[Chapter-delegates] Dutch lawyers and journalists (and ISOC NL) sue government over NSA links

[Christian de Larrinaga]

Alex,

I'll ask BBW to make sure all that can be done is done.

The UK Parliament has also been deceived. This has been made clear on
several occasions. It was also very clearly exposed in our Parliament
meets Internet event on Surveillance
http://isoc-e.org/parliament-meets-internet/ by all three of the MPs who
participated.

What is trickier is that we are dealing with these issues after around
twenty to thirty years of "bad" law making and  almost non existent
oversight mechanisms and incredible complacency all round.

So the UK Parliamentary committee tasked with oversight, the ISC, has
reported that so far it cannot find any UK law that has actually been
broken.  See the transcript/video of George Howarth MP who sits on the
ISC in the meeting above.

This is despite the fact they were themselves lied to. This suggests to
me there is a constitutional weakness in the UK system and whether
Parliament steps up to the plate and fixes that remains to be seen. It
is that "legal gap" problem that I was addressing by holding the above
event on this topic in Parliament. 

European courts may be able to  provide some backbone constitutionally
to this issue via your and BBW cases. The implications for "open" data
networking in and with European countries could be profound so I hope
this goes well!

best


Christian

alexander.blom at budgetphone.nl wrote:
>
> Followup from November post
>
> The rebuttal from the state in said trial of citizens coalition
> against the Minister of Interior Affairs led to a stormy parliamentary
> debate last month, when it came to light that the sharing of data was
> actually in the opposite direction: it was the Dutch secret service
> AIVD that had shared 1.8 million call records it collected from
> satellite traffic (Afghanistan a.o.) with the NSA. This misinformation
> of parliament was almost the end of the political life of Minister
> Plasterk, and prompted the government to postpone granting more
> snooping permissions to our secret services .
>
>
> What happens next:
>
> The next stage of the court case will be a so called comparition of
> parties, where both parties have the opportunity to defend their case
> in a live hearing. Expected somewhere in May – August of this year.
>
> And we have been invited to intervene in the case of Big Brother Watch
> versus the United Kingdom, serving before the European Court of Human
> Rights, pls see _Privacy Not Prism_
> <https://www.privacynotprism.org.uk/news/2013/10/03/legal-challenge-to-uk-internet-surveillance/>
> . This case is very similar to ours, and could mean a swift European
> opinion on the matter.
>
> What can you do to help?
>
> Our case is about foreign intelligence agencies collecting information
> on Dutch citizens and organizations and sharing that information with
> their Dutch counterparts. Do you know of such cases, where foreign
> services have collected local information and then shared it with
> local secret services?
>
>
> Thanks for your help,
>
> All the best,
>
>
> Alex Blom
>
> ISOC NL
>
>
>
> *From:* Alexander Blom <mailto:alexander.blom at budgetphone.nl>
> *Sent:* ‎Thursday‎, ‎November‎ ‎7‎, ‎2013 ‎10‎:‎15‎ ‎PM
> *To:* Chapter Delegates <mailto:chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org>
>
> All,
>
> Yesterday, the Dutch ISOC chapter joined a coalition of citizens,
> criminal lawyers and journalists in order to sue the Dutch minister of
> the Interior. Subject are the halfhearted confessions that the Dutch
> secret service (the AIVD) may be using NSA-data to illegally snoop on
> Dutch citizens. While the NSA data are illegal, the governement gives
> the impression that it considers the NSA to be a handy way to get
> around Dutch privacy laws. At ISOC NL, we felt that open internet
> means more than just the unobstructed routing of IP packets, and that
> an internet where all exchange of data is under surveillance 24/7
> cannot be called open.
>
> Please see http://cnnmon.ie/1fmUiyN for more.
>
> There have been contributions from other chapters re this subject, let
> us continue sharing.
>
> All the best,
>
> Alex Blom
> ISOC NL
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