huhu.
this only shows how retarded i am this time of night. it's also the 2nd time i click the abigail williams forum instead of the philosopher... anyway here goes:
Make no mistake about it, we are at war
Make no mistake about it, we are at war. Words spoken by U.S. president Bush before congress. But who are we fighting? According to Bush, those responsible for the 9-11 attacks hate our freedoms. This not an ordinary war for territory, no, its worse. These terrorists kill not merely to end lives, but to disrupt and end a way of life.
So this war is about terrorists attacking our freedoms, our way of life? Its funny to see how easily the Americans forsake that way of life themselves. Prisoners are held without trial in Guantanamo Bay, Iraqis are being abused in Abu Ghraib, and American freedom was supposedly exchanged for more safety when the American government adopted Big Brother is watching you-legislation called the Patriot Act.
From this side of the ocean, its easy to point a finger to America and to accuse them of all this. However, how well do we do ourselves? In The Netherlands too our government is watching over us. A series of new legislation was designed to prevent terrorist acts from happening. ID checks (ID-plicht), Data Retention (bewaarplicht) are 2 of the foremost examples of this new legislation. In 2003 the Terrorist Offences Bill was passed. For the first time in The Netherlands a Terrorist crime was treated differently from a normal crime. And a lot more is on the way. Dutch police is advocating a sort of virtual defense circle. The Justice Department has designed legislation to make it possible for information obtained from the Dutch intelligence agency, the AIVD, to be accepted directly as evidence in a crime case. The defense will not be allowed to view or respond to this evidence.
All of this should improve our safety against terrorists. According to Dutch police and the minister of Justice Donner it is unavoidable, but totally acceptable to sacrifice personal freedoms to make our society safer. But shouldnt we ask some questions? Exactly how much safer will our society be? How much are we sacrificing? Will the new legislation prevent terrorist attacks from happening at all? For a large part of this new legislation, these questions were not carefully considered. These policies are inefficacious and disproportional.
Lets discuss some of this new legislation. First of all, the ID checks. Upon introduction of this legislation there hadnt been any solid argumentation as to why it would work. Proponents of ID checks just found it logical to assume that when law enforcement agencies can check the identity of every person at all times, the natural result would be that crime and terrorism will be easier to stop. Besides, a lot of other countries had ID checks as well, right?!!! We had to catch up! What they didnt mention was that crime rates in those countries werent lower than in The Netherlands. Furthermore, because of an increase in stolen passports it would be easier to get a fake passport as well. Indeed, the amount of stolen or lost passports has increased. Almost 200.000 ID documents got lost in 2005. Have ID checks prevented any terrorist attacks yet? I dont know, but at least more students make sure their bicycle lights are in working order. Furthermore, 800.000 of fines were collected in just the first 3 months. Several incidents were reported were police would ask for ID without a valid reason, just for breaking up a demonstration. Freedom of speech anyone? A measure which was presented to prevent terrorism is now producing a totally different effect.
Then theres the Data Retention legislation. The idea is that internet traffic destinations must be recorded and logged by all European Internet Service Providers. In late 2005 this legislation passed the European Parliament. Although nationally data retention is yet to be implemented, countries are allowed only minor margin of variation, like the length of the retention, which is allowed to vary between 6 months and 2 years. So for all European citizens all visited websites will be recorded. But thats not all. Usually in a search engine for example the search string is part of the url (just run a search in google and look in your address bar to see what I mean). This means that not just the address, but also some of your interests are being recorded. Big Brother will know what books you are looking up on amazon and what youre looking for google. In fact, just doing some research for writing a paper on muslim-fundamentalism might ring some alarm bells at the AIVD! For every email sent by a normal mail program the sender and destination, but also the subject will be recorded. Again, despite a huge campaign by various organizations, the legislation was rushed. Never before was a decision about new legislation made so quickly. In September a large part of the European Parliament still opposed data retention, but a powerful campaign by the chair of the EU for the 2nd part of 2005, Great Britain, made sure enough members of parliament made a political decision. Blair promised some action to his citizens after the London bombings. By the way, most Dutch members of the European Parliament opposed the decision. Minister Donner did not, both our Parliament and our Senate had to blow the whistle on him several times because he went out of line, directly disobeying them by supporting data retention in the EU council of ministers.
Again, little considerations were made about the efficacy of this legislation. First of all, the need for data retention was not clearly researched. A research project by Erasmus University Rotterdam examined a group of police cases where stored data could have come into the picture. The outcome was that in all cases the police had all the information they need. As an addendum, interviews with high ranking police officers were included in the report. Of course, they were all proponents of data retention. This police wish list was enough proof for Donner for the necessity of data retention. But again much information was omitted about the efficacy of the measure. Any terrorist can learn how to use a proxy: he will connect to another computer in Brazil for example and surf the internet from that pc. All thats recorded is that hes connecting to a pc in Brazil. All other information can be encrypted. Several other methods even easier are available; all it takes for a smart terrorist is a few minutes of googling. Its really not hard! And what about the costs? Donner said last year that he didnt see the necessity of the Dutch government paying for data retention. ISPs will have to pay gargantuous amounts of money themselves, and they will in turn make customers pay. The expected costs as reported by Donner to Dutch parliament had several flaws. First of all, the costs were based on the amount of traffic in 2003. Already traffic has doubled since then, and it will continue to grow even quicker. Furthermore, traffic estimates were only available for international traffic passing through a distribution node in Amsterdam to other countries. National traffic does not pass through there and was not accounted for in the estimates.
Like ID checks, data retention was presented as a measure to make it easier to track terrorism. Already, Donner has made some remarks that for normal crime the databanks will be used as well. And Dutch music industry association is already drooling over the possibility of using data retention as a means of tracking illegal file sharers, after losing a case last year demanding names from ISPs belonging to Internet Addresses of file sharers. What will be reality is that the AIVD will be performing Data Mining on the stored data. They will look for specific suspect patterns in peoples behavior. This is more fundamental than it sounds. We are quickly shifting from a society where law enforcements had to get a permit from State Attorneys or judges to get a permit for invading privacy of people who were already suspected to a society where everybody is considered suspect, where everybodys privacy is invaded on a systematic basis. No longer do law enforcement agencies have to explain why its necessary to record personal data. Now citizens will have to explain why accusations based upon personal data are incorrect. Suspected, until proven otherwise. But why? Research after the murder of Theo van Gogh already suggested a relatively small group of fundamentalists in our country. A new law in 2005 already made it possible for law enforcement agencies to order certain information frozen for specific individuals. Why was this not enough? Why is it necessary to invade the privacy of tens of millions of European citizens when according to an expert only 0,02% of it will ever be used? Is that proportional?
Lets focus on the concept terrorism for a moment. In a report from the AIVD from 2001, 109 definitions of the word terrorism were indexed. Not surprising, because terrorism as a concept is very vague. What is a terrorist for one person could be a freedom fighter for the other. However, for the first time since 1937 was it considered necessary to give a terrorism a special status in a European judicial system. Both in 2001 and in 1937 this proposal was heavily opposed by experts. Where they succeeded in 1937, they failed in 2001 and legislation passed the European Parliament to be implemented by national governments. In The Netherlands, a terrorist crime is set apart from a normal crime by its motive to incite fear upon (part of) the population of a country, or to force a government or international organization to do, not do or allow something, or to seriously disrupt or destroy the fundamental politic, constitutional, economical or social structures of a country or international organization. This is a very wide definition. A lot of political activists will fall under this definition. Truck drivers on a strike blocking a tunnel or a railway station could suddenly be considered terrorists. This definition of terrorism includes a lot of normal white people. We need to let go of the idea that the only people who are going to be affected by all this harsher legislation are fundamentalist Muslims who blow themselves up expecting to find 72 virgins in heaven.
Along with this broad definition of terrorism goes the proposal by the Dutch cabinet to broaden the authority of Dutch law enforcement agencies, especially in terrorism cases. Vague indications produced by the AIVD will be enough to authorization for a phone tap or to follow a person. Dutch police could turn into a shadow-Secret Service. In the same plans, any cop will be authorized to request any personal data. Any cop will be allowed to walk into the library and call for information about which books someone borrowed, on their own authority. Any cop can ask Albert Heijn which articles you bought in their supermarkets (of course we all have a bonus card), any cop can ask the videotheque if I borrowed any violent movies lately. In court cases, AIVD information willl be directly admissible as evidence. Behind closed doors, the judge will be able to take account of the information. The advocate of the suspect will not be allowed to be present, will not be allowed to know what information was given to the judge, will not be allowed to respond to it. Doesnt that mean a fundamental change in our judicial system? In immigration processes a tip given to AIVD might mean an immigrant will not be given a Dutch passport, and that he will be deported from The Netherlands. I could not like my neighbor who requested a Dutch passport, and make an anonymous call to the AIVD. As a result of this, this information could be added to my neighbors dossier at the Immigration Office and he could be refused a passport. This information will never be visible to my neighbor.
What is perhaps the scariest of all this is that we are giving huge responsibilities to our law enforcements agencies, especially the AIVD. How well are they equipped to deal with this amount of freedom, with our private information? Due to the secret nature of the AIVDs operations, we will never now how much they error, how much personal data they are looking into and what files they keep on us. The U.K. has some bad experience with British Intelligence. Research done by newspaper The Independent showed that MI5 offered reduction in penalties in exchange for fake statements, that incorrect information about impounded weapons were passed on as facts, and that newspaper articles served as evidence. Our own AIVD may not be much better. A report from the Administrative Evaluation Committee AIVD concluded that although its hard to assess the quality of their safety and risk analyses, they are much less nuanced and refined then those who use them might expect. Furthermore, some pretty big AIVD errors were made public over the last few years, including the leaking of information by one of their employees. Another funny story: about 400 Rotterdam cops peeked in the file of famous soccer player Robin van Persie, who was accused of raping a woman. Police spokesmen let us know that they considered it a good learning moment for the police. Nobody even got a reprimand. Personally, I wouldnt feel sorry for them if they were all fired. A bank didnt hesitate to fire an employee who took a peek into Katja Schuurmans account details.
The common pattern in most of this new legislation is that most of it is ill-advised, and not well thought out. What they all have in common is that they sacrifice a lot of our basic freedoms and rights as human beings. Our freedom of speech. Our freedom of religion. Our freedom to go wherever we want without someone watching. They tamper with our constitutional state: what happens when a defendant is not allowed a fair chance of himself against untrustworthy accusations? When, just because the label terrorist gets stamped on someones head suddenly disproportional liberties are granted to those prosecuting them? How come that, when one Dutch person is scared of 2 guys in a white dress who happen to enter the toilet in the train a bit more than usual, all it takes to completely derail all train traffic near Utrecht for a few hours is a phonecall to 112? Those two men needed to be in the toilet to prepare for a religious ceremony they hold dear. They did nothing wrong, yet they were carried of the train blindfolded, like terrorists, interrogated, humiliated. How is that possible? Why do we allow that? Isnt completely against our constitution?
One answer may be: we are all in fear, and that makes us more willing to sacrifice those freedoms. But is that fear reasonable? Five years after the 9-11 attacks, no big attack has taken place in The Netherlands. And the politicians respond by enlarging our fear, and then giving us pseudo-security. Just a short while ago Minister Pechtold accused his own prime minister Balkenende of spreading fear across our nation.
Fear is essentially what terrorism is about. Terrorism is empowered by the fear it inspires among us. In the beginning of this article I offered the quote we are at war. If it is true that our enemies are attacking our way of live, it makes sense to me why they havent made a big attack on The Netherlands yet. They dont need to. They wanted to attack our way of life, and they succeeded. But not because of their own actions, but by our own! All it took for us to abandon our way of life, our values, was fear. But too many people dont realize this. Many of them claim: If they want to know stuff about me, let them, I have nothing to hide!
Some time ago a researcher from Amsterdam wrote about what happens with our surveillance cameras. Apparently, the camera operators in a lot of public places get bored and start zooming in on those nice asses and boobs of passing females. Girls, think of that next time you see a camera hanging on a wall designed to improve your safety, and keep saying that you have nothing to hide! It would certainly make the camera operators day!
