[sidewndr46]

> The Dutch tax authorities now face a new €3.7 million fine from the country's privacy regulator.

How does this work? Wouldn't the government be fining the government and paying itself with the citizens tax revenues?

Also, this doesn't seem to serve as a warning at all. Unless all the politicians and civil servants were removed from their job, barred from public positions and given hefty fines then this is actually a clear sign encouraging more of this behavior from governments. Until there are clear consequences enacted by the populace, governments will continue this kind of behavior.

[StreamBright]

It is part of the theatre, unelected government officials waste taxpayers money on something illegal so they have to pay with taxpayer money for it. The only real punishment would have been is jail time for the people involved and explaining to the rest of the unelected government officials that they can end up in jail. Just like how the rest of society works.

[rjmunro]

It doesn't have to be jail time for the people involved, it could just be fines, salary cuts, demotions etc. Only the very worst offenders should go to jail.

[sidewndr46]

This sounds like playing monopoly with taxpayer dollars.

[yunohn]

> Until there are clear consequences enacted by the populace, governments will continue this kind of behavior.

In fact, the government staged a token dissolution right before scheduled general elections, and proceeded to win the elections and come right back into power. Nothing changed.

Truly magical how accountability works.

[rocqua]

This is mostly a failure of our citizens deciding not to hold the current coalition accountable and still voting for them. There are some wider 'failure of democracy' reasons for this, but in the end I lay the blame at the feet of people who voted for the current government.

[einpoklum]

People vote because of a combination of issues. Perhaps the main opposition parties also merit punishment-by-not-voting for other actions. My point is that one cannot lay the responsibility in a once-per-4-years parliament seat assignment.

[rocqua]

I blame people who did not weigh this problem heavy enough in their decisions.

I also personally blame people who voted VVD and CDA in general, but that is a wider and more personal judgement.

[vanderZwan]

I'm with you. The fact that we can't even blame FPP voting systems, gerrymandering or other voter suppression tactics for any of this makes it all so much more frustrating. Apparently a significant part of the population either doesn't care about this, or worse, approves of the systemic racism.

[einpoklum]

Well, I lean Anarchist and am not a Dutch citizen, but while living in the Netherlands for a couple of years as a post-doc, I was also disheartened to see the Dutch right-wing that dominant in national politics. Do you believe that, say, a GroenLinks-led coalition would have handled this much better?

[rocqua]

I could imagine GroenLinks also not being up to the task of getting the bureaucracy to 'do the right thing'. But they would be honest about their own failure and keep trying, perhaps taking drastic measures.

Their honesty about their failure might mean they lose power too soon for a culture shift in the bureaucracy to actually occur.