa wrote:
| I'm guessing you're american, so maybe this absurd
| statement is true in your perceived reality, but no, the
| police do not cause more violence.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| If theft is a form of violence, then American police do
| commit more of that form of violence than robbers do.
|
| That's factual. For feds at least - it likely is for
| local police too but we don't have numbers to evaluate.
| cudahater wrote:
| @dang, one day I would imagine that you can deal with
| Islamophobia with the same scrutiny you have toward other
| forms of racism. Maybe in a different world.
| beeboobaa wrote:
| I have not mentioned Islam anywhere, and strongly believe
| that any organized group that spreads hate and violence
| needs to be investigated and dealt with.
| j4yav wrote:
| It's honestly a bit islamophobic to assume that anyone
| saying religious violence is bad must be attacking
| Muslims, isn't it? Jumping to that conclusion requires a
| bunch of leaps that I'm not sure are actually true.
| GordonS wrote:
| I totally agree that the "normalisation" of Islamophobia
| is concerning, and the rise since last October is
| particularly alarming... but the GP didn't mention Islam
| at all - they were clearly making a blanket statement
| about all religion.
| wedalas453 wrote:
| >muh *phobia There's nothing irrational in fear of islam,
| since whole "religion" is a call to conquest of others.
| Try opening a history book for a change instead of
| larping online about things you never experienced.
| didntcheck wrote:
| A religion is an ideology, not a race, and should be a
| fair subject for criticism or dislike
| ardaoweo wrote:
| Islamophobia is a problematic term, since there is no
| unified concept of Islam to begin with. What is seen
| Islamophobic by a radical Muslim of Wahhabi sect (as an
| exmaple) may be seen as legitimate criticism by a
| moderate one. Based on my understanding it's mainly
| mosques with radical teachings and funding from certain
| countries that are being monitored.
| qwertthrowway wrote:
| I agree, the tree of comments below you just belies these
| prejudiced and hateful attitudes. Concerned but not
| surprised that many people interested in tech topics are
| choosing to discuss how it's ok to surveil people for
| their religion and put guilt by association on them...
| instead of discussing why targeted surveillance of groups
| based on religion or place of worship is problematic,
| fueled by bigotry and ignorance.
| beeboobaa wrote:
| Religious groups aren't (well, shouldn't) be special.
| They're just like fans of a sports club and if they cause
| violence and hate, they should be investigated.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| I think it's a demonstration of who is 'inside' and who
| is 'outside'. On HN, if you talk about racism or issues
| with white males, you get chased away - those are the
| people here, on the inside.
|
| If you talk about women or Muslims, for example, they are
| objects of examination - what are they like? what do they
| do? They aren't participants, mostly; you don't have a
| lot of women and Muslims posting about it - think about
| it: if we want to know about Islam, why don't we listen
| to Muslims, who would actually know from a lifetime of
| direct experience? What we see is mostly from the
| perspective of someone looking _at_ Muslims - they are on
| the outside. A predictable result of the ignorance is
| stereotypes and prejudice. And even prejudiced and
| hateful ideas are treated as 'curiosity' - the curiosity
| of (mostly) white males. Nobody is curious about racism
| or sexism, for example.
|
| My sense is that what I see on HN, maybe unconciously, is
| moderated to accomodate the insiders.
| zen928 wrote:
| Part of dealing with Islamophobia would be dealing with
| problematic posts like yours ascribing intentions and
| emotionally charged sentiments to statements that display
| no such intention. Go ahead and exactly quote the
| scrutinizable statement in the post above you, please.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Then the question is: is that down to the religion as a
| whole, or individuals therein? Is it morally defensible to
| target a whole demographic based on the actions of a few?
|
| Think hard on that one, it says a lot about what kind of
| person you are, what your morals and personally held values
| are.
| beeboobaa wrote:
| One mosque whose members have repeatedly caused problems
| does not equal the entire population of the religion.
| stavros wrote:
| How often have we seen problems caused by groups like,
| say, "the 34th street mosque gang"?
| ricardobeat wrote:
| You can boil down anything to individuals. The war in
| Ukraine would not be happening if every individual
| refused to partake. But you know very well that is not
| how society works.
|
| People share beliefs, they join a movement, and they do
| that mostly via small organizations like religious
| groups, political parties, friendship circles, internet
| forums and so on.
| lusus_naturae wrote:
| Your logic is the same as the kind one expects from
| Twitter posts about having one poison M&M in a bowl of
| M&Ms, so let's throw out the entire bowl. Here's why it's
| stupid to think like that:
|
| 1) People are not borgs or hive mind enjoined entities.
| Yes, they may share beliefs or have friendship circles
| etc. but it's irresponsible and reaching to believe that
| everyone thinks or will act the same simply by virtue of
| being in the same mosque or temple or church etc.
|
| 2) So because people are not borgs, there is a lot of
| factionalization, even in the same religious group,
| political party, Internet forum.
|
| 3) Even still, unless someone is actively going out to do
| something for some organization, you cannot penalize them
| for thought crimes by their association. Why? Because
| doing so usually leads to spread of authoritarian
| control.
|
| This is a rough response to your comment because people
| already know these things on some level. I think some
| people willfully choose to be stupid because of their
| biases.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| I never said anything like that. I'm opposing the idea
| that you should not look into that bowl because "not all
| M&Ms are poisoned".
|
| I am strongly opposed to surveillance in general and
| happy that they unearthed this as a violation, but at
| some point people will inevitably fall into buckets when
| an investigation is happening. There is nothing new about
| this.
|
| A tip comes in about someone who frequents church X
| organizing a terrorist attack. Do you do a background
| check on church goers, look for suspicious activity, or
| sit back and twiddle your thumbs because this is "unfair
| targeting"?
|
| Several attacks have actually happened in NL over the
| past decades, and recently scary connections with
| extremist groups found. It's not hypothetical.
| lusus_naturae wrote:
| > A tip comes in about someone who frequents church X
| organizing a terrorist attack. Do you do a background
| check on church goers, look for suspicious activity, or
| sit back and twiddle your thumbs because this is "unfair
| targeting"?
|
| Obviously no one will agree that the situation you
| described merits inaction. Preemptive surveillance "in
| case there is a terrorist" is a human rights violation
| because no one should be deprived of their privacy.
| Privacy is fundamental to psychological well being,
| creativity and self-determination.
|
| Moreover, what's to stop ideological enemies of one
| faction from sending false tips? Or to prevent
| progressive political action. For example, the FBI
| certainly considered civil rights activists as terrorists
| at one point (some still do, in different contexts). What
| if someone creates false flag terrorists to target a
| whole race? What if someone radicalizes someone by
| targeted harassment and stalking, and then blames their
| religion or culture if the target does something violent?
|
| Yes, violence is scary and psychopaths doubly so. The
| response to violence and psychopaths is not to sacrifice
| human rights. We need to understand people and create
| more social cohesion. I think this also means
| understanding and identifying psychopathic and anti-
| social behaviors.
|
| I don't think killing people or locking them away from
| society is ever the answer because we will never run
| short of people to kill or lock away. We need less
| barbaric ways to deal with people, while also
| understanding the need for justice and revenge that being
| subject to such violence can create. The solution is not
| brute force surveillance. All this does is create
| resentment and political strife, and might lead to
| genocide.
| tomrod wrote:
| Re: (1), disagree. Much of behavior is statistically
| predictable!
| lusus_naturae wrote:
| Maybe, but there are nuances to this. Emergent properties
| of various factors (biological or otherwise) make this
| somewhat useless.
| bakul wrote:
| I think it is more correct to say that religion has been
| _used_ as an easy excuse and a way to _bind_ closer the
| group causing violence and to dehumanize the victim group.
| contravariant wrote:
| Quite a lot of which could have been avoided by states not
| having an unhealthy interest in who has which religion.
| esafak wrote:
| Religious people often care about such things.
| odiroot wrote:
| That's quite a straw man. Looking back at Berlin Christmas
| Market terrorist attack, we can see what a failure of
| surveillance can result in.
| ardaoweo wrote:
| The real problem in Europe is that we allow radical mosques
| funded by shady Middle-Eastern actors to even operate. Or
| maybe it is the fact we have too many marginalized people who
| are easily brainwashed to support such ideologies.
|
| Either way, surveillance is just a symptom of deeper
| political failures.
| RamblingCTO wrote:
| > Either way, surveillance is just a symptom of deeper
| political failures.
|
| I'd say, limited surveillance is trying to unify tolerance
| and openness while not putting all people of one
| belief/religion for example in the same category.
| RamblingCTO wrote:
| Yes I have. Look for other comments from me for nuance.
|
| I'm thinking about extremists and terrorists. So you're
| against surveillance of a mosque that is known to interact on
| the regular with terrorists? Or a nazi pub where attacks on
| the state are planned?
| Telemakhos wrote:
| > like visitors of a specific mosque? Or a pub frequented by
| known nazis?
|
| But the article had a slightly different example than yours:
|
| > on visitors to a certain mosque or protesting farmers
|
| You changed "protesting farmers" to "a pub frequented by known
| nazis." It's emotionally easy not to have a problem with
| targeted surveillance of nazis, but surveilling farmers, who
| are currently protesting throughout Europe? That's clearly
| politically motivated surveillance of ordinary, peaceful, law-
| abiding citizens who dissent from the government's views.
| Thiez wrote:
| The protesting farmers have been blocking highways with their
| tractors and lighting fires containing asbestos (also on /
| near highways). You could argue that the former should be
| allowed as part of a protest, but the latter moves you
| squarely outside the "law-abiding citizens" category.
| Simon_ORourke wrote:
| European farmers appear to be a singular career category
| where the government(s) will pay you to be a failure.
| olliej wrote:
| That's the case in the US as well. What do you think
| agriculture subsidies are?
|
| If you want countries that don't subsidize agriculture
| that has been Aussie and NZ since the 80s iirc. Though I
| haven't lived in those countries for a decade or two now
| and Covid and various financial panics over the last
| decades resulted in a variety of corporate hand outs so
| it seems plausible that those businesses have got some
| government support since then.
| doktrin wrote:
| What makes them a singular category in this regard?
| Genuine question. Virtually all agricultural sectors
| enjoy some form of subsidy, for what I think are obvious
| reasons. Likewise it's not like the idea of government
| money going to less-than-optimally-productive labor is
| unheard of.
| PeterStuer wrote:
| It's a group that by the nature of their production cycle
| is very exploitable (you have to sell the harvest or it
| litterally turns into manure), and yet they are extremely
| essential to a population's survival (unlike e.g.
| hairdressers, no food ruins your month in a way an
| overdue trim can't match).
|
| So you want to keep farms up even in times the market
| wont.
| coldtea wrote:
| No, that's major US finance companies...
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Blocking roads with climate activism can get you years in
| prison, but blocking roads with tractors and trailers of dung
| is law-abiding.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > That's clearly politically motivated surveillance of
| ordinary, peaceful, law-abiding citizens who dissent from the
| government's views.
|
| Peaceful? In Germany, a particularly nasty incident made
| headlines where a drunk farmer tried to evade a roadblock and
| ended up injuring a policeman [1], just last week two got
| arrested for attempting to run over cops [2], others spread
| feces and trash over a highway and lit up barricades [3], and
| the large demonstration in January in Berlin had over ten
| arrests for violence as well as explosives [4].
|
| [1] https://www.bild.de/regional/ruhrgebiet/ruhrgebiet-
| aktuell/b...
|
| [2] https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/niedersachsen/oldenburg_os
| tfr...
|
| [3] https://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/sachsen-
| anhalt/magdeburg/magd...
|
| [4] https://www.rnd.de/politik/bauernproteste-in-berlin-drei-
| ver...
| mk89 wrote:
| Also what happened to the economy minister was not a cool
| thing to do.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XRpCjLxICKg
| berkes wrote:
| In the netherlands several of these "protesters" have been
| rounded up, arrested or otherwise prosecuted. Some later
| on. Several have been found guilty of breaking the law.
| Some as young as 17 or 191.
|
| Regardless of the political view or perspective or stance:
| they are provably _not_ law-abiding.
|
| https://www.rechtspraak.nl/Organisatie-en-
| contact/Organisati...
| wolverine876 wrote:
| If that's the worst across multiple countries, it seems
| very peaceful. Much worse happens in the general public.
|
| Are you suggesting that because a few people did things you
| don't like, everyone involved is violent? That is not only
| clearly false, but very dangerous.
| lupusreal wrote:
| You don't understand... these farmers are all kulaks,
| enemies of the revolution! They're dangerous as a class
| and need to be treated accordingly.
| lukan wrote:
| If significant elements of a widespread protest show
| signs of radicalisation - and there are lots of signs -
| then it is the job of the police to investigate, how
| serious and organized the radicals are. Some drunk nuts
| blowing off steam vs. the beginning of domestic
| terrorism.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| That justification is used to criminalize and suppress
| protest and dissent.
|
| The GGP didn't show lots of signs, just a few incidents.
| Where is evidence of 'lots of signs'?
| lukan wrote:
| I did not say anything about the police being justified
| in suppressing legal protest. I said they have the duty
| to investigate, if there is suspicion of radicalisation.
|
| And about signs, in germany the economy ministre could
| not leave his ferry, because of aggressive protesters. I
| did not noticed a widespread condemnation of said action
| by the rest of the protestors. That alone justifies
| investigation.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > I said they have the duty to investigate, if there is
| suspicion of radicalisation.
|
| That is oppression and a tool of oppression, and it's got
| a long history.
|
| > in germany the economy ministre could not leave his
| ferry, because of aggressive protesters
|
| Do you have evidence? And if there were, so what? Why
| must this law be enforced so utterly? Again, the tools of
| oppression - 'law and order!'
| lukan wrote:
| "That is oppression and a tool of oppression, and it's
| got a long history."
|
| Not per se. If it means rounding everyone up regulary and
| search all their homes for the sake of it - then yes. But
| investigations can also be discrete.
|
| "And if there were, so what? Why must this law be
| enforced so utterly?"
|
| Why must a government not bow to a violent mob? Because
| it would end democracy, if they would. It would mean,
| give right to those people, who can get the most
| determinated hooligans.
| beeboobaa wrote:
| The farmers have been anything but peaceful. They've
| destroyed public & private property, doused it in literal
| shit, started fires and threatened politicians. They've also
| blocked roads preventing emergency services from getting
| through.
| suoduandao3 wrote:
| I think the point is, Farmers as a group were peaceful
| _until_ very recently. Law abiding citizens don 't riot
| because Mars stationed direct.
|
| I like Bill Burr's quote here - "A dog should not bite a
| man. But if a dog does bite a man, it's fair to ask what he
| was doing when it bit him"
| beeboobaa wrote:
| In this case the unfortunate answer is that they were
| given cushy subsidies and preferential treatment for
| years and this is sadly no longer sustainable due to
| climate change. They are now entitled and angry.
|
| It's understandable they don't like it, but the reaction
| is ridiculously extreme.
| olliej wrote:
| Farmers were peaceful because they were in a position of
| privilege over many other businesses. It was being
| subjected to the same pressure that everyone else was
| that caused issues.
|
| I get that that would be a hard transition, but you don't
| get to say "they were peaceful before when others
| weren't" when the lack of peacefulness from others was
| largely because they weren't getting the same support and
| protection that these groups were getting, especially
| when they're directly demonstrating in their responses
| now that they fundamentally agree with the issues that
| caused prior protests and riots, now that those issues
| also impact them.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _The farmers have been anything but peaceful. They 've
| destroyed public & private property, doused it in literal
| shit, started fires and threatened politicians._
|
| Yeah, so? That's how they like their protests in France
| (and how we like them in several parts of Europe too).
|
| The French state itself was established on a much more
| violent rebellion...
| arp242 wrote:
| The "protesting farmers" is just speculation from the NOS,
| and might as well be Nazis or motorbike gangs or extreme-left
| activists or $anything_else. Previous poster merely used it
| as an example to illustrate that these type of specifics
| matter.
|
| Also these "protesting farmers" involved a number of violent
| incidents, intimidation, threats, and things like that. Look,
| things aren't black-white here, but "peaceful, law-abiding
| citizens" is very much a distortion of what happened.
| RamblingCTO wrote:
| Yes, thank you! A lot of people took my comment the wrong
| way.
| olliej wrote:
| I have a problem with "surveilling nazis". If they're not
| actively committing criminal acts, and there isn't a warrant
| demonstrating with specificity that the particular facility
| or group is involved (e.g the same requirement for any other
| warrant) they should not be subject to any more surveillance
| than say a Christian group, or a Muslim group, or an lgbt
| group, or hell a group of sports team supporters. The amount
| of surveillance should be zero.
|
| I hate nazis with a passion, and would never be ok employing
| or working with someone who's basic life belief is that a
| bunch of their coworkers (maybe including me?) don't have the
| right to exist and are fundamentally inferior (if nothing
| else a cynical 100% capitalist take would be that having a
| Nazi anywhere in your management hierarchy will clearly open
| your company to plausible discrimination suits).
|
| Before anyone brings up accepting others beliefs, that's not
| an issue. There is a basic social contract: you can believe
| whatever you want without consequences until your beliefs get
| to "other people don't get to have the same rights as me".
| The "paradox of tolerance" is BS used by bigots to try and
| allow them to attack the rights of others with impunity under
| the guise of accepting other's beliefs.
| doktrin wrote:
| > The "paradox of tolerance" is BS used by bigots to try
| and allow them to attack the rights of others with impunity
|
| The Jewish philosopher who fled the Nazis was, in fact, a
| bigot seeking to attack the rights of others?
| olliej wrote:
| No. Popper was not using the "paradox of intolerance" to
| be a bigot attacking the rights of others. What Popper
| did was give a name to the behavior bigots were already
| demonstrating. Bigots don't say "you have to support my
| beliefs because of the paradox of tolerance", they say
| "you are not being tolerant if you don't support my
| intolerance" (for whatever group they're targeting).
|
| It's somewhat disingenuous to present an idea in terms of
| the circumstances in which it was introduced as being
| equivalent to that idea after people have had time to
| actually think about it and discuss it. It implies that
| no problem can be resolved in the time following its
| introduction.
|
| When Popper started talking about this as the "paradox of
| intolerance" it was "how do we resolve this issue where a
| maximally tolerant society must inherently become
| intolerant", but that was 80 odd years ago, and in that
| time the generally accepted answer is that tolerance is a
| social contract, and part of that is that tolerance is
| necessarily a two way street, so if your belief is that
| some other group[s] are not permitted to exist, or have
| the same rights, then no other group has to tolerate your
| beliefs. There is no problem of cycles of responsibility,
| because your intolerance was the initial trigger.
| Exoristos wrote:
| Can Jewish philosophers who flee Nazis not be bigots?
| What is the mechanism there?
| RamblingCTO wrote:
| It's not about belief for me. People can believe what they
| want. But there's a sub-group of Nazis that want to topple
| the government and I think they, including all of their
| potential networks, should be surveilled. Just like all the
| leftists, islamists, and other terrorists or extremists. I
| don't agree with surveillance because of simple beliefs or
| religions though.
| RamblingCTO wrote:
| The article specified them as examples and I found them quite
| framing. So yes, I changed it to cases where no one would
| probably have a problem with it. I'd personally have a
| problem with farmers being surveilled just because they are
| farmers and are protesting. I wanted to show that we need
| more data before having an opinion, as it depends on the
| details.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > We really have a problem with targeted surveillance of
| specific communities like visitors of a specific mosque? Or a
| pub frequented by known nazis?
|
| There's one of a hell of a difference between the right to
| religious expression and the right to drink in a pub.
|
| The former is protected in many constitutions (USA: First
| Amendment, Germany: Art. 4 Abs. 2 Grundgesetz, Netherlands:
| Art. 6 no. 1 Constitution) as well as in Art. 18 of the
| Declaration of Human Rights, the latter is not.
| RamblingCTO wrote:
| Well, a lot of people, including you, seem to misunderstand
| me. I had very specific examples in my head with demonstrated
| (planned) actions against others or the state. I was even
| thinking about a very specific nazi pub in Germany. It's not
| about beliefs or religion for me. I couldn't care less and
| don't agree with "Generalverdacht" or "Sippenhaft" at all. On
| the opposite.
| anfogoat wrote:
| > _The article doesn 't have enough details to form an
| opinion!_
|
| It does, unless your interest is in justifying the breaking of
| law and abuse of powers.
|
| These people were granted amazing powers, are paid from taxes,
| and yet somehow it's too much to expect that they'd have an
| ounce of respect for the law and the privacy of their supposed
| fellow citizens. Unscrupulous individuals who work overtime to
| figure out ways to abuse their powers.
|
| And it really is unfathomable to me how it's possible for
| someone to be an agent of government, knowing you're
| responsible for being that for which no one nowhere should
| trust their government with any powers, and somehow still being
| able to go about your daily activities without your conscience
| tearing you into pieces. Impossible to say enough bad things
| about these specimens.
| contravariant wrote:
| I have a problem with surveillance on any criteria that's only
| marginally more specific than 'people the government doesn't
| like' or 'people who don't like the government'.
| lispm wrote:
| I would think that the biggest problem in the Netherlands is
| organized crime around drug imports.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _We really have a problem with targeted surveillance of
| specific communities like visitors of a specific mosque?_
|
| That's the very definition of the thing we should have a
| problem with.
| pjmlp wrote:
| The first rule of intelligence services is that law is flexible,
| anyone that belives otherwise is in for a surprise.
| asmor wrote:
| I'm more surprised this even surfaced. I get a feeling in most
| other countries, this wouldn't be known about and everyone
| would just assume it happens.
| whoswho wrote:
| I would suggest, as a kind of an amusing game in possible
| scenario ideation, to assume that the people who wrote and
| published this article are running with the presumption that
| people already know these things are happening. So the main
| goal of this, therefore, would not be to enlighten an
| ignorant audience.
|
| We "know" that news are orchestrated. They're not really news
| because they're often planned weeks or months in advance. We
| "know" that the media is there to shape public opinion. But
| what could they write to appeal to our biases? Perhaps make a
| subset of us feel righteous, angry, or smug, on a given day?
| Play to our vices just to play with us and keep us occupied
| and entertained?
|
| Think about every person who posts something like "panem et
| circenses," as a response, and imagine the smugness they feel
| at being so clever, has been a planned-for response from the
| people setting it all up.
| soco wrote:
| I don't believe there can be a real expectation of secrecy
| nowadays, everything seems to surface at some point. Unless
| it doesn't and I would never know what I missed :)
| instagib wrote:
| Somewhat. It becomes a cat and mouse game of who knows what
| and will expose that if this is exposed. Once exposed the
| weight of the threat is lost. Similar to bringing the
| Gatling gun to the battlefield or MAD.
|
| There are a lot of mitigations built in to protecting the
| things that need protection at an exceedingly high cost.
| apapapa wrote:
| The main problems with laws is that there are too many of them
| and no one knows them all. I guess you could call that flexible
| because they keep adding new ones.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Also not all laws apply to everyone, specially to
| organisations that have their own governance structure.
| apapapa wrote:
| Yeah... No laws apply to NSA... I think I would like to
| work there
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| The lead:
|
| > In the four-month period between February 23 and July 1, 2022
|
| In the body:
|
| > Between February 2023 and July 1, 2022
|
| Somebody needs to use less chatgpt. At least read it before
| publishing, geez.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > Between February 2023 and July 1, 2022
|
| These are Dutch Timecops. The suspects were seen fleeing into
| the past.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Please refrain from baseless accusations of using AI, they
| (along with dutchnews.nl) are only a small company doing
| important work, not like large scale mainstream media outlets.
| krapp wrote:
| AI is in the midst of a gold rush period. Practically every
| media company everywhere is trying to find a way to profit
| from AI, not just large scale mainstream media outlets. At
| this point 10% of all content on the internet is AI
| generated, and that number is only bound to increase
| exponentially until the current AI hype cycle crashes.
|
| I don't know if dutchnews.nl is or isn't using AI, but
| neither their size nor the "importance" of their work has any
| bearing on whether or not they might. If they aren't now,
| chances are they will sooner or later.
| berkes wrote:
| > At this point 10% of all content on the internet is AI
| generated [citation needed]
| wkat4242 wrote:
| It's very low-effort autotranslated, and clickbaity with all
| the capitals though. Being a small outfit doesn't excuse them
| in my opinion.
|
| Dutchnews.nl is very different because they have their own
| community. They make their own content, have guides for
| expats on how things are working there etc. They get a thumbs
| up from me for that, and I would recommend them to expats.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| That seems like the kind of error humans have made basically
| forever. Editing is hard.
| striking wrote:
| Seems like this is a translation of another article
| (https://nos.nl/artikel/2508037-inlichtingendiensten-
| onderzoc...). The source does not have the error.
| techcode wrote:
| That's actually very likely. Besides famous example where
| actual people get confused - like "half drie" is "half past
| two" or "two thirty" (so if Dutch person is telling me time
| or number in English, I double check by repeating it to them
| in Dutch).
|
| In my experience Google Translate often does silly things
| like mix up AM/PM, day and month, and often enough it even
| flips the meaning (say "not required" somehow becomes
| "required") when translating Dutch to English.
|
| So every now and then (when it's really important stuff) I
| also double check the original Dutch version.
|
| And yeah I should do it more often, or even just turn off
| automatic NL to EN translations...
| wkat4242 wrote:
| NLTimes is (in my opinion) a trash site that's just publishing
| autogenerated translations. Very clickbaity with all the
| CAPITALS :P I don't know anyone that actually uses them as a
| news source.
|
| I think it was linked to because all the real media are in
| Dutch.
|
| https://dutchnews.nl is a way better site for English speakers.
| jackfoxy wrote:
| A former Oakland PD officer shared with me insight into how
| police intelligence worked back in the day. And I'm sure this
| still goes on.
|
| It was back in the time of the SLA terrorism and Patty Hearst
| kidnapping. One of the brothers in East Oakland casually
| mentioned to a cop "What are all these hippies doing in our
| neighborhood?" (It turns out they were having a strategy
| meeting.) This got reported up the chain of command and OPD
| intelligence set up traffic stops all around the neighborhood
| perimeter. That was it. They just asked for ID of everyone
| leaving the neighborhood and recorded them, with special interest
| in anyone White.
|
| When the sh!t hit the fan and the FBI got involved (soon
| thereafter) the OPD chief told the FBI they knew exactly who was
| involved. The FBI was dismissive and wasted valuable time. When
| the FBI hit a blank wall in regards to identifying SLA members
| they finally swallowed their pride and asked the OPD for the
| list. That's how the SLA membership was identified.
| rocqua wrote:
| I presume you mean the Symbionese Liberation Army when you say
| SLA?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbionese_Liberation_Army
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Probably. But Service Level Agreement Terrorism has a nice
| ring to it.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| They gave some context by specifying "SLA _terrorism_ " up
| front, so it's a safe presumption.
| supportengineer wrote:
| I feel pretty terrified when I receive an SLA breach alert
| pjc50 wrote:
| > They just asked for ID of everyone leaving the neighborhood
| and recorded them
|
| Ah, the famous American freedom. Papers please.
|
| (in practice, it's practically impossible to stop law
| enforcement doing this kind of thing at least some of the time,
| no matter what country you're in or how unconstitutional it is.
| There will always be groups with little enough political power
| that they have no redress)
| ysofunny wrote:
| sorry, but the proper american phrase is "license and
| registration"
| brnt wrote:
| Drivers license and car registration, right?
|
| If I was a terrorist on US soil, I'm gonna be bussing.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Intracity buses have cameras. Intercity buses require ID.
| interactivecode wrote:
| Why? Do interstates also have border check points?
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Bus companies require them, afaik.
| irrational wrote:
| No they don't. I've often put my kids on intercity
| (really interstate) buses to go visit their grandparents.
| I've never had to show ID and they don't have ID.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Did you show it when you bought the tickets? Which bus
| line?
|
| I remember news stories about it, and thinking that
| people could no longer travel anonymously.
| dublinben wrote:
| Real criminals ride bicycles.
| jethro_tell wrote:
| And don't carry ids or phones.
| jkaplowitz wrote:
| That only covers the driver, not everyone in the vehicle.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Glory to Arstotzka.
| some_random wrote:
| While it is practically impossible in cases like this,
| there's still a huge difference between the US where police
| will at best begrudgingly acknowledge your rights and most
| other countries in the world where you do not have rights to
| begin with.
| olliej wrote:
| On the other hand in the US police routinely kill unarmed
| people, which seems like it's much worse for personal
| freedom. Do you have freedom to consider your rights when
| doing so gets you self-defenced to death for not
| cooperating?
| some_random wrote:
| Quick question, without looking it up what order of
| magnitude of unarmed people do you think the US police
| kill each year? 10s? 100s? 1,000s? 10,000s?
|
| Per WaPo's police shooting database[1], there were 51
| last year (going up to 71 if you include unknown, 173
| including unknown and undetermined). Filter down to
| people who were not fleeing or having a mental health
| crisis and you get 8 (26 including unknown and
| undetermined). While that still represents a problem in
| the use of force by cops, to say nothing of the idea that
| carrying a weapon (which is legal in much of the US)
| means that your death at the hands of the police is
| acceptable, killings of unarmed people seem far from
| routine. I don't think you have any reason to believe you
| will be killed by the police for not giving them your ID.
|
| [1]https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations
| /polic...
| doktrin wrote:
| I didn't read the parents comment as trying to make a
| point of nationalistic pride, but to frame the US in the
| broader international context. There are a lot of
| countries in the world. The majority of which rank below
| the US on measurements of corruption, and many on police
| violence.
|
| https://worldjusticeproject.org/rule-of-law-
| index/global/202...
|
| https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2022
|
| https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-
| rankings/police-ki...
| TheBlight wrote:
| Is it possible this story served as a parallel construction --
| like when you don't want to expose your actual sources and
| methods?
| jackfoxy wrote:
| No. There was no reason for this ex-cop to tell me the story
| 5 years ago about something that happened 45 years earlier.
| And he didn't make a career as a cop, so he wasn't protecting
| anyone.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| A bit of a self-satisfied, everyone-else-is-a-fool, told-you-so
| story for the teller. IME, those are signals that the story
| reveals the teller, the culture of the teller, but not facts.
|
| Of course, I don't know. I think the hard thing in these
| situations is that we humans tend to trust personal stories
| like this one - it's rude not to. My comment is rude, in a
| sense, transgressing in this social interaction. But the
| accurate, truthful course is to treat the facts as [edit:]
| nothing - not as maybe true, etc., but as if they were never
| said.
| antoniojtorres wrote:
| Why don't you ask for a source?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| What would the identity of the "former Oakland PD officer"
| do to establish the veracity of the claim?
| tharmas wrote:
| It's a slippery slope. Mussolini defeated the Mafia in
| southern Italy. However, his gov't did it in a brutal manner.
| Lots of innocent people rounded up too.
|
| "The hand of Vengeance found the bed To which the Purple
| Tyrant fled; The iron hand crush'd the Tyrant's head And
| became a Tyrant in his stead." -- _The Grey Monk, William
| Blake_
| NotSammyHagar wrote:
| Also, the mafia came back, maybe not in his time.
| tharmas wrote:
| That was due to the Allied Military post-WW2 occupation
| of Italy. There are a couple of books on that very
| subject. These Mafioso presented themselves as anti-
| fascist and anti-communist to help their appointment into
| positions of power.
| mk89 wrote:
| Which is ironically the same way as they got "used" by
| Garibaldi to "unify" Italy in 1860-1861.
|
| Only a fool can actually believe to defeat mafia with
| plain violence.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| lots of Mafia in the USA placed in positions of authority
| in labor unions -- see Teamsters. Some US political
| thinking was to use these harsh, often effective people
| as a "lesser evil" versus genuine communist-labor
| organizers. Due to many abuses of workers (see History of
| Slave or Indentured Labor) there were many communist
| labor organizers, for real.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| It always turns out badly and the dictator is always
| corrupt. If they aren't corrupt, why wouldn't they hold
| elections and allow freedom and dissent?
|
| We don't need to, and don't have time to, and absolutely
| should not sacrifice the victims to, relearning the lessons
| of democracy.
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| It's only 'corrupt' though, if there was any expectation
| that the resources of the state were to be controlled by
| anyone but the ultimate leader. Therefore, the view of
| whether a given absolute leader is corrupt or not depends
| more on the society's expectations of them than it
| depends on their actions. A monarch in an absolute
| monarchy can never be considered corrupt, even if widely
| seen as wicked.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Even if that's true, how is it meaningful? Who cares what
| you call it, it's corruption.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| Mussolini is insanely popular in Sicily, which is alarming
| because not only was he a Fascist, but a Northern Italian.
|
| By "popular", I mean tour guides will sing his praises to
| American tourists. Jewish, American tourists.
| tharmas wrote:
| He was popular in Sicily during the time of his reign as
| well because his regime nullified the Mafia.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| What the tour guide said was it's because "he created
| jobs in Sicily" and "treated Sicily like it was a part of
| Italy."
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Fascism is popular everywhere right now, so it's not
| dependant on the location (Sicily in this case). The
| question is, how did it become popular in so many places
| simultaneously?
| doktrin wrote:
| > It was back in the time of the SLA terrorism and Patty Hearst
| kidnapping. One of the brothers in East Oakland casually
| mentioned to a cop "What are all these hippies doing in our
| neighborhood?" (It turns out they were having a strategy
| meeting.)
|
| The SLA only had one black member, who at the time was an
| escaped convict. Why would a half-dozen white hippies, and one
| black fugitive, leave their safehouse to hold a strategy
| meeting in East Oakland?
| spacebacon wrote:
| See parallel construction comment above.
| jackfoxy wrote:
| They had not kidnapped Patty at that point. The only thing
| the SLA was taking credit for at that time was the Marcus
| Foster murder. They probably thought they had a safe house in
| east Oakland, which is why all the _hippies_ (as described by
| the bystander) went there for the meeting.
| echelon_musk wrote:
| Anyone unfamiliar with the Patty Hearst kidnapping may want to
| read the excellent book Days of Rage [0]. I started reading it
| after it was recommended by another user on this forum a long
| time ago.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Days_of_Rage:_America%27s_Radi...
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| Dirty hippies. Thank god those domestic terrorists were
| apprehended before they could murder again.
| retox wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbionese_Liberation_Army
|
| >During its existence from 1973 to 1975, the group murdered
| at least two people, committed armed bank robberies,
| attempted bombings and other violent crimes, including the
| kidnapping in 1974 of newspaper heiress Patty Hearst.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't do this here.
|
| You may not owe dirty hippy terrorists better, but you owe
| this community better if you're participating in it.
| maxglute wrote:
| I feel like there's disproportionate coverage of Dutch
| intelligence drama/failures relative to size of the country. I'm
| assuming this is because their media is extra transparent or
| their intelligence extra leaky.
| Telluur wrote:
| I think it's rather to do with the fact that the Dutch language
| corner of the Internet is relatively super small when compared
| to the other well connected European nations like Germany or
| France. We tend to mingle with the English language platforms
| more.
| turquoisevar wrote:
| Pretty much this.
|
| Plus there are a few "news" websites that bother translating
| Dutch news articles into English for expats and the like.
|
| You see this happen less with French or German news, those
| are typically picked up by bigger US outlets and get drowned
| out by the plethora of news from the US and global news that
| is deemed more relevant to the US market.
| techcode wrote:
| What happened with previous way where countries (was it "Seven
| Eyes"?) would spy on each others citizens, as a way to workaround
| such "You shall not warantlessly mass-spy on your own citizens"
| limitations?
|
| From the top of my head, I recall at least USA, UK, Australia and
| Netherlands were among those 7.
| dsp wrote:
| I believe you're thinking of Five Eyes.
| tromp wrote:
| The Five Eyes (FVEY) is an Anglosphere intelligence alliance
| comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United
| Kingdom, and the United States.
|
| says https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes
| White_Wolf wrote:
| Maybe 9 eyes?
|
| The countries involved in the 5 Eyes, 9 Eyes, and 14 Eyes
| alliances and their partners Five Eyes
| countries: United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia,
| and New Zealand Nine Eyes countries: The Five Eyes
| plus Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, and France
| Fourteen Eyes countries: The Nine Eyes plus Italy, Germany,
| Belgium, Sweden, and Spain Partners of the 14 Eyes:
| Israel, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, British Overseas
| Territories
| olliej wrote:
| Wait it's not that monitoring an entire community is illegal,
| it's just that they didn't haven't sufficient justification in
| some cases? Wtf
| nonethewiser wrote:
| This will be a problem as long as there is surveillance.
| apapapa wrote:
| Inspired by the US government ?
| hcfman wrote:
| The Dutch also have a law that they cannot involve a civilian in
| long term observation for more than a year and then they need to
| provide them with a contract in advance but they don't give a
| shit. I know that they have kept this up for more than 10 years
| and is not left at surveillance but also involves harassment and
| criminal offences. And also against none criminally involved
| people.
|
| They have their laws and they have what they do. The laws are
| just to pacify people. But they are structurally ignored.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| > So, theoretically, the police intelligence services may have
| been spying on visitors to a certain mosque or protesting
| farmers.
|
| Is this really that unreasonable? Im not sure I agree with any
| surveillance infrastructure but if you have it aren't these the
| first places to start? I think it's more a question of if
| surveillance is OK at all.
| gtvwill wrote:
| Lol? If they think this is a story just wait til they workout
| what the 5 eyes have been upto. Whole pop group? Pleb numbers.
|
| Cross borders whole nation states is where it's at.
| torcete wrote:
| And despite this big brother surveillance, they cannot protect
| their princess from the mafia?
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