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Comment by timwaagh | Hacker News Reader

Although I do share the concerns it's impossible to know what this would do in practice. For the most part I think our Government (ie the Dutch one) is run by people with integrity. I doubt they'd want to cause scandal by overloading regulators to do nasty stuff. Although I must say I don't agree with this change either.

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Not sure about that. If you’re competing with an adversary in the cybersecurity space, it’s likely that you’ll go quite far to win. It’s a matter of national security after all, plus it is strictly legal soon to start your activities and slow down the ex-post checks and balances, do you really expect these hackers to self-regulate based on some kind of personal value system, and resist any challenge to these values from colleagues, managers or indeed your adversaries?

Unlikely, plus there have been plenty of reasons to think otherwise. Just look at how the ministries are treating WOB/FOIA requests, frustrating the process, breaking every regulatory deadline and very willing to pay the silly fines for always being way late with taxpayer money. It’s a joke.

Besides, we have the toeslagenschandaal showing how civil servants are completely willing to screw over tens of thousands of civilians, driving people to divorces, bankruptcies, suicides, kids to foster homes etc. We NEED checks and balances, desperately so, also in the Netherlands. God knows what happens when we don’t. NL is relatively good, but it’s all relative, at the end of the day it’s a bunch of humans that will fuck up without good governance.

> breaking every regulatory deadline and very willing to pay the silly fines for always being way late with taxpayer money

> civil servants are completely willing to screw over tens of thousands of civilians

I think this is due to general laziness and low compensation more than anything else. Being a civil servant in the Netherlands isn’t exactly a highly respected position.

I try not to comment on political matters on HN, but -- have you missed the plethora of scandals, not least of which the benefits scandal (toeslagenaffaire)?

I'll remind you that the very same PM who was responsible for that scandal is still in office, and that his very cabinet tried to get rid of one of the politicians who unearthed the scandal (Omtzigt).

Or how about SyRI, the system used for detecting tax fraud, which was ruled by the judiciary to be in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights?

https://eenvandaag.avrotros.nl/item/weer-is-de-vvd-de-partij...

The benefits scandal was caused by some overzealousness on the part of the tax authorities in response to the Bulgar fraud. Not really a case of lack of integrity just people trying to do their job and making a mistake. mistakes like that will continue to happen, the government should have been more clear about that.

The pm did not enter the offensive lines of code into the system and I do not know to which extent, if any, he is to blame for any of it.

There will always be some tension between fraud detection and personal rights. The fact that a court rules against a system is proof that regulatory oversight is very much alive.

If it was just a mistake, why did the cabinet try to get rid of Omtzigt instead of heralding him for his discovery?

Re: SyRI - it was then-Minister Asscher (PvdA) and the Rutte II administration who created a legal basis for the system [1]. SyRI would not have existed if not for this.

Re: judicial oversight - it is alive despite our government, not thanks to it. I quote the former Minister Teeven (VVD): “Als je aan een advocaat niet al te veel tijd geeft om aan een verdachte te besteden, dan wordt het ook niet zo veel, die verdediging.” [2]

[1] https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/hoe-het-stigmat... - archived copy: https://archive.ph/bR70i

[2] https://nos.nl/artikel/2173862-uitspraken-teeven-over-bezuin...

Well former minister Teeven is certainly a bit of an oddity since he used to be the leader of the fortuynist offshoot party Leefbaar Nederland. It is not often people make it from the far right to a mainstream party.

I'm not sure about all the leadership fights within CDA. Maybe Rutte didn't want that kind of rivalry to exist within his cabinet. One can only speculate.

As for Omtzigt not getting more credit he is certainly a popular man these days. Could win the next election.

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