"Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net> wrote:
The recent talk about "catching criminals" misses this point, that governments typically use surveillance powers to control citizens. (Note: I would think Dutch residents should be especially sensitive to this concern, given what happened to them in WW II, when the arriving Nazis used telephone records to locate Jews for extermination. Until recently, Holland had a tendency to carefully think about such issues---I believe phone calls were billed in such a way as to not keep such records, for example).
I suppose this remark is targeted at me and Eric. Yes, I am sensitive to the issue, but no, I don't think the threat of an American invasion particularly realistic. At present, I worry more about the threat of (organized) crime than about the threat of government abuse, call it Dutch naivete if you want. So much for politics. Can we get back to crypto? Bert-Jaap