20 ms·

New law proposal makes The Netherlands privacy-unfriendly

110 points by jorrizza 11y ago

adventured 11y ago
It's a fair criticism. However I think it's too early to be telling startups to stay away from the Netherlands. Both because the new law may be prevented yet, and these types of laws are occurring simultaneously across most of the developed world. I'm not sure where a startup would flee to, to avoid them. I might take the opposite tact here. I'd argue instead that startups should feel perfectly comfortable making the Netherlands their home, for all the positive reasons, and they should all focus on slaying these bad qualities. The Netherlands only has 17 million people, it's still very possible to have your voice heard. A focused group of startups can probably still make a difference.
- LunaSea 11y ago
  I'm dutch and I agree that a decision not to go there shouldn't be rushed but a bill like this being even considered makes the choice very flaky.
- JupiterMoon 11y ago
  The trouble once a country starts trying to pass laws like this they tend to carry on until they get through.
jackweirdy 11y ago
Without getting specific to particular startups - obviously the best country is the one where you have a large market -which are the best countries for startups? In terms of availability of funding, legal ability to onboard foreign workers, IP rights, general digital-friendly legislation, and so on? I'm only really aware of the US & larger EU countries, presumably there are also great opportunities further afield?
jacoplane 11y ago
So they're doing exactly what the NSA and GCHQ are doing but they're actually being transparent about the fact that they're doing it?
- tptacek 11y ago
  That's not a fair assessment. The problem with NSA isn't that their authority is opaque. The problem is that their authority, dating back to the cold war, is so broad that it's difficult to cabin what their doing into public policy objectives. In other words: once you pass a law that gives the government authority to dragnet communications, no matter how specific and overt the law is, the authority you've delegated does grave and intrinsic harm to transparency.
- JupiterMoon 11y ago
  GCHQ are pretty clear what they are doing. They hover up everything they physically can regardless. If they get caught and it turns out to be illegal they get Parliament to change the law for them.
tptacek 11y ago
I know that this is a tricky question to engage with on HN, but is there a major-market country in Europe --- say, from the list of Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Switzerland, Poland, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Austria, Denmark, and Finland --- that is fundamentally more privacy-friendly than the US, in black-letter terms? US privacy laws have loopholes you can drive a truck through. But the limited research I've done suggest to me that that's true of virtually all western democracies, and that the loopholes in other countries can be even larger and less transparent. My impression of France for instance, is that there isn't a major distinction between what the French government can do on its own soil to combat terrorism versus what it can do abroad; that's probably not true of the US. I'm interested in facts and non-emotional analysis; the "interesting" discussion we can have about this topic. Obviously a lot of people bring priors to it about the evils of the NSA or NSA/USG's corrupting influence on other countries. I'm prepared to stipulate that (believe it or not, I'm not that far from most HN readers on these topics, ideologically!) if we can boil things down to the raw facts.
- Tomte 11y ago
  It's hard to say because few people are well-versed in US law and the law of their country (actually, many Germans seem toknow more about US law than German law because of TV), not to mention several European countries. One thing pointing to the importance of privacy in mainstream German law is that our Constitution Court literally invented a basic right to the integrity of information-technological system. Actually invented it.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    I know! I've found it very difficult to "research" this online. I'm kind of hoping that enough people know the principles behind the laws of their own countries that we could productively compare notes. What are the parameters of the "integrity" right for IT systems in Germany? What kinds of stories could I look for to see what it's limits are? Rights always conflict with each other; there's always a "but".
    - Tomte 11y ago
ChuckMcM 11y ago
So does Dutch law actually recognize the UN's International Covenant[1] ? While a country can be a signatory to the covenant, it is just a popularity stunt until there are locally enacted laws which provide for enforcement of its provisions. It isn't like UN Peacekeepers are going to come parachuting in to your rescue. Also the comment about Mass surveillance is incorrect. While it may not have found any terrorism suspects there is ample evidence that it has impacted drug smuggling (as implemented in the US) where the DEA was fed information that it had to lie about where it got it. While I find the whole parallel construction thing a huge violation of civil liberties (and generally should be illegal) it is pretty clear that mass surveillance did identify a number of drug operations. So in that regard it "works". It might be better to say that it hasn't been shown to be an effective tool against terrorism. [1] http://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/ccpr.aspx http://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/ccpr.aspx
- malka 11y ago
  The fact that "it works" is not a good argument imo. Slavery works to get shit done.
  - ChuckMcM 11y ago
    To be clear, "it works" is not an argument, it is a counter factual, basically evidence that invalidates a previous claim. The argument that author makes was a general "it does not work" and in the very broad definition of works or doesn't work, mass surveillance can be shown to have uncovered unlawful activity that would have gone undetected without it. That is a very technical definition of 'working' and does not address the moral or legality issues of the surveillance itself. My goal is to help the author make a stronger argument for their cause. And it is stronger to claim mass surveillance has not been effective at countering or uncovering terrorist plots but it has been effective at violating peoples civil liberties and subjecting people to a violation of their right to privacy. Then you have to tie that right to privacy to locally enacted laws or constitutional claims. In the US we've been asserting that mass surveillance is a violation of the 4th amendment which says US citizens have the right to be secure in their persons against unreasonable search. And then we've gone on to argue that mass surveillance is an unreasonable search. With judicial backing like the recent ruling about putting a camera on a telephone pole across the street from a house to keep it under surveillance. So you have to build the argument from the initial claim to the last one so that each step of the way the listener can understand and agree (or debate) the evidence you present for supporting that claim. That was the form the article takes, laying out its claims one by one to support its call to action to reject the changes proposed in Dutch law.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
wbhart 11y ago
It's odd to see the Netherlands referred to as previously being privacy conscious. Back in the mid 2000's I recall looking in the CIA Factbook and noting that the Netherlands intercepted more telephone calls and did more internet monitoring than just about any other country, per capita (of course "Fact" was used rather loosely in the title of that book). Hackers in the Netherlands were introducing regular pulses into their daily internet activity and then using Fourier analysis to detect this signal in the server load of apparently well known Government buildings, believed to belong to the Dutch secret service (to what extent these rumours were true, I can't say -- I wasn't involved). For historical reasons, the Dutch people also developed a habit of "spying" on neighbours to "make sure they were ok". This is still included in some guides for foreigners living in the Netherlands, so they don't become concerned when their neighbours begin looking in their windows. In my stay in the Nethelands, I however learned that just about every spy agency in Europe was spying on just about everyone else in Europe. So it became clear in the end that the Dutch weren't necessarily any worse at it than everyone else. Of course, that threat seems to be greater in larger states with bigger economies. If you live anywhere else, you at least know everyone else is probably spying on you, even if your own Government is not.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  I wrote about this at length: http://jacquesmattheij.com/wholesale-privacy-violations-in-the-european-union http://jacquesmattheij.com/wholesale-privacy-violations-in-t... We're definitely not doing well at all on this front and it is getting worse rather than better.
  - wbhart 11y ago
    In my opinion, all that is happening with these "anti-privacy laws" is that very old spying practices are becoming codified in law. Nothing will actually change. The spying is already happening, and has been for a long time.
    - jacquesm 11y ago
      Yes, the crimes are simply being retro-actively whitewashed and for the future you can expect a lot more of the same especially because it is now legal. Never mind that these laws are in conflict with just about every right that we as citizens are supposed to have and which we all learn in school should be important to us.

110 points by jorrizza 11y ago

It's a fair criticism. However I think it's too early to be telling startups to stay away from the Netherlands. Both because the new law may be prevented yet, and these types of laws are occurring simultaneously across most of the developed world. I'm not sure where a startup would flee to, to avoid them. I might take the opposite tact here. I'd argue instead that startups should feel perfectly comfortable making the Netherlands their home, for all the positive reasons, and they should all focus on slaying these bad qualities. The Netherlands only has 17 million people, it's still very possible to have your voice heard. A focused group of startups can probably still make a difference.

LunaSea 11y ago
I'm dutch and I agree that a decision not to go there shouldn't be rushed but a bill like this being even considered makes the choice very flaky.
JupiterMoon 11y ago
The trouble once a country starts trying to pass laws like this they tend to carry on until they get through.

jackweirdy 11y ago

Without getting specific to particular startups - obviously the best country is the one where you have a large market -which are the best countries for startups? In terms of availability of funding, legal ability to onboard foreign workers, IP rights, general digital-friendly legislation, and so on? I'm only really aware of the US & larger EU countries, presumably there are also great opportunities further afield?

jacoplane 11y ago

So they're doing exactly what the NSA and GCHQ are doing but they're actually being transparent about the fact that they're doing it?

tptacek 11y ago
That's not a fair assessment. The problem with NSA isn't that their authority is opaque. The problem is that their authority, dating back to the cold war, is so broad that it's difficult to cabin what their doing into public policy objectives. In other words: once you pass a law that gives the government authority to dragnet communications, no matter how specific and overt the law is, the authority you've delegated does grave and intrinsic harm to transparency.
JupiterMoon 11y ago
GCHQ are pretty clear what they are doing. They hover up everything they physically can regardless. If they get caught and it turns out to be illegal they get Parliament to change the law for them.

tptacek 11y ago

I know that this is a tricky question to engage with on HN, but is there a major-market country in Europe --- say, from the list of Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Switzerland, Poland, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Austria, Denmark, and Finland --- that is fundamentally more privacy-friendly than the US, in black-letter terms? US privacy laws have loopholes you can drive a truck through. But the limited research I've done suggest to me that that's true of virtually all western democracies, and that the loopholes in other countries can be even larger and less transparent. My impression of France for instance, is that there isn't a major distinction between what the French government can do on its own soil to combat terrorism versus what it can do abroad; that's probably not true of the US. I'm interested in facts and non-emotional analysis; the "interesting" discussion we can have about this topic. Obviously a lot of people bring priors to it about the evils of the NSA or NSA/USG's corrupting influence on other countries. I'm prepared to stipulate that (believe it or not, I'm not that far from most HN readers on these topics, ideologically!) if we can boil things down to the raw facts.

Tomte 11y ago
It's hard to say because few people are well-versed in US law and the law of their country (actually, many Germans seem toknow more about US law than German law because of TV), not to mention several European countries. One thing pointing to the importance of privacy in mainstream German law is that our Constitution Court literally invented a basic right to the integrity of information-technological system. Actually invented it.
- tptacek 11y ago
  I know! I've found it very difficult to "research" this online. I'm kind of hoping that enough people know the principles behind the laws of their own countries that we could productively compare notes. What are the parameters of the "integrity" right for IT systems in Germany? What kinds of stories could I look for to see what it's limits are? Rights always conflict with each other; there's always a "but".
  - Tomte 11y ago

ChuckMcM 11y ago

So does Dutch law actually recognize the UN's International Covenant[1] ? While a country can be a signatory to the covenant, it is just a popularity stunt until there are locally enacted laws which provide for enforcement of its provisions. It isn't like UN Peacekeepers are going to come parachuting in to your rescue. Also the comment about Mass surveillance is incorrect. While it may not have found any terrorism suspects there is ample evidence that it has impacted drug smuggling (as implemented in the US) where the DEA was fed information that it had to lie about where it got it. While I find the whole parallel construction thing a huge violation of civil liberties (and generally should be illegal) it is pretty clear that mass surveillance did identify a number of drug operations. So in that regard it "works". It might be better to say that it hasn't been shown to be an effective tool against terrorism. [1] http://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/ccpr.aspx http://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/ccpr.aspx

malka 11y ago
The fact that "it works" is not a good argument imo. Slavery works to get shit done.
- ChuckMcM 11y ago
  To be clear, "it works" is not an argument, it is a counter factual, basically evidence that invalidates a previous claim. The argument that author makes was a general "it does not work" and in the very broad definition of works or doesn't work, mass surveillance can be shown to have uncovered unlawful activity that would have gone undetected without it. That is a very technical definition of 'working' and does not address the moral or legality issues of the surveillance itself. My goal is to help the author make a stronger argument for their cause. And it is stronger to claim mass surveillance has not been effective at countering or uncovering terrorist plots but it has been effective at violating peoples civil liberties and subjecting people to a violation of their right to privacy. Then you have to tie that right to privacy to locally enacted laws or constitutional claims. In the US we've been asserting that mass surveillance is a violation of the 4th amendment which says US citizens have the right to be secure in their persons against unreasonable search. And then we've gone on to argue that mass surveillance is an unreasonable search. With judicial backing like the recent ruling about putting a camera on a telephone pole across the street from a house to keep it under surveillance. So you have to build the argument from the initial claim to the last one so that each step of the way the listener can understand and agree (or debate) the evidence you present for supporting that claim. That was the form the article takes, laying out its claims one by one to support its call to action to reject the changes proposed in Dutch law.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

wbhart 11y ago

It's odd to see the Netherlands referred to as previously being privacy conscious. Back in the mid 2000's I recall looking in the CIA Factbook and noting that the Netherlands intercepted more telephone calls and did more internet monitoring than just about any other country, per capita (of course "Fact" was used rather loosely in the title of that book). Hackers in the Netherlands were introducing regular pulses into their daily internet activity and then using Fourier analysis to detect this signal in the server load of apparently well known Government buildings, believed to belong to the Dutch secret service (to what extent these rumours were true, I can't say -- I wasn't involved). For historical reasons, the Dutch people also developed a habit of "spying" on neighbours to "make sure they were ok". This is still included in some guides for foreigners living in the Netherlands, so they don't become concerned when their neighbours begin looking in their windows. In my stay in the Nethelands, I however learned that just about every spy agency in Europe was spying on just about everyone else in Europe. So it became clear in the end that the Dutch weren't necessarily any worse at it than everyone else. Of course, that threat seems to be greater in larger states with bigger economies. If you live anywhere else, you at least know everyone else is probably spying on you, even if your own Government is not.

jacquesm 11y ago
I wrote about this at length: http://jacquesmattheij.com/wholesale-privacy-violations-in-the-european-union http://jacquesmattheij.com/wholesale-privacy-violations-in-t... We're definitely not doing well at all on this front and it is getting worse rather than better.
- wbhart 11y ago
  In my opinion, all that is happening with these "anti-privacy laws" is that very old spying practices are becoming codified in law. Nothing will actually change. The spying is already happening, and has been for a long time.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    Yes, the crimes are simply being retro-actively whitewashed and for the future you can expect a lot more of the same especially because it is now legal. Never mind that these laws are in conflict with just about every right that we as citizens are supposed to have and which we all learn in school should be important to us.