Plasterk Is Watching You

The House of Representatives will discuss the proposal for a new Intelligence and Security Services Act. This law is indeed in need of an update. But if the current proposal is implemented, the secret services will soon be able to tap our communications on a large scale, even if we pose no threat. It would be the most far-reaching power the services have ever had.

With the dragnet, for example, all communications from a neighbourhood where a deportee lives can be tapped or, for example, all Facebook messages from a particular city can be intercepted and stored for years. With the dragnet and direct access to databases, the secret services can access a lot of data on people who are not targets. But that is not all. The bill also makes it possible to hack your computer even if you yourself are not a target. Your computer - think servers and company networks, but also laptops or smartphones - is then used without your knowledge as an instrument of the secret services to penetrate a target.

In our open and democratic society, a dragnet has no place. Especially not since it has not been proven that a dragnet actually makes us safer. There is talk of a "research mandate". That seems to imply that it would involve small groups of people. But they are not. For example, earlier this year clearly that such an investigative task involves, for example, tapping the internet traffic between the residents of a particular city and a chat app or the traffic from public WiFi hotspots. So the services can intercept communications on a large scale where the vast majority will be communications from people who have done nothing wrong.

Linda Voortman on behalf of GroenLinks an amendment tabled against the dragnet. That amendment deserves as much support as possible. Click here To call on MPs to stand up against the dragnet!

Text: Bits of Freedom