Dutch Police intelligence services unlawfully spied on whole population groups
nltimes.nl
nltimes.nl
It was back in the time of the SLA terrorism and Patty Hearst kidnapping. One of the brothers in East Oakland casually mentioned to a cop "What are all these hippies doing in our neighborhood?" (It turns out they were having a strategy meeting.) This got reported up the chain of command and OPD intelligence set up traffic stops all around the neighborhood perimeter. That was it. They just asked for ID of everyone leaving the neighborhood and recorded them, with special interest in anyone White.
When the sh!t hit the fan and the FBI got involved (soon thereafter) the OPD chief told the FBI they knew exactly who was involved. The FBI was dismissive and wasted valuable time. When the FBI hit a blank wall in regards to identifying SLA members they finally swallowed their pride and asked the OPD for the list. That's how the SLA membership was identified.
Ah, the famous American freedom. Papers please.
(in practice, it's practically impossible to stop law enforcement doing this kind of thing at least some of the time, no matter what country you're in or how unconstitutional it is. There will always be groups with little enough political power that they have no redress)
If I was a terrorist on US soil, I'm gonna be bussing.
I remember news stories about it, and thinking that people could no longer travel anonymously.
Per WaPo's police shooting database[1], there were 51 last year (going up to 71 if you include unknown, 173 including unknown and undetermined). Filter down to people who were not fleeing or having a mental health crisis and you get 8 (26 including unknown and undetermined). While that still represents a problem in the use of force by cops, to say nothing of the idea that carrying a weapon (which is legal in much of the US) means that your death at the hands of the police is acceptable, killings of unarmed people seem far from routine. I don't think you have any reason to believe you will be killed by the police for not giving them your ID.
[1]https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/polic...
Edit: I'm not seeing 1141 anywhere, where did you get that number?
Why on earth should US police get a free pass on shooting people fleeing or having a mental health crisis?
Such things warrent an investigation with a real possibility of penalties and|or charges in Commonwealth countries.
Are you stating that it's OK to shoot people that run | are paranoid?
https://worldjusticeproject.org/rule-of-law-index/global/202...
https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2022
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/police-ki...
So are you saying that didn't happen?
Unlike many other countries. I live in Europe and certainly don’t need provide an ID without a cause or even carry one with myself
You don’t say.
Of course, I don't know. I think the hard thing in these situations is that we humans tend to trust personal stories like this one - it's rude not to. My comment is rude, in a sense, transgressing in this social interaction. But the accurate, truthful course is to treat the facts as [edit:] nothing - not as maybe true, etc., but as if they were never said.
"The hand of Vengeance found the bed To which the Purple Tyrant fled; The iron hand crush'd the Tyrant's head And became a Tyrant in his stead." --The Grey Monk, William Blake
Only a fool can actually believe to defeat mafia with plain violence.
We don't need to, and don't have time to, and absolutely should not sacrifice the victims to, relearning the lessons of democracy.
Might have? Do we have evidence? And if it did, what do you conclude from that?
> the concept of democracy isn't necessarily an obvious one
Taking a vote is an obvious concept.
By “popular”, I mean tour guides will sing his praises to American tourists. Jewish, American tourists.
Historical Fascism is unpopular.
It’s made a come back in Italy and India.
But the modern, far-right neofascists admire Israel more than the Third Reich.
The resurgence of the far-right began in the early 2000s when Jörg Haider‘s Freedom Party took power in Austria and Jean-Marie le Pen made the run-off in France.
It got much more powerful during the financial crisis of 2008 and the migration crisis caused by the Arab Spring in the mid 2010s.
It’s not a mystery why people are pissed off and looking for non-mainstream candidates.
A big mystery is why the far-left has vanished.
The Occupy Protests fizzled out, Jeffrey Corbyn imploded the Labour Party, and Jacobin put up a paywall.
Interesting!
> It’s not a mystery why people are pissed off and looking for non-mainstream candidates.
Why are they? Generally, economies are doing well, there is peace - at least, they were until the fascists started disrupting it.
> It’s made a come back in Italy and India.
Hungary, Poland, US, Russia, Brazil, El Salvador, ... where does it end?
> A big mystery is why the far-left has vanished.
Agreed, and even the moderately left.
There's also secular decline in a lot of southern european manufacturing, so the economic basis for stable income and family life in a lot of places just isn't there anymore.
That’s the big wedge issue for the far right - migration of people and capital.
When their factory closes down and is moved to a cheaper country, might the workers be worried about open borders?
That conflates the centrists, including left and right (when there was a center-right) with the left. The progressive left was always dubious at best about globalization, iirc.
The migration thing is, to a great extent, people inflaming ethnic hatred. People like open borders when they want to migrate themselves, or hire migrants; it also brings trade and tourism; it brings peace and eliminates pointless political distinctions.
I agree that globalization needs to address the relatively easy mobility of capital relative to labor. But that problem is arguably extreme capitalism - where the capitalists get whatever they want - not globalization. Globalization writ by labor would have looked a lot different.
Notice the protests by farmers, truckers, etc.
The progressive left in America is formed in heavily globalized universities. They are 100% in support of globalization, as they are beneficiaries and producers of it.
I don’t know where the “heart and soul” of the European progressive left is. Other than Spanish socialists, I don’t think there are many.
Eh, this varies. Most people in the labour force are young, and young people are generally leftward-leaning. In some regions of the UK, labour have traditionally been pretty socially progressive.
There’s little support for neofascism in the UK, so it’s not the best example as to why fascism is making a comeback.
The SLA only had one black member, who at the time was an escaped convict. Why would a half-dozen white hippies, and one black fugitive, leave their safehouse to hold a strategy meeting in East Oakland?
The only thing? That murder was a huge deal, and what got the FBI involved. We're talking about the assassination of Oakland's first black school superintendent. By self described marxist/lenninist/maoist terrorists and using cyanide laced bullets. The headlines write themselves.
Now is there not only a fugitive in the group, but they're all fresh off making national news for political violence? Violence that wildly alienated the black community? At which point they choose to leave their actual safehouse to go to a "we think its safe" house in said community for a brief meeting? Did they forget their fake IDs? OPD is looking for (literal) leftist terrorists and don't find a single excuse to detain 6 hippies and a black man?
I don't doubt you're sharing this in good faith, but If I'm gonna keep it a buck, none of this passes the smell test for me. That said, I guess it would track in a way. The whole SLA affair has a stranger than fiction vibe to it from start to finish.
And also that radical hippies tend not to have a lot of money, so it's not unusual for them to live in low income neighborhoods (i.e. some members likely lived there anyways).
TL;DR none of what you said remotely applies. They were middle-upper-class with access to resources and lived in Berkeley before moving to a notorious Concord safehouse in August ‘73, about 3 months before anything in this story takes place.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Days_of_Rage:_America%27s_Radi...
>During its existence from 1973 to 1975, the group murdered at least two people, committed armed bank robberies, attempted bombings and other violent crimes, including the kidnapping in 1974 of newspaper heiress Patty Hearst.
You may not owe dirty hippy terrorists better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it.
We really have a problem with targeted surveillance of specific communities like visitors of a specific mosque? Or a pub frequented by known nazis? I don't get it. The article doesn't have enough details to form an opinion!
I mean, we're talking about tracking those hanging out at places where terrorists are known to gather, and associating with said terrorists, however casually? That's just military sense. Are we just supposed to let the known terrorist go to the bar, have his/her coded conversations with an unknown subject, and then let that subject go on his/her merry way without looking any further into the matter? That would be naive in the extreme.
Secondly, no one's suggesting that they let everyone go their merry way without looking into anything. Only that widespread surveillance must be justified e.g. the evidence must pass some threshold and other responses have been ruled out.
Also, some tiny question: People you think you associate with or people the Police think you associate with?
When investigating serious crimes, there is no such thing as too much information. If you say hello and chit-chat with Bomberman every Sunday, I want to know what you talk about, I want to know what he wears, when he was sick and didn't show up, I want to know how he smells, I want to know everything, and given that you associate with him, I was hoping you could provide some information.
I'm no religious person, but I would imagine praying in a mosque is very different to personally knowing everyone else that's praying in the same mosque. Even if you do meet everyone it's not like they're gonna introduce themselves with "hi, I'm $stereotypicalMuslimName, and I plan on doing a terrorist attack next month".
The connection needs to be far more substantial than that to warrant surveillance.
It's similar to a school. You might have a social group of a dozen peers you're familiar with, and you might or might not ever do anything outside of school with those people. There are also hundreds of other students in different sets or levels of classes who you might not ever learn the name of.
Of course, it will vary between large churches and small churches, and probably between areas with lots of churches and areas with only a few. But I wanted to explain that since it sounds like you had at least an exaggerated idea of how religious people socialize via their places of worship.
I guess I'm a suspect for doing banking at a large bank know to also cater for criminals. Should probably look for a different bank. ...Oh, wait.
If, say, one member of a mosque is under surveillance for good reasons and then you extend that to everyone attending the mosque for no particular reason other than "well, maybe we'll catch something, doesn't to try": that's probably not a good thing.
On the other hand, if the imam is preaching violent rhetoric, multiple members are under surveillance for good reasons, and there's good reasons to believe that the violence is an important part of the mosque community in the first place (rather than a relatively small detail): then that's perhaps not such a bad thing. You don't "accidentally" associate with that kind of thing.
Or: you probably don't need detailed reasons to put someone in Don Corleone's employ under surveillance.
I don't disagree with what you're saying inherently. But the "sidestepping legal process" is crucial to why this is so problematic.
If we allow all our data to be centrally stored your children/neighbors/lover might not be safe.
Those who would give up privacy for security will get neither.
You can assume that what the Dutch are doing here is standard operating procedure everywhere, and that any laws to the contrary are just a facade.
Curious how you imply in both of these statements that this is a uniquely "western sphere" government activity.
I suppose that the governments of China, Russia and all the myriad states that aren't part of the western sphere are simply privacy and freedom-loving paragons of not being irresponsible with state power?
I didn't. The purpose of the clause "or their own governments" in the part of the comment you copied was to contrast the clause "American and American-allied intelligence services" (collectively referring to the "western" sphere of influence), inclusive of non-western spheres of influence, such as China and Russia.
Please, put in the minimum effort to read and understand all of the words people write, rather than simply scanning them to find some bad-faith interpretation from which to engage in political sniping. I am not the strawman living rent-free in your head. I never said anything about any non-Western government being freedom-loving paragons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010s_global_surveillance_disc...
Yes? Have you opened a history textbook, like ever?
We surveil everyone all the time then?
That's factual. For feds at least - it likely is for local police too but we don't have numbers to evaluate.
If you talk about women or Muslims, for example, they are objects of examination - what are they like? what do they do? They aren't participants, mostly; you don't have a lot of women and Muslims posting about it - think about it: if we want to know about Islam, why don't we listen to Muslims, who would actually know from a lifetime of direct experience? What we see is mostly from the perspective of someone looking at Muslims - they are on the outside. A predictable result of the ignorance is stereotypes and prejudice. And even prejudiced and hateful ideas are treated as 'curiosity' - the curiosity of (mostly) white males. Nobody is curious about racism or sexism, for example.
My sense is that what I see on HN, maybe unconciously, is moderated to accomodate the insiders.
Think hard on that one, it says a lot about what kind of person you are, what your morals and personally held values are.
People share beliefs, they join a movement, and they do that mostly via small organizations like religious groups, political parties, friendship circles, internet forums and so on.
1) People are not borgs or hive mind enjoined entities. Yes, they may share beliefs or have friendship circles etc. but it’s irresponsible and reaching to believe that everyone thinks or will act the same simply by virtue of being in the same mosque or temple or church etc.
2) So because people are not borgs, there is a lot of factionalization, even in the same religious group, political party, Internet forum.
3) Even still, unless someone is actively going out to do something for some organization, you cannot penalize them for thought crimes by their association. Why? Because doing so usually leads to spread of authoritarian control.
This is a rough response to your comment because people already know these things on some level. I think some people willfully choose to be stupid because of their biases.
I am strongly opposed to surveillance in general and happy that they unearthed this as a violation, but at some point people will inevitably fall into buckets when an investigation is happening. There is nothing new about this.
A tip comes in about someone who frequents church X organizing a terrorist attack. Do you do a background check on church goers, look for suspicious activity, or sit back and twiddle your thumbs because this is “unfair targeting”?
Several attacks have actually happened in NL over the past decades, and recently scary connections with extremist groups found. It’s not hypothetical.
Obviously no one will agree that the situation you described merits inaction. Preemptive surveillance “in case there is a terrorist” is a human rights violation because no one should be deprived of their privacy. Privacy is fundamental to psychological well being, creativity and self-determination.
Moreover, what’s to stop ideological enemies of one faction from sending false tips? Or to prevent progressive political action. For example, the FBI certainly considered civil rights activists as terrorists at one point (some still do, in different contexts). What if someone creates false flag terrorists to target a whole race? What if someone radicalizes someone by targeted harassment and stalking, and then blames their religion or culture if the target does something violent?
Yes, violence is scary and psychopaths doubly so. The response to violence and psychopaths is not to sacrifice human rights. We need to understand people and create more social cohesion. I think this also means understanding and identifying psychopathic and anti-social behaviors.
I don’t think killing people or locking them away from society is ever the answer because we will never run short of people to kill or lock away. We need less barbaric ways to deal with people, while also understanding the need for justice and revenge that being subject to such violence can create. The solution is not brute force surveillance. All this does is create resentment and political strife, and might lead to genocide.
Either way, surveillance is just a symptom of deeper political failures.
I'd say, limited surveillance is trying to unify tolerance and openness while not putting all people of one belief/religion for example in the same category.
I'm thinking about extremists and terrorists. So you're against surveillance of a mosque that is known to interact on the regular with terrorists? Or a nazi pub where attacks on the state are planned?
But the article had a slightly different example than yours:
> on visitors to a certain mosque or protesting farmers
You changed "protesting farmers" to "a pub frequented by known nazis." It's emotionally easy not to have a problem with targeted surveillance of nazis, but surveilling farmers, who are currently protesting throughout Europe? That's clearly politically motivated surveillance of ordinary, peaceful, law-abiding citizens who dissent from the government's views.
If you want countries that don’t subsidize agriculture that has been Aussie and NZ since the 80s iirc. Though I haven’t lived in those countries for a decade or two now and Covid and various financial panics over the last decades resulted in a variety of corporate hand outs so it seems plausible that those businesses have got some government support since then.
So you want to keep farms up even in times the market wont.
Yeah, that's kind the idea of a protest. If you don't create enough inconvenience, than it will be, at best, a small line in a newspaper. "10 thousand farmers gathered in an abandoned meadow and drove around in protest." Yes, cute.
They are going this far because, obviously, they have the feeling they haven't been heard, and/or because they feel decisions are being made that are not taking into account the reality of their profession.
> lighting fires containing asbestos
This sounds like nothing more than a dubious scaremongering claim to discredit whatever concern they are trying to air. It -might- be something that happened anecdotally and accidentally, but to describe it as something done deliberately while also putting their own health in danger requires quite a bit more proof than hearsay.
It has happened regularly at farmer protests, so speculating that it might be accidental is absurd. They deliberately burn garbage containing asbestos. They are criminals that deserve to be behind bars.
Peaceful? In Germany, a particularly nasty incident made headlines where a drunk farmer tried to evade a roadblock and ended up injuring a policeman [1], just last week two got arrested for attempting to run over cops [2], others spread feces and trash over a highway and lit up barricades [3], and the large demonstration in January in Berlin had over ten arrests for violence as well as explosives [4].
[1] https://www.bild.de/regional/ruhrgebiet/ruhrgebiet-aktuell/b...
[2] https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/niedersachsen/oldenburg_ostfr...
[3] https://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/sachsen-anhalt/magdeburg/magd...
[4] https://www.rnd.de/politik/bauernproteste-in-berlin-drei-ver...
Regardless of the political view or perspective or stance: they are provably not law-abiding.
https://www.rechtspraak.nl/Organisatie-en-contact/Organisati...
Are you suggesting that because a few people did things you don't like, everyone involved is violent? That is not only clearly false, but very dangerous.
The GGP didn't show lots of signs, just a few incidents. Where is evidence of 'lots of signs'?
And about signs, in germany the economy ministre could not leave his ferry, because of aggressive protesters. I did not noticed a widespread condemnation of said action by the rest of the protestors. That alone justifies investigation.
That is oppression and a tool of oppression, and it's got a long history.
> in germany the economy ministre could not leave his ferry, because of aggressive protesters
Do you have evidence? And if there were, so what? Why must this law be enforced so utterly? Again, the tools of oppression - 'law and order!'
Not per se. If it means rounding everyone up regulary and search all their homes for the sake of it - then yes. But investigations can also be discrete.
"And if there were, so what? Why must this law be enforced so utterly?"
Why must a government not bow to a violent mob? Because it would end democracy, if they would. It would mean, give right to those people, who can get the most determinated hooligans.
What do you mean? Not in theory? Theory doesn't matter, because in reality people abuse power if they have it, as they do with that power.
> Why must a government not bow to a violent mob? Because it would end democracy, if they would. It would mean, give right to those people, who can get the most determinated hooligans.
That sounds apocolyptic. There have been many protests in democracies, many with some violence, and the democracies survive. What democracy has fallen to violent protestors?
Yeah, because they do not bow to violence.
"What democracy has fallen to violent protestors?"
The US would have, if they would have accepted that the "protesters" could storm the capitol without consequence for example and decide the outcome of a election by force.
I don't support violent protest, but absolutist law and order are a much bigger threat to liberty, a way to criminalize and shut down dissent. It's just weaponizing the law.
I did not say in any word, a whole group needs to be locked down, because one stepped out of line. But if the group openly supports the violence of that one person - well then they invited further investigation to determine if there is more planned in secret. It is a grey area for sure and I am not a fan of police regulary overstepping those lines to stop some drunk nuts. But they do have to check, on whether the nuts are arming themself and getting more dangerous. How would you propose it should work? Ignoring it?
Investigation itself is a politically, emotionally, and sometimes financially and socially damaging act, and can lead to oppression.
1) Don't draw the line at zero violence.
Law enforcement overlooks minor violence all the time: For example, for a bar fight where someone gets a bloody nose, the police might just send everyone home. Police often resolve violent disputes through mediation. Many women allege that domestic violence is almost always ignored.
Where to draw the line is a bit tricky. It could depend on personal or property damage - maybe misdemeanors go home, felonies get arrested.
2) Discard the idea that people in protests are somehow more suspect of being insurrectionists.
3) Discard the guilt-by-association. If one of my co-workers or family members commits a violent crime, the whole company/family shouldn't be investigated. Guilt or innocence is an individual thing. Yes, if someone is an active member in an organization whose mission is violence, that is a different story.
And you think, that is a good thing?
There used to be laws up until recently, saying there is no such thing as rape in a marriage. And that husbands need to tame their wifes. Some policemen amd judges still think like that.
Not my take.
And everthing else you argue, was besides every point I made.
I said explicitely, that police needs to investigate upon violence especially in political context, to determine if it is a real threat. Not to process every bloddy nose and not with guilt by association - unless the other protestors do celebrate the violence. Then there is at least suspicion by association and also possible guilt. Do you debate that?
I'm confused by this statement:
> I said explicitely, that police needs to investigate upon violence especially in political context, to determine if it is a real threat. Not to process every bloddy nose ...
So do you want them to investigate every bloody nose - every minor act of violence - in a political context or don't you? My understanding is that you do, and that's what I addressed.
> not with guilt by association - unless the other protestors do celebrate the violence. Then there is at least suspicion by association and also possible guilt. Do you debate that?
A celebration is not nearly enough, by my point of view. If they helped plan or execute it, if they are in an organization's mission is violence, then I'd understand investigating them.
It is not about processing every individual bloody nose in court, but the context. To determine, if the aggressors potentially will do more than bloody noses in the future. This is one of the jobs of the police and that was and is my point all along.
(but if a individual was charged by someone and wants investigation, then yes, that bloody nose needs to be processed)
"A celebration is not nearly enough, by my point of view. If they helped plan or execute it, if they are in an organization's mission is violence, then I'd understand investigating them."
And here is where we disagree, if a group of people celebrates violence, then violence is de facto part of their mission. Why else would they cheer for it, if they do not support it? And if they support it, well ..
That's the question at the heart of the matter: What are the parameters, in your opinion? Can they just investigate dissent on the basis of a bloody nose, based on their own judgment? I think we need narrow restrictions, including objective reasons, or they can quash dissent just through intimidation of investigation.
> if a group of people celebrates violence, then violence is de facto part of their mission.
Maybe they are some drunk or otherwise thoughtless people, or people just lost in mob psychology - the norms of the moment, or over-excited?
Have you been to a protest? IME, most people don't really know much about what's going on and they have no direction or organization. They wander around looking for something to do; you can't really see what's happening - all the other people's heads are at your eye level; if people cheer, others cheer without knowing why. The news clips pick out a tiny fraction of the area for a tiny fraction of time.
I've been to protests where violence occurred that you likely saw on TV. I oppose the violence, but it was a few people in a tiny corner of the protest. My guess is that they wanted attention and had an audience. It had nothing to do with 99.99% of the people there, almost all of whom were perfectly safe and peaceful, but that violence was all that was on TV.
> my point all along.
If you are making a point 'all along' and the other person doesn't understand, isn't that probably on you? I'd assume it's me. I could get just as frustrated as you seem to be, but I assume communication is challenging, and I expectthat we will almost always reach the point of misunderstanding, and then the best communication occurs:
That's when I learn the things that are outside my assumptions - including ones I'm not aware of - and perceptions and limitations. Because that's where the breakdown always occurs.
I just need to be curious and trust the other person knows things that are far beyond me.
Quite some. Not so much as participant for various reasons, more so as a observer.
And the pattern I observed, is the very same from left to right to environmental to whatever. And most of the protests have their own media, which acts the same across the sprectrum:
- not ever mentioning violence by the own group
- but if the own violence brings in a violent counter reaction from the police - that violence gets dramaticed "oh the evil and violent police"
And if there is violence from the own mob, the own mob will celebrate it. Or ignore it, but very seldom be stopped.
And being drunk is an explanation, not an excuse. And group psychology is a valid analysis, but it makes the group not any better. And groups can do aweful things, precisely when they individually have no idea whats going on but going "with the flow". That can flow into nasty places.
So, I am really not a fan of the police in general.
But if people cheer violence and act as a coherent group - well, then whose job is it, to investigate whether they will keep it down, if not the police? Some revolutionary council?
> as well as explosives
As read: "Verstoß gegen das Sprengstoffgesetz" or, in plain English "A violation of the law on explosives". Which says absolutely nothing, as fireworks would already qualify as explosives if forbidden.
I like Bill Burr's quote here - "A dog should not bite a man. But if a dog does bite a man, it's fair to ask what he was doing when it bit him"
It's understandable they don't like it, but the reaction is ridiculously extreme.
I get that that would be a hard transition, but you don’t get to say “they were peaceful before when others weren’t” when the lack of peacefulness from others was largely because they weren’t getting the same support and protection that these groups were getting, especially when they’re directly demonstrating in their responses now that they fundamentally agree with the issues that caused prior protests and riots, now that those issues also impact them.
It's funny - prior to this thread I didn't realize the protests were over subsidies. Definitely a case of seeing my own filter bubbles.
Keep in mind that these farmers mostly export their food for profit. It is not being used to feed our own population.
Yeah, so? That's how they like their protests in France (and how we like them in several parts of Europe too).
The French state itself was established on a much more violent rebellion...
You say that like it is a good thing whereas one of my main wishes for my country is for it never to become like revolutionary France.
Also these "protesting farmers" involved a number of violent incidents, intimidation, threats, and things like that. Look, things aren't black-white here, but "peaceful, law-abiding citizens" is very much a distortion of what happened.
I hate nazis with a passion, and would never be ok employing or working with someone who’s basic life belief is that a bunch of their coworkers (maybe including me?) don’t have the right to exist and are fundamentally inferior (if nothing else a cynical 100% capitalist take would be that having a Nazi anywhere in your management hierarchy will clearly open your company to plausible discrimination suits).
Before anyone brings up accepting others beliefs, that’s not an issue. There is a basic social contract: you can believe whatever you want without consequences until your beliefs get to “other people don’t get to have the same rights as me”. The “paradox of tolerance” is BS used by bigots to try and allow them to attack the rights of others with impunity under the guise of accepting other’s beliefs.
The Jewish philosopher who fled the Nazis was, in fact, a bigot seeking to attack the rights of others?
It's somewhat disingenuous to present an idea in terms of the circumstances in which it was introduced as being equivalent to that idea after people have had time to actually think about it and discuss it. It implies that no problem can be resolved in the time following its introduction.
When Popper started talking about this as the "paradox of intolerance" it was "how do we resolve this issue where a maximally tolerant society must inherently become intolerant", but that was 80 odd years ago, and in that time the generally accepted answer is that tolerance is a social contract, and part of that is that tolerance is necessarily a two way street, so if your belief is that some other group[s] are not permitted to exist, or have the same rights, then no other group has to tolerate your beliefs. There is no problem of cycles of responsibility, because your intolerance was the initial trigger.
No, and no. He didn't "give a name to the behavior of bigots", and he didn't posit that bigots demand tolerance on rational grounds. In fact, he says something close to the opposite :
"...for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols"
> in that time the generally accepted answer is that tolerance is a social contract, and part of that is that tolerance is necessarily a two way street
... in that time? That description of tolerance is baked into his argument. The entire paradox, short as it is, revolved around the handling of (ultimately, violent) edge cases who don't care about meeting you anywhere.
I'm not going to continue engaging in this thread, but just for general and future reference here is the footnote we've been discussing :
"Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal. " -- The Open Society & Its Enemies
Based on my experience in the US the use of the specific label "leftist" is generally used on people who support policies that are common in much of the liberal world, so coalescing "leftist" with people who promote killing people is a pretty gross choice. Do you want to reconsider your phrasing? Especially given you then say you disagree with surveillance because of "simple beliefs or religions" which is directly in opposition to "surveil all the leftists".
Also, I'm German, so I mean people like this for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction There are plenty anti-state leftists group, even in the US. And you probably very well know it, so I'm kind of annoyed at your question tbh.
> Do you want to reconsider your phrasing? Absolutely not. Leftist means in support of left politics. You imply that the political left has no extreme wing this way. Same as with muslims, there's a range of beliefs, and a subset of those groups are not ok.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure some Russian money is involved, but that is hardly organising.
MCC is a shill university to transform state money to private, it’s not even a secret. They moved billions of Euros through it. Also, Hungary is utterly compromised, which can be checked by using the keywords spy, Russia and Hungary together. It’s compromised on every level. A good article about it is here: https://www.direkt36.hu/putyin-hekkerei-is-latjak-a-magyar-k...
There's one of a hell of a difference between the right to religious expression and the right to drink in a pub.
The former is protected in many constitutions (USA: First Amendment, Germany: Art. 4 Abs. 2 Grundgesetz, Netherlands: Art. 6 no. 1 Constitution) as well as in Art. 18 of the Declaration of Human Rights, the latter is not.
It does, unless your interest is in justifying the breaking of law and abuse of powers.
These people were granted amazing powers, are paid from taxes, and yet somehow it's too much to expect that they'd have an ounce of respect for the law and the privacy of their supposed fellow citizens. Unscrupulous individuals who work overtime to figure out ways to abuse their powers.
And it really is unfathomable to me how it's possible for someone to be an agent of government, knowing you're responsible for being that for which no one nowhere should trust their government with any powers, and somehow still being able to go about your daily activities without your conscience tearing you into pieces. Impossible to say enough bad things about these specimens.
That's the very definition of the thing we should have a problem with.
From the top of my head, I recall at least USA, UK, Australia and Netherlands were among those 7.
The countries involved in the 5 Eyes, 9 Eyes, and 14 Eyes alliances and their partners
Five Eyes countries: United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand
Nine Eyes countries: The Five Eyes plus Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, and France
Fourteen Eyes countries: The Nine Eyes plus Italy, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, and Spain
Partners of the 14 Eyes: Israel, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, British Overseas TerritoriesWhile trying to find years old news articles that mentioned some specific instances of Dutch doing "quid pro quo spying" for another countries ... So far I ran into https://www.jns.org/dutch-agency-spying-on-holocaust-survivo...
And holocaust survivors fits description of OP news article? /Note I didn't read this JNS article, nor know if website is credible/
This is close enough https://www.pcworld.com/article/448520/dutch-civil-society-g...
Though in my fuzzy memory there were some more specific examples/cases that were reported on.
We “know” that news are orchestrated. They’re not really news because they’re often planned weeks or months in advance. We “know” that the media is there to shape public opinion. But what could they write to appeal to our biases? Perhaps make a subset of us feel righteous, angry, or smug, on a given day? Play to our vices just to play with us and keep us occupied and entertained?
Think about every person who posts something like “panem et circenses,” as a response, and imagine the smugness they feel at being so clever, has been a planned-for response from the people setting it all up.
There are a lot of mitigations built in to protecting the things that need protection at an exceedingly high cost.
They have their laws and they have what they do. The laws are just to pacify people. But they are structurally ignored.
Then there was a silence for 4 years, then they started again but learned from their experience. This time they shared the blame and formed the RIEC, an intelligence agency. The RIEC actually carries out their work through "their partners", police, council etc. This shared the blame, learning from their mistakes going on here. They also have deniability, they only give the partners instructions to follow, no reasons, they are instructed to keep only the bare minimum of information in their computers (Only what is absolutely necessary, which could in principle mean everything, it could be all done by word of mouth). So they keep that secret and the partners just do what they are told, doesn't matter how immoral it is. And finally, the organisation itself was formed without a human representative as the head. This technicality makes it be above the law in the Netherlands, you cannot sue an organisation if it doesn't have a human representative at the top. So the information about all of these activities are stored in computers by the RIEC, out of touch from accountability.
This new structure was a success, and they have been undermining democracy ever since. This started around the end of 2005 and the formal organisation was started around 2008.
When 9/11 started they started to empower the word "terrorism" to allow them to use the word to justify any new laws and powers they wanted. For the Dutch and this new approach they clearly saw the power of the word and came up with their own version called "undermining". And they claim that organised crime is undermining the fabric of society and in order to fight them to prevent this it's no longer sufficient to find evidence and convict criminals, now they need to intervene and take direct action against this. No evidence needed, anything goes. So now the government itself have become the organized criminals. And when it goes wrong, it goes horribly wrong and they simply cover everything up. This is where the press are supposed to be the counter balance for all of this. Unfortunately, the Netherlands have very good muzzles for the press and the press are no where near as proactive at printing stories about this sort of thing than they should be, so they get away with it and democracy itself is undermined more by the government than by the criminals. And the Dutch pushed this approach to neighboring Belgium and Germany who have a RIEC now as well.
Why do I know so much about this? Because I was a victim of when it goes horribly wrong. In 2004, I bought a house who's entrance passed literally between 2x other houses. Then end 2005 the guy in right house was busted for growing weed and the the guy in left house strangely appeared to be harrassing him three months before. This harrassment spread to us simply because we complained. Then after more than 10 years of serious harrassment and criminality against me I forced the case to court. It took 5x years (So then 13 years later)! (https://www.limburger.nl/cnt/dmf20180522_00062344). We only got to stop it at all by interrupting a live telecast of a council meeting (https://www.1limburg.nl/nieuws/1369805/boze-families-verstor...). Video of the protest here: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8RBSKi-UNk).
When it got to court, the prosecutor lied to the courts tried to blame it on me and then he retired, in 2018. Strangely there was a burst of prosecutors leaving their roles this year and no press investigated as to why (https://www.1limburg.nl/nieuws/1357826/leegloop-bij-justitie...). After this, once I recovered from the trauma, I investigated as to why a prosecutor would deliberately fail a case and that's when I discovered he was the former head of the RIEC and then all of the clues and events and people fell into place. And I discovered that he had lied in court before (https://www.telegraaf.nl/nieuws/1039807/liegende-officieren-...). The entire time this guy was actually being run by the Dutch government itself. I even took the police to court, they appealed, this also took 5x years and I won the appeal as well, I got to see over 1000 pages of police files, in there was evidence the the government were running and protecting the person doing the harrassing for more than 10 years (https://www.limburger.nl/cnt/dmf20180221_00056384). The rest is a huge story, which I won't put here, but in any case there was absolutely no accountability possible ever and I did not put a trivial amount of effort into this. So much for the power of the press...
Once I researched this it all make's sense. You have to find a stalking case suspicious when for more than 10 years of harrassment, attempted grevious bodily harm, theft and more the prosecutor only asked for 2 months provisional community service! WTF!! During this period, evidence vanished twice. The prosecutor had the role "recherche officier van justitie" part of whose job was to alignment with the head of team interventions as to what interventies they were going to carry out. The head of this department had migrated to be on the board of directors of the court of Maastricht before my case came to court. This same person (former head of team interventions) is also implicated in a case where 9x innocent people were put into jail on fabricated evidence (Search de villamoord https://kro-ncrv.nl/programmas/villamoord), when she was the head of the organised crime unit in Arheim before moving to become the head of the organised crime unit in Maastricht in 2010, the time at which the police had been instructed to never respond to my calls anymore.
The press were crap here, ignoring my attempts to get this published, mostly just ignoring all E-mails. No press in the Netherlands are willing to print my story. Mostly because they have ignored all of my attempts to communicate with them, but ones that didn't still wouldn't write about it.I even sent a message to the chief editor of the New York times about it who came to the Netherlands to talk to the press about how the press were the guardians of democracy. Unfortunately, she didn't didn't answer my mail. So much for that.
So don't go thinking that there seems to be a lot of press on this subject in the Netherlands, there is no where near enough.
Is this really that unreasonable? Im not sure I agree with any surveillance infrastructure but if you have it aren’t these the first places to start? I think it’s more a question of if surveillance is OK at all.
You can surveil a mosque if you suspect it to be a meeting ground for terrorists. You cannot surveil a mosque just because you feel like it.
Plus there are a few “news” websites that bother translating Dutch news articles into English for expats and the like.
You see this happen less with French or German news, those are typically picked up by bigger US outlets and get drowned out by the plethora of news from the US and global news that is deemed more relevant to the US market.
And their media is nothing like transparent. In fact there’s a lot if resistance to printing anything like this. If it gets a little old due to delaying tactics on cover up’s then it’s not printed at all. Even if it’s really damning.
No, there is nothing extra transparent about the general media in the Netherlands. And because they seem to cater for readers with a short average attention span, the articles are generally short and, unfortunately, too often lacking depth and perspective.
As an illustration, the NOS (https://nos.nl) which has nothing of the quality of, for instance, their German counterparts. (Their cycling, ice-skating and football coverage is excellent though)
Also, the modern Dutch are not a nation of philosophers, and that shows in they way they think (or do not think) about problems.
This might also explain why these intelligence drama/failures come up more often. They will generally not hesitate a single instant to clearly (for foreigners, it is often felt as "bluntly") tell you what is on their mind, and perhaps some employees didn't hesitate to express loudly the complaints she or he might have had about certain law-braking approaches.
> In the four-month period between February 23 and July 1, 2022
In the body:
> Between February 2023 and July 1, 2022
Somebody needs to use less chatgpt. At least read it before publishing, geez.
These are Dutch Timecops. The suspects were seen fleeing into the past.
I don't know if dutchnews.nl is or isn't using AI, but neither their size nor the "importance" of their work has any bearing on whether or not they might. If they aren't now, chances are they will sooner or later.
Dutchnews.nl is very different because they have their own community. They make their own content, have guides for expats on how things are working there etc. They get a thumbs up from me for that, and I would recommend them to expats.
In my experience Google Translate often does silly things like mix up AM/PM, day and month, and often enough it even flips the meaning (say "not required" somehow becomes "required") when translating Dutch to English.
So every now and then (when it's really important stuff) I also double check the original Dutch version.
And yeah I should do it more often, or even just turn off automatic NL to EN translations...
I think it was linked to because all the real media are in Dutch.
https://dutchnews.nl is a way better site for English speakers.
Cross borders whole nation states is where it's at.