New datamining law draws ire from Dutch judiciary

The Council of the Judiciary wrote a very critical letter to Minister Ronald Plasterk of Home Affairs over the new datamining law that allows intelligence service AIVD to strategically intercept large amounts of data from the internet. According to the judiciary, the supervision on the intelligence services is not properly managed, RTL Nieuws reports. Many critics fear that this new law will lead to innocent civillians being watched and profiled.

The umbrealla organization for Dutch judges are particularly concerned about the new ethics committee which is supposed to approve requests for wiretaps from the AIVD. This committee, known by the acronym TIB, will consist of two judges with at least six years of experience and an expert - for example, someone with technical knowledge on how the internet works.

The Council is worried about the fact that the TIB will not have access to the AIVD's data. "Can a judgement be made without this information?" they write to Plasterk. They also find it unclear whether the TIB actually has enough knowledge to judge such requests.

The Council for the Judiciary thinks that the CTIVD - currently the supervisor of the AIVD and MIVD - will be better equipped for this task. The CTIVD does have access to the AIVD's data and has experience and knowledge on how to deal with requests for datamining.

Finally the Council is critical about the new law allowing the intercepted data to be saved for three years. According to RTL, the data is stored becuse the government believes that the information could be of interest at a later time. "The Council notes that the storage must meet the criterion of 'necessity' not the criterion of 'potentially useful'", the council writes.

This law will be discussed in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament, on December 15th.