Dutch telcos build data bonfire after judge nixes retention law A ruling from the District Court of The Hague means that Dutch telecoms companies are no longer obliged to retain internet and phone traffic data for law-enforcement purposes. A coalition of plaintiffs including the Dutch Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Dutch Association of Journalists, civil rights organisation …
"So the minister responsible for bringing forward legislation to do with serious crime is himself possibly guilty of a serious crime?'
Not sure about the details, but I think that in 2000 Opstelten was a public prosecutor and had seized funds from an alleged drugs dealer. Under the legislation at the time they couldn't prove that the money was profit from illegal activities hence they had to return most of it. In more recent discussions about this case Opstelten claimed that he remembered the amount as being less than a million and that the ministry's records didn't go back that long so it couldn't be checked. A few days ago they managed to restore some records which indicated that the amount was much higher. Or something like that.
almost right.. The deal was done by Opstelten's Secretary, Teeven, then "attorney-general". Who suddenly couldn't remember the details of the deal, and led his minister by the nose, making him state some rather awkward things. Which proved to be untrue when some digging *did* turn up the right numbers about the deal.
Opstelten, being "responsible" as minister, had to resign when that little doozy come to light. After which Teeven huffed and puffed and went into Solidarity Mode. and resigned as well. Full well knowing that had he stayed on, there'd have been an Enquiry where he'd been roasted, given that there's more of those (rather unpopular) Deals on his resume.
So we lost a Fossil and a Rat. no-one is crying particularly hard over here.
The UK's new law will remain in force until is legally challenged, though the challenge might need to go all the way to the ECJ given the Supreme Court's current supine position.
In the meantime nation states, the Commission and the European Parliament are currently haggling over a new directive to replace the now disgraced one from 2005 and which will work with the proposed new data protection directive. The nation states are still demanding blanket data retention even though they have now admitted that this does not help prevent crime. Because the 2005 directive is no longer effective, pressure is on nation states to come up with something to stop more of their precious haystacks being blown away by further legal challenges.
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