Preliminary discussions of the planned new Intelligence and Security Services Act (Wiv) will be held in the form of public sittings in Parliament this week. The Wiv was already a news topic back in the summer of 2015, when a consultation round held via the internet elicited more than a thousand reactions. Respondents, including MKB Nederland (representing SMEs), VNO-NCW (the Confederation of Netherlands Industry and Employers) and the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights, as well as telecom companies, were critical of the Act's lack of focus, among other aspects.

The legislative proposal gives the security services free rein, per case, to tap internet and other communications traffic unrestrictedly for a year; this includes cable traffic. The cabinet plans to create four large tapping points. The interception of wireless communication is already permitted. 

According to TU/e professor Jan Smits, it is now inevitable that the powers of the AIVD and MIVD security services (the Netherlands' General Intelligence and Security Service, and Military Intelligence and Security Service) will be extended. “Unfortunately, that ship has sailed. It seems no longer to be about freedom, equality and fraternity, but about security, security and security.”

In his opinion, this makes it additionally important that the new powers are tested against the rule of law. “Provisions for this in the legislative proposal are wholly inadequate. The security services must be required to report their activities retrospectively, we believe. Not by mentioning personal cases, but certainly by being accountable for the manner in which they have collected information, the type of grounds they had, and their working methods. These must not remain secret.”

In addition, the letter (in Dutch) voices further criticism, for example of how the rule-of-law testing of the security services' activities will be arranged in advance; the correspondents believe that all 'by-catch' must be discarded immediately; and they state that whenever a new technology is introduced, a decision must be taken whether it may be used by the security services.