Minister Ronald Plasterk of Internal Affairs knew at the end of november already that not the NSA, but the Netherlands was responsible for the collection of 1.8 million metadata records. That was intentionally not using the Second Room and the media shared.
It has deliberately chosen to put that knowledge to share with the Second Room and the media, is evident from the letter to parliament. Minister of Defence Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert and Minister Plasterk have a tradeoff between “the duty to use the Second Room as much as possible and to inform’ and the importance of not too much information to give about the possible modus operandi of our services’. “The last was the deciding factor”, writes Plasterk.
In October, Tweakers that the NSA in december 2012 and January 2013 in a month’s time metadata of 1.8 million telephone calls in the Netherlands seized. Until last week, was the message of the cabinet is that not the Dutch, but the foreign intelligence behind the data collection were. In november presented Plasterk that in the tv program Nieuwsuur as a fact, but from the Questions it appears that that is no more than a hypothesis.
Plasterk finds afterwards that he was not in Nieuwsuur would have had to occur, he writes in the letter to parliament. He still says in the program to sit down because, according to him, the image was created that the Dutch intelligence services the data of people with the NSA had shared. That according to him a false image, he wanted to distinguish.
Last week, the information still made available to the public because of a lawsuit against the government. The plaintiffs in that case, including journalists, activists and lawyers, like that the cabinet is prevented to data from foreign intelligence agencies to use if they were not lawfully obtained. In addition, the 1.8 million metadata records as an example.
The government was afraid that the judge would judge that there are indeed restrictions on the use of data from foreign intelligence services. To prevent this, is the origin of the data is yet to be made public, writes Plasterk.
It is remarkable that Plasterk in the Second Chamber at the beginning of november claimed that the Netherlands does not have data with the NSA had shared. “The statement that the NSA has given, is that there seems to be also by other allies such information been shared with them. I have already said earlier that the Netherlands that has not been done”, he said. Plasterk says now that he meant that no data of the Dutch population were shared.
In the letter, writes Plasterk that the metadata are shared with ‘partnerdiensten’; or that more services than just the NSA, is not clear. However, promises to Plasterk that any metadata of the Dutch telephone numbers is removed before the data were shared. The data were collected by the National Sigint Organisation, a part of the Dutch intelligence services that include satellite communications are intercepted.
It comes with the 1.8 million records mainly to make calls, but also to a limited number of text messages and faxjes. The ‘1.8 million different moments of communication’, in which one or both of the two interlocutors in the foreign country. They are collected and shared “in the context of counter-terrorism and military operations abroad’.
Tuesday meets the Second Room on the position of the Balls, that the last week under fire. Probably take the criticism on the minister now, because he is the Second Room incorrectly informed and that is not subsequently corrected when he knew how it was. It is wrong to inform the Second Chamber is seen as a political mortal sin.
Incidentally, it is the collection of satellite communications legal: at this moment the intelligence services of so-called non-wired communication intercept and store without a concrete suspicion. The government wants that power to extend to wired communication, such as internet traffic. Also sharing the data with U.s. intelligence services, according to the government, in line with the law happened.