Netherlands: Intelligence Bill leads to wider powers
01 November 1998
A new Intelligence and Security Services Bill, introduced in the wake of successive scandals, will lead to wider powers for the intelligence services. This is the conclusion reached by the research group AMOK. Increased powers include the right to hack into computer databases, to open letters, to tap phones and bug houses, to run criminal informants and create front companies. All of these new powers will come from legislation that was originally designed to increase the amount of political control over the intelligence services.
The need for new legislation followed a series of scandals. In 1984 the anti-militarist group Onkruit revealed that the Binnenlands Veiligheids Dienst (Internal Security service, BVD) regularly spied on a great number of Dutch citizens. This eventually led to the Dutch state being condemned by the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled that not enough attention had been given to defending the privacy of the individual. In the 1990s a series of financial scandals led to the winding up of the Inlichtingen Dienst Buitenland (Foreign Intelligence Service, IDB), whilst a recent parliamentary report concluded that there was no control over the way information gathered by the BVD eventually found its way into the judicial process.
It would now appear that the government has decided to make a virtue out of necessity by vastly increasing the rights and powers of the intelligence services. Furthermore, the promised political supervision, (which created the need for new legislation in the first place), appears to have been reduced almost to an afterthought. The BVD's original mission statement, which allowed it to gather information, has now been widened to "carrying out investigations". AMOK claims that the explanation given by the government - "the exploitation of discoveries made during investigation" - effectively means that the new legislation allows covert operations.
The new law also effectively recreates a foreign intelligence service. The Militaire Inlichtingen Dienst (Military Intelligence Service), hitherto the BVD's little brother, will now see its role expanded to include overseas operations. It too will have legal authority to carry out secret activity.
Whilst the new bill allows a dramatic increase in powers to bug and burgle, activities carried out by the BVD without any legal sanction up till now, there is hardly any new restriction on its power. The criteria for being investigated by the intelligence service (one's political persuasion) remains unchanged. The only new supervision over the intelligence service comes from an "advisory oversight committee" whose reports will be classified.
In short, a Bill whose original intention was to restrict the powers of the BVD has led to a massive expansion of those powers without any real increase in transparency or accountability. It is therefore questionable whether this Bill could stand up to a fresh challenge by the European courts.
AMOK 4/1998