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This is not a non-story. What would be considered normal is if the police kindly requests the footage and the citizen, that is otherwise unrelated to the case,

This is not a non-story. What would be considered normal is if the police kindly requests the footage and the citizen, that is otherwise unrelated to the case, has the option to refuse or cooperate. What also would be normal is if the police requested a judge to order someone to hand over the footage. That way a judicial officer has tested and weighed the legality and legal interests before forcing, again, a citizen that otherwise has no relation to the case. In common law systems this is what is called a subpoena and considered part of discovery, in civil law systems there’s no term for this because there’s no formal discovery process and these kinds of things are decided on a very limited case by case basis. Before 2018 it was the case that a prosecutor would have to make the demand and effectuate seizure. This is still not ideal because it is without judicial oversight, but at least it was a (semi-)officer of the court and someone with proper legal training. The Dutch however decided that since 2018 the police could do this themselves. Which is decidedly not ok. Especially because refusal directly leads to criminal penalties, that are hard to fight against because the penalties are directly linked to the refusal, not to the legitimacy of the seizure. Similar to how in the US you can be arrested for resisting arrest, even if there’s no sufficient legal foundation for the underlying arrest that you “resisted”. It creates a self-fulfilling criminal act with little to no judicial oversight. This it’s an erosion of rights, an increase of the police state and definitely warrants a story. Moreover, the clear goals of the article linked on HM as well as the underlying Dutch source article is to inform people who have these cameras that there are potential risks on having these cameras, risks that most don’t know about. Again, a worthwhile reason to report on this.

account-5 3y ago
The article can at best be described as clickbait. A better title would be: police given powers to do their job effectively. What you're suggesting would not work in reality. And if it was a reality I'm sure you'd be complaining even more about how the police can't solve anything or do their jobs properly or how you see fit whilst at the same time advocating even more limits on their powers. I would imagine it was changed in 2018 because the current way it was working simply wasn't working.
- turquoisevar 3y ago
  > The article can at best be described as clickbait. A better title would be: police given powers to do their job effectively. This purely opinion. I can’t do anything with this other than to strongly disagree with you. > What you're suggesting would not work in reality. What I’m suggesting is already reality in the US and is reality for most other things in the Netherlands, as well as the reality in most EU countries. In the US the judicial overview has in many cases eroded to rubber stamping by judges, so I wouldn’t go as far as to state that “it works”, but when I practiced law in the Netherlands and a handful of times in other EU countries I indeed considered things to “work” just fine the way they were. > And if it was a reality I'm sure you'd be complaining even more about how the police can't solve anything or do their jobs properly You’re gish galloping and doing a pretty poor job at it because you’re making assumptions on my moral framework without knowing the first thing about me. I wouldn’t complain about the police not being able to solve anything because I’m more concerned about police powers being expanded at the expense of civil rights so “law & order” politicians can score a few points. I was educated in law school with the philosophy of rather having 10 guilty people go free than 1 innocent person ending up behind bars and till this day I still hold that to be a virtue to strive for. So no. I’m not in the slightest concerned about police being able to solve crimes. > I would imagine it was changed in 2018 because the current way it was working simply wasn't working. Like I said, it’s merely a consequence of politicians wanting to look tough on crime while quietly eroding away what little safeguards there are. You could’ve just said something to the effect if “I’ve got nothing to hide” and called it a day, instead of presenting your opinions and assumptions as if they have any merits as arguments.
  - account-5 3y ago
    Haha... I hardly think my short and to the point replies to your rambling nonsensical musings are gish galloping, however appreciate your attempts at characterise my replies as such to cover your own use of this same technique, ad hominem though it was. Your points themselves are opinion too, but since your opinion seems to be predicated on wanting a useless policing structure I doubt we'll agree on much. You could have just said something to the effect of: defund the police. Needless to say people like you are all for the police having no power, or not existing, until you're the victim of a crime.

account-5 3y ago

The article can at best be described as clickbait. A better title would be: police given powers to do their job effectively. What you're suggesting would not work in reality. And if it was a reality I'm sure you'd be complaining even more about how the police can't solve anything or do their jobs properly or how you see fit whilst at the same time advocating even more limits on their powers. I would imagine it was changed in 2018 because the current way it was working simply wasn't working.

turquoisevar 3y ago
> The article can at best be described as clickbait. A better title would be: police given powers to do their job effectively. This purely opinion. I can’t do anything with this other than to strongly disagree with you. > What you're suggesting would not work in reality. What I’m suggesting is already reality in the US and is reality for most other things in the Netherlands, as well as the reality in most EU countries. In the US the judicial overview has in many cases eroded to rubber stamping by judges, so I wouldn’t go as far as to state that “it works”, but when I practiced law in the Netherlands and a handful of times in other EU countries I indeed considered things to “work” just fine the way they were. > And if it was a reality I'm sure you'd be complaining even more about how the police can't solve anything or do their jobs properly You’re gish galloping and doing a pretty poor job at it because you’re making assumptions on my moral framework without knowing the first thing about me. I wouldn’t complain about the police not being able to solve anything because I’m more concerned about police powers being expanded at the expense of civil rights so “law & order” politicians can score a few points. I was educated in law school with the philosophy of rather having 10 guilty people go free than 1 innocent person ending up behind bars and till this day I still hold that to be a virtue to strive for. So no. I’m not in the slightest concerned about police being able to solve crimes. > I would imagine it was changed in 2018 because the current way it was working simply wasn't working. Like I said, it’s merely a consequence of politicians wanting to look tough on crime while quietly eroding away what little safeguards there are. You could’ve just said something to the effect if “I’ve got nothing to hide” and called it a day, instead of presenting your opinions and assumptions as if they have any merits as arguments.
- account-5 3y ago
  Haha... I hardly think my short and to the point replies to your rambling nonsensical musings are gish galloping, however appreciate your attempts at characterise my replies as such to cover your own use of this same technique, ad hominem though it was. Your points themselves are opinion too, but since your opinion seems to be predicated on wanting a useless policing structure I doubt we'll agree on much. You could have just said something to the effect of: defund the police. Needless to say people like you are all for the police having no power, or not existing, until you're the victim of a crime.