Utility Box Exposed As Spy Cabinet In the Netherlands 179
First time accepted submitter thejezus writes "A spy cabinet has been exposed on a public road in The Hague, the Netherlands (Google translate here). The cabinet was disguised as telecom-cabinet and was detected by the maintenance crew of Ziggo (a triple-play provider) because it was not listed as a property of the company. Upon opening, it was revealed the cabinet contained a camera and UMTS equipment. Later that day, the cabinet disappeared. 1984 much?"
I could be wrong but.... (Score:4, Informative)
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I for one can see a utility box from my house. It could very well be a camera in there.
Re:I could be wrong but.... (Score:5, Funny)
I can see a cell tower. I'm pretty sure that . *(U()*U$Ejhhjjhkljhsdf ws is monito89984ryu5 but I'm not worr*()*43jknlkjdbzzzt.
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Re:I could be wrong but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
you think "1984" was to be interpreted literally? We have instead government tapping all internet and phone systems, data mining social media, warring against people who never attacked us in the name of "peace", able to legally "disappear" people who are considered threats without warrant nor oversight, a privileged powerful and wealthy few with government in their pockets engineering the media, social and economic systems for their benefit......we're there
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Re:I could be wrong but.... (Score:5, Informative)
no, we did not have populace on "internet" in 1980s, nor did we have automated systems for listening to all comm for key words. we did not have a "forever war" in place.
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we did not have 300+ million recording devices attached to every telephone. some aspects of the Cold War were like the Forever War (I'm referring to the sci-fi novel), though it morphed into something else.
Re:I could be wrong but.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but those mini spy cams were not directed at the population, they were used against the evil of then, the bad Russkies. Plus, our politicians had to play nice to keep reminding us that we're the good guys. We don't do oppressive things like keeping tabs on every person, hiring snitches from the population to spy on the people in their apartment block, shooting randomly at suspects because they "look funny" or make people disappear in some remote concentration camps without trial (or a kangaroo court trial at best).
Re:I could be wrong but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but those mini spy cams were not directed at the population, they were used against the evil of then, the bad Russkies. Plus, our politicians had to play nice to keep reminding us that we're the good guys. We don't do oppressive things like keeping tabs on every person, hiring snitches from the population to spy on the people in their apartment block, shooting randomly at suspects because they "look funny" or make people disappear in some remote concentration camps without trial (or a kangaroo court trial at best).
Martin Luther King Jr.? Watergate? McCarthy?
There was plenty of domestic intelligence often aimed wildly at whoever was in the way.
Hell, J. Robert Oppenheimer was outed and accused, you are glossing over many disgusting ordeals.Many prominent people were entangled in webs of ridicule and half truths. Stopping the reds would be achieved no matter the cost. Human experimentation without informed consent on children and prisoners - black syphilis patients not told about penicillin. "Down-winders" exposed to fallout from MANY tests. Bacteria spread over town to watch epidemic infection profiles. People dosed with LSD without their knowledge.
Stop acting like human right violations only occurred elsewhere or to others people. The United States is guilty of many questionable and downright illegal things.
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Martin Luther King Jr.? Watergate? McCarthy?
There was plenty of domestic intelligence often aimed wildly at whoever was in the way.
The difference is that now it is aimed at everybody.
Re:I could be wrong but.... (Score:4)
no, we did not have populace on "internet" in 1980s, nor did we have automated systems for listening to all comm for key words. we did not have a "forever war" in place.
We didn't? Weird, I seem to recall wiretaps and miniature recording devices (i.e. "spy gear"; yes, the REAL stuff, not the James Bond fantasy tools) existing back then. Oh, and hey, wasn't there also this one forever-war-that-wasn't-really-a-war going on around that point? Something something Cold War, was it? And I could swear the police fucked up investigations, engaged in brutality (racially-motivated or not), and were abysmal at figuring out small crimes from time to time back then, too.
Or do you seriously believe the entire history of society and human development started with the commercialized internet? Things happened before the internet was created, you know. People in charge did stupid shit before everyone had a cell phone camera, too. All that, and society didn't crumble. Just because you've now got an easy-to-access echo chamber to discuss it ad nauseum with people who have obsessive mental issues doesn't make it worse.
This. For much of history you could be held arbitrarily in jail, there were a few exceptions. We may have some questionable trials (Guantanamo) but in General in America as an American you are afforded some of the best rights on earth. Our eternal vigilance must go towards keeping it that way, as ways of infringing have grown in size and sophistication.
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We have everything. Plebs being worried about so much (terrorism, economy, jobs, homes...) that they don't have time to worry about the loss of liberties. It's not 100% accurate, but the distraction by more pressing needs to forget about the "lesser" needs like freedom or privacy is there.
Re:I could be wrong but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
you think "1984" was to be interpreted literally? We have instead government tapping all internet and phone systems, data mining social media, warring against people who never attacked us in the name of "peace", able to legally "disappear" people who are considered threats without warrant nor oversight, a privileged powerful and wealthy few with government in their pockets engineering the media, social and economic systems for their benefit......we're there
Did you even read Nineteen Eighty-Four? Quick quiz: what was the spying technique that turned in most people in the book? Tapping of phones? Surveillance by Telescreen? Nope, it was good old low-tech "squealing by somebody you trust".
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you missed where the ubiquitous cameras were to keep the majority in line, for the squealing we also have analogous system in place.
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OK so they mixed 1984 with Brave New World.
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Click here [dhs.gov] to report anti-patriotic activities citizen! Remember, it could be a test, and Big Brother is watching! If you SEE something, SAY something!
Sincerely, your department of Homeland Security! (formerly ThinkPol)
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It doesn't justify comparison with 1984, but it and its ilk do get us closer to it. A step on the way.
Re:I could be wrong but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't justify comparison with 1984, but it and its ilk do get us closer to it. A step on the way.
The comparison to 1984 seems a bit over the top, but, some people would argue that you don't get an Orwellian society suddenly, over night, but one small step at a time, and it happens so slowly that you don't notice it until its too late.
Re:I could be wrong but.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Airstrip One wasn't built in a day.
I could be wrong but....prenumbers. (Score:2, Funny)
Someone should write some books to address this issue. Title them, 1980,1981,1982,1983...
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If there is a spy box on every parsel of property or every street where there really doesn't need to be yes it does.
But if this is a singular case out of a sea of nothingness, then it really is meaningless to anyone but the spies and the spied upon.
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Given the history of monitoring technologies embedded in telephone systems, such as the AT&T fiber optics publicized in 2005, it's an ongoing problem. (https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying) Even in the USA, the use of disasters to publicize national security risks and use the intelligence resources granted to prevent foreign threats has been repeatedly used to gather political intelligence and harass political opponents, rather than to prevent crimes or warfare. So it seems reasonable to assume it is not "sin
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Buy one, take off the cover, put it in a stolen utility box... done.
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You mean to say the frog never knew it was being boiled? Amazing. It's a good thing we are smarter than frogs...
Re:I could be wrong but.... (Score:5, Funny)
Does a spy camera on the side of the road really justify comparisons to 1984??
Novel
No, it would have to be in your living room. 1984-esque technology in a public place would consist of a video screen at which you hurl things and scream.
Year
Even in 1985, Dr. Emmett Brown, who was sufficiently advanced to build a time machine out of a DeLorean, had to hire some slacker kid to shoulder his ginormous video camera. If he didn't have the technology to build a self-supporting camera in 1985, it certainly wouldn't have been available in 1984.
So no on both counts.
Re:I could be wrong but.... (Score:4, Funny)
That's only because the plutonium necessary to power the miniaturized camera required a lot of shielding.
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Of course it does, this is Slashdot, where "the sky is falling, the sky is falling" is considered a measured, reasonable, and modest response to practically everything. Slashdot users probably accounts for the 10-15% of the annual worldwide sales of tin foil.
Not even close. "1984", like many other such terms, has become a cargo cult buzzword. It's a term
Re:You mean... (Score:5, Insightful)
His usage was perfectly cromulent.
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His usage was perfectly cromulent.
What does star trek have to do with this?
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Exactly. It has to be a mesh at the right spacing.
Re:I could be wrong but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Does a spy camera on the side of the road really justify comparisons to 1984? Are we really anywhere close to the type of life portrayed in 1984?
What is the minimum criteria for comparing society to a literary work -- Is there some percentage of the work that have to similar to justify the comparison?
I can certainly see how hidden government surveillance cabinets (if there's one, there's likely to be more than one, and who knows how many - maybe they are on every street corner?) could be compared to the ubiquitous surveillance decribed in 1984. We may be a long way from government surveillance in our homes, when we can't walk to the corner store without the government knowing about it, it seems that we're a lot closer than we used to. And now we don't even need a trusted Party official to keep track of us - thanks to facial recognition, the government can record and indefinitely store all of our public movements for later data mining.
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Is there some percentage of the work that have to similar to justify the comparison?
Yes, that's exactly what's missing in this case.
Re:I could be wrong but.... (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, there must be some similitude to justify the comparison, obviously.
In 1984 the surveillance wasn't hidden, it was overt. And this is actually important, because the main concept in the novel wasn't the surveillance, but the state of mind of the Party members*, which both enabled and was enabled by the conscience of full and complete surveillance, among other things.
People who compare this to Orwell's work either didn't read it or completely missed the point.
* The society in 1984 didn't actually have full surveillance; in fact, only 15% of society were spied on. Winston is just part of those 15%.
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Sound more like Fleming than Orwell, especially as it's in The Hague.
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Obama received the Nobel peace price while expanding military operations in Afghanistan and ordering extrajudicial murders of American citizens abroad.
War is peace, right?
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Re:I could be wrong but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Obama received the Nobel peace price while expanding military operations in Afghanistan and ordering extrajudicial murders of American citizens abroad.
War is peace, right?
Nope, he received the prize before any of that stuff happened. In fact he received it barely before anything happened that'd in any way justify the prize going to Obama.
The prize committee's thinking seems to be more a case of giving the award in recognition that Obama at the time hadn't made things worse and didn't seem to be hearing Jesus in his head telling him to go bomb people. In practice, a jar of mustard would have been in with a chance if it were replacing Bush.
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Obama received the Nobel peace price while expanding military operations in Afghanistan and ordering extrajudicial murders of American citizens abroad.
War is peace, right?
Nope, he received the prize before any of that stuff happened.
Ignorance is strength?
In fact, between the February 1 nomination deadline and the October 5th award, Obama did in fact direct an escalation of the war in Afghanistan that increased US personnel deaths from hostile action in Afghanistan by +64% compared to the same months of the previous year.
And it certainly was due to escalation, not a statistical blip. By the end of Obama's first year in office, such deaths were twice those in Bush's last year. And for Obama's first term, they ended at a total triple th
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I stand corrected. Thanks.
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I think there were two unspoken reasons Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize before being able to actually justify such an award (wasn't his fault, he didn't have a chance to earn it).
First, and foremost, he is the first black President of the United States. That is/was a huge deal. The end of the US Civil War (1865) was almost 150 years ago, or 6 to 7 generations using an average birth age of 20-25. Racism is still an issue, but we've moved forward a lot. People can be bigoted but it generally doesn't lead
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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Does a spy camera on the side of the road really justify comparisons to 1984? Are we really anywhere close to the type of life portrayed in 1984?
I suppose you could also have resorted to the strawman argument that the 1984 comparison doesn't apply since it depicts a future society that's collectivist rather than the fascist reality being imposed upon us... :p
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It would be very easy to argue that we are moving toward collectivism. All the clueless little people get together, argue and fuss, hammering out new laws for every trivial bit of nothing, then scream at their representatives to 'DO SOMETHING'. As a result, little children are arrested for wearing or making depictions of pistols, rifles, or anything that could conceivably be considered dangerous.
Collectivism, that results in fascist-like laws. Imagine that.
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Nope, particularly since we'd need to know exactly who put it there.
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That time you called to say goodbye to your dying uncle... that time you sent a nude picture to your girlfriend... that time your daughter sent one to her boyfriend... the order you placed at Amazon.com... the three bottles of whiskey you put on your card... your rent check... your hot chat with that girl via text... the bill you paid for your vasectomy... the log-in times to Google, Facebook, Netflix, and other online services and how heavy your usage was.... your picture tagged by a friend on facebook...
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No, Tim's just retarded
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Yes. This isn't just a spy camera, this has a cellular device that lets it upload or stream on the fly, this is big brother-esque secret monitoring of the public. I'm sure it was there to watch a particular suspect or event, but in capturing images from a public area, it is also monitoring innocent people and can be used to target people not suspected of a crime for any seemingly anti-social behavior. It is what it is, don't dilute the reality of modern technology. We're fucked in terms of monitoring, ju
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Are you suggesting we should wait until we're that fucked before we discuss the direction things are going??
I'm suggesting we not compare everything to 1984, it's silly.
I'm still quite astounded that your worthless comment got modded up...
It must mean that people agree with me.
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It's sad, if so many actually do. 1984 was just barely fiction, when it was written. It was thinly veiled Stalinist USSR and many other places. Getting to a 1984 state of things is easier than you might imagine, and the moment you think it's absurd is the moment a bunch of goons will succeed in trapping you in just such a system.
I wouldn't draw conclusions based on some cameras beside the road, as covert surveillance is nothing new. What has me worried is ubiquitous surveillance in the hands of a few. The i
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Obviously his comment is generating further conversation. Yeah - it gets modded up, despite the fact that I disagree with him. That's how things work. The comment isn't exactly "informative" IMHO, but the mod system only has so many choices.
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pictures of inside (Score:5, Informative)
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- This looks like a normal grocery store old style CCTV camera.
- The camera leads to a frequency converter box of some sort (50hz to 60hz?)
- Then it looks to be sending that to a chain of portable hard drive looking video recording devices
These MAY have had some sort of wireless capability (not that I can tell though), but in a box like that, with that equipment, you would have to be right nex
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Some pictures of the cabinet are found here: http://tweakers.net/nieuws/88635/providerwijkkast-haagse-schilderswijk-zat-vol-spionageapparatuur.html [tweakers.net]
LOL. The VCR isn't plugged in.
http://ic.tweakimg.net/ext/i/imagelarge/1366532940.jpeg [tweakimg.net]
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Analog composite video??? Somebody get whoever installed this thing into the last decade please.
Re:pictures of inside (Score:5, Insightful)
NOW I'm convinced it was a government job!
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Put on an official looking phone company coverall, as well as your "I belong here" face and you can unscrew, open, fiddle with and even steal whatever equipment you want to.
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Wow. State of the art equipment today (available to the public) is about the size of a pack of cigarettes.
It's a shame The Netherlands doesn't have overhead wiring. About 20 years ago, our local cops stuffed this kind of equipment inside dummy pole-mounted transformers (pole pigs in the utility vernacular). You get a much better view of the surrounding territory from a higher vantage point. Its also more difficult for the public to get a close look at it. I imagine street light fixtures are modded these da
Lazy Intelligence? (Score:3)
It is typical that it is found in the Hague. The Hague is the seat of the Dutch intelligence services, and apparently they are a bit lazy.
It's like Intelligence services in the US only operated in Washington DC.
People in Limburg and Friesland can rest assured. No chance that the intelligence services will ever make it that far.
Re:Lazy Intelligence? (Score:5, Informative)
The Hague is the seat of the Dutch intelligence services...
More importantly, The Hague is the location of the International Court of Justice [wikipedia.org], the judicial arm of the United Nations, as well as a number of other international courts [wikipedia.org]. Definitely a city of international importance.
Re:Lazy Intelligence? (Score:5, Informative)
But pretty much irrelevant to this story. The neighbourhood in which they found the cabinet is far removed from where the international institutions are and from where the internationals live. As mentioned by previous posts, the Schilderswijk is a low income area with a large immigrant population. The purpose of the cabinet is most likely to help a police investigation into anything between organised crime or jihad recruitment, and on Dutch websites some have already pointed out that exposing this method effectively renders it useless in the future, but police have been doing it for at least ten years. This kind of surveillance was most likely done with the permission of a public prosecutor, unless it was the intelligence services in which case another law applies.
Just surveillanceO (Score:2)
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And the result now is that every utility box in the world will be seen as a suspect box.
Watch out for unusual holes in such boxes. The remedy would be to place a sticker over the holes.
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Quis Custodiot Ipsos Custodes (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the most important tasks when discovering an electronic intruder or monitor is to trace if they try to clean up and remove their tracks. This is as true for electronic "spy boxes" as it is for unauthorized network taps, rootkitted servers, and hacked websites. It's too bad the discoverers didn't have the resources to set up a webcam to monitor the spy box, itself, to get data on the vehicle or faces of those removing the spy box.
triple-play provider? (Score:3)
What is a "triple-play provider"?
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television + internet + telephone
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I know I wouln't pay for triple-play, but if my wife got two of her friends to cooperate, I'm sure I wouldn't say no to having it for free.
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So ... you'd sit back and watch I guess, since you'd make it some sort of quad rather than a triple.
police observation, not espionage (Score:5, Informative)
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> The Ziggo employees were irresponsible in publicizing this.
The Ziggo employees had no duty to the police.
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If you choose not to, well fine, there's no law against being a douche bag.
Except there is. In the Netherlands, you are obliged to report serious crime with authorities.
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You are in the US as well, at least in every state I've lived in.
Its a shame it has to be a law to be a good citizen.
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Fascinating [washingtoncitypaper.com].
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If you want people to know you're watching them, you don't hide the camera or hide it in an intentionally obvious place, but not so obvious they realize you put it there for them to find.
If you don't want people to know you're watching them, you hide the camera where they can't find it.
People who know they are being watched behave differently, regardless of the reason they are being watched or who is doing it. Human nature just works that way.
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Re:police observation, not espionage (Score:4, Informative)
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In the US it is equally rare for a legal gun owner to do the same. It is something often conveniently forgotten.
Re:police observation, not espionage (Score:5, Insightful)
Shootings here in the US aren't exactly a regular part of our lives. Neither I, nor anyone I know, has ever even heard a gunshot (outside of a shooting range) in my entire life. They may not be as rare as they are in Europe, but they are still exceedingly rare here, too. Besides the recent school shootings, the vast majority of shootings happen by (and to) the criminal element in the terribly seedy parts of town. Our crime here seems to be more of a social problem (wealth inequality and drug laws) and less of a technical problem (access to guns). Ordinary citizens rarely, if ever, see gun crime.
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I see where you're coming from, but I want to emphasize that I see being from a poor family with few opportunities for improvement a reason for involvement in crime, but not an excuse for it. I'm not interested in being lenient on criminals because of their upbringing, I'm more interested in fixing the upbringing so that there are fewer criminals. Of course, a real practical solution to this problem is the hard part.
The drug war case is inexcusable on the part of society. Black markets are extremely profita
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Wrong movie (Score:2)
Maybe that cabinet dissapeared by itself, once discovered. Skynet anyone?
A single spy camera don't imply 1984, no single water drop can be blamed for the flood. The rest of the simptoms, of course, goes straight into Brave New World, circa 1984.
Reasonable surveillance? (Score:2, Insightful)
Omroep West story (Score:3)
This story (with images) has more details. https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&hl=nl&rurl=translate.google.nl&sl=nl&tl=en&u=http://www.omroepwest.nl/nieuws/19-04-2013/kast-vol-spionageapparatuur-ontdekt-haagse-schilderswijk&usg=ALkJrhgWMC4x3iJVw2X0Fb01okkwoPhllw [googleusercontent.com]
Mystery solved (Score:5, Informative)
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No, they want to figure out how the "coffee shops" were legislated.
Re:Weird (Score:5, Informative)
Who would be spying on the Netherlands? Someone after the secret to wooden shoes, perhaps?
This "Schilderswijk" where the cabinet was discovered is a notorious low-income suburb. It's more likely to be native intelligence spying on locals in fear of extremists.
Re:Weird (Score:5, Funny)
This "Schilderswijk" where the cabinet was discovered is a notorious low-income suburb.
It's settled, then. Someone pinched the stuff and sold it to make a bit of money on the side. Has the spy agency tried scouring the local pawn shops?
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Industrial espionage, probably.
Re: Weird (Score:3)
Housing of international warcriminals in the Hague (Score:2)
Everyone knows that in the Scheveningen suburb of the The Hague, international warcriminals are housed!
Re:My question is... (Score:5, Interesting)
A square. Dutch editions of the news speculate that it was there to monitor the coming and goings of militants. Might be related to recruiting of Jihadists for Syria too, at least that has been a big news item in these parts recently.