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Video: Is this the most extreme surveillance law ever passed in a democracy?
The Netherlands is set to have a national referendum about new mass-surveillance legislation, after opponents of the ‘dragnet law’, or Sleepwet, secured enough signatures to demand a poll.
Under Dutch law, the government has to hold a non-binding referendum on an issue if the country’s Voting Commission receives at least 300,000 valid signatures demanding it.
Campaigners got over 417,000 signatures, of which the commission said 384,126 were valid. The regulator recommended on Wednesday that the referendum should take place on March 21, to coincide with municipal elections.
Other parties have so far not explicitly lent their support to Buma’s stance, but crucially, the CDA controls the country’s justice and security ministry.
If the referendum goes against the government and it ignores the result, Boelsums said, that would be “a very bad signal to the citizens” as it would indicate the government is willing to refuse to weigh up the pros and cons of the law.
However, activists hope to use the debate to convince parties to “make some significant changes” to the legislation, she said.
“We also think it’s very important that the privacy discussion is revived after the Snowden leaks, because everybody has kind of forgotten about it,” she said.
Even if the Dutch campaigners are unsuccessful, there may be a ruling in the not-too-distant future that goes their way.
At some point in the coming years, the Court of Justice of the European Union will have to decide whether the UK’s mass-surveillance legislation is legal, and their ruling would also apply to other countries in the EU.
So far, the EU’s highest court has consistently ruled that untargeted surveillance is illegal, because it infringes on people’s fundamental rights.
Campaigners hope the referendum will lead to changes to the new mass-surveillance legislation.
Image: Jan Kranendonk/Getty Images
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