The Dutch military, without being authorized to do so, has collected data on Dutch citizens on a large scale. The military gathered information on organizations such as Viruswaanzin, the Gele Hesjes, De Andere Krant and Robert Jensen. A military officer also allegedly infiltrated an online platform to gather intelligence. So writes NRC, which did a reconstruction on the creation of the Land Information Maneuver Center (LIMC) last March.
The Dutch military gathering intelligence on its own soil about its population. According to military historian Christ Klep, it is unprecedented that "a military service is structurally used for the large-scale collection of intelligence actually intended for civilian purposes," he told NRC.
What makes it controversial is that the armed forces do not have this authority. Before that, we have numerous intelligence and investigative agencies in our country, such as the National Police, the Ministry of Justice and Security and the General and Military Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD and MIVD). Only when these agencies request assistance is the military allowed to collect intelligence from civilians. In this case, the LIMC was operating on its own.
The agency collected information on a wide range of topics, including coronavirus, bankruptcies, 5G transmission towers and pollen. For months, the LIMC studied social groups such as Virus Madness, activists who have united under the rubric Gele Hesjes, podcast and television producer Robert Jensen's platform Jensen.nl, labeled as an "alternative medium," and the paper edition of The Other Newspaper.
All this data then ended up in a computer system built by the Department of Defense. With this information, the LIMC wanted to gain insight on the coronavirus and the spread of disinformation or fake news. According to NRC, the Defense Department had long wanted to establish a center to experiment with information as a weapon. It used the corona pandemic as an excuse to get started with this.
NRC's investigation reveals that the armed forces went way beyond its remit. The newspaper writes that LIMC's analyses were shared from the very beginning with the National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security (NCTV) and the National Police, among others. In addition to public sources, the agency also gathered data from so-called "semi-closed sources," including behavioral analyses and information coming from military liaisons in hospitals and nursing homes, among others. Finally, the LIMC also managed to get its hands on data from confidential sources, such as the internal registration system of the police and a technical briefing at a ministry.
The Department of Defense is playing the murdered innocent. In a response, the ministry states that the LIMC only gathers information from public sources and does not look at individuals. By "public sources," one should think of social media such as Facebook and LinkedIn, personal websites and databases accessible to everyone, such as Schoolbank and the Chamber of Commerce (CoC). LIMC commander Patrick Dekkers dismisses as "apekool" the rumor that an infiltrator was monitoring an online platform of completdenkers under a pseudonym for months.
The modus operandi caused a commotion. According to NRC, some military personnel had criticized it, which sidelined them. Eventually, the defense chief intervened and ordered that the reports no longer be distributed externally. This order was issued on Aug. 25.
The story may yet have a tailspin. D66 MP Salima Belhaj calls the work of the LIMC "worrying." "Defense should not take on tasks of police or AIVD," she told NRC. She is requesting a parliamentary debate on the issue, where Minister Ank Bijleveld, who is politically responsible, may give explanations.
