International

'The Netherlands seems to have been closely involved in American eavesdropping practices and Home Affairs Minister Ronald Plasterk appears not to have informed Parliament correctly. Both of these things could have far-reaching consequences.’ So says SP Member of Parliament Ronald van Raak in an initial reaction to new revelations in the national daily, NRC Handelsblad, which today reported that the intelligence services had illegally hacked into Internet discussion fora.

'It seems from this that our secret services cooperate in the espionage practices of the NSA and that in doing so they are breaking our own laws,’ says Van Raak. ‘Plasterk recently stated that our services obey the law. If these reports are accurate then the Minister has a big problem, as do our intelligence services, which appear to have ignored the law, at least when out of sight of Parliament. It doesn’t seem that Parliament can any longer trust information from the government and that we will have to conduct enquiries ourselves if we want to know whether the security of Dutch citizens is still guaranteed. The existing system of parliamentary control of the secret services is ripe for change.’