All that remains now is domestic and allies surveillance forcing it to do things it doesn't want to.

If they haven't already, likely Germany will also introduce a new law like the Dutch did such that a court order or judge is no longer necessary to hack someone and you don't have to be a criminal either. Additionally, it goes without saying of course, you don't never any form of evidence of anything.

Luckily for now, the Germans, for all their flaws, still have a much better understanding of the concept of privacy than the Dutch, and are pushing back as they can. Being a bit more historically conscious will do that to you, I guess.

And it's not like there haven't been repeated offenses of privacy abuse in the Netherlands the past few years.. (With little to no repercussion whatsoever..) The general response of the average (uninformed) citizen is that they have nothing to hide, so they don't care. And it is well know that abuses only happen in other, less developed countries, with said countries starting at the southern, eastern, and "western" boarders. So, as long as they inconvenience someone else's life, all is well.

As the poem goes:

   First they came...

> the Germans, for all their flaws, still have a much better understanding of the concept of privacy than the Dutch

This is the country that makes you put your full name and address on personal websites yeah?

Well, it was the country that banned traffic cameras doing average speed check on longer stretches, because it was an unreasonable indiscriminate privacy intrusion, storing the number plate information of all passing cars, with a potential for abuse.

Now the Dutch tax services just went ahead, broke the law, stored and analyzed the number plate information of millions of drivers to try to determine if they were using their company car more than allowed for private use. For more or less zero gains. And no retribution when found out.

And by the way, no, personal, non-commercial websites are absolutely not required to have the user's full name and address on them. Link:

https://www.bmuv.de/themen/verbraucherschutz/digitaler-verbr...

lol, what?

Either my sarcasm detector is way off or…

I think he is referring to "U.S. spied on Merkel and other Europeans through Danish cables - broadcaster DR" story.

Cables is a tiny part of it. Cables were a diplomatic nightmare but just a tiny percentage of overall spying activity.

Thank you, USA (c)

I wasn't aware that nokia was a german company.