[amarkert]

I gather that you're Dutch, so here's a Dutch link:

http://rechtennieuws.nl/8573/

The Netherlands is far from the nice image it has in the international media. It's the leading country in phone taps and has program that gives the police unlimited rights to harass individuals if the mayor of a city says so.

Perhaps the prisons are empty, but the direction the country takes is pretty much Orwellian.

[Freak_NL]

> It's the leading country in phone taps

That is worrying, but unfortunately not distinctive compared to other countries.

> and has program that gives the police unlimited rights to harass individuals if the mayor of a city says so.

That is from 2006. Is that still an issue?

[tremon]

Is that still an issue?

It's unclear if the practice was entirely abolished, since it was introduced as a reinterpretation of existing law (where have we seen that before?) and has never been challenged in court. But this required a lot of dedicated police presence, and was targeted only towards specific individuals, when sanctioned by an elected offical.

It appears the practice was silently discarded because it yielded no results: http://www.hpdetijd.nl/2009-07-10/zin-en-onzin-van-terrorris... (complete evaluation report is https://www.nctv.nl/Images/evaluatie-ct-2011_tcm126-444048.p..., link in article is dead).

[Freak_NL]

Mayors are not elected officials in the Netherlands (let's hope it stays that way).

[tremon]

oops, you're right.