It is still wild to me than no European laws were broken, yet the US can just declare a group of EU citizens a terrorist organization and the EU is compelled to do whatever the US says. Does the EU have sovereignty? Where did they sign that away?
Why bring the EU and "European laws" into this when talking about sovereignty? This was a decision by the Netherlands. We should be talking about Dutch laws.
Curious, how do I apply German law to US citizens living in the United States? Last time I checked that wasn't possible, even though they have coorporations it's still different jurisdictions.
That's like saying crime is illegal in the United States and all countries of the EU, therefore I should be able to get US citizens prosecuted for EU laws.
The US-Netherlands Extradition Treaty, Article 2 says it needs to be considered criminal conduct in both jurisdiction, one jurisdiction calling it 'terrorism' is not enough for dual criminality to apply. I asked GPT-6 and it said you're wrong.
No, that’s not what I said. “Crime is illegal” - how about a serious argument?
Ask GPT-6 if aiding terrorists, which is what the US accuses these people of, is illegal in the Netherlands. If it is, then the server can be seized under the collaboration treaties.
The Netherlands doesn't consider A/I terrorists though, does it? Therefore, dual criminality doesn't apply.
Russia considers Facebook/Meta a terrorist organization in their jurisdiction, that doesn't make universally true. Saying "terrorism is illegal" to dismiss due process in a foreign jurisdiction is actually very close to attempting "crime is illegal" as an argument.
No, that’s not how it works. The Netherlands do not determine whether the subjects of evidence-gathering requests are guilty. The request is processed without any kind of judgement.
I've worked with German law enforcement in the past, seizing foreign servers as evidence without going through due process in that foreign country is not a thing. They need a warrant from a court in that country, which requires dealing with their jurisdiction.
Of course, they would've loved if they could just collect US servers for evidence-gathering.
GDPR is a great example of EU authorities pretending that an EU law applies to companies without an EU presence.
Also, if you get the US to sign an agreement saying they will do X if someone in the US violates a German law, that's exactly what would happen. It doesn't happen because the US doesn't typically sign those agreements unless there's a comparable US law.
The downvoted comment is actually right: both Netherlands and the EU have mutual legal assistance treaties with the US. Now whether the Dutch legal basis was respected or not, local investigations (including parliamentary) are ongoing so nobody here on HN can really answer. But yes, the transfer can be legally blocked and actually must (and will) wait for a decision on it.
I don't think any good can come from what this implies about the increasing paranoia of the US government.
It's also interesting that the Dutch seemingly readily complied. I guess it's a relatively small thing in the grand scheme of potential war with Russia.
Can somebody tell me which organizations used their services? I would like to independently verify whether any of these organizations are actually promoting violence as a way to advance their agenda.
Here is what I have gathered so far, but none of this has been independently verified:
- There are reports alleging that the burning of 15 Portland police vehicles in May 2024 was organized, coordinated, or promoted through their servers.
- There are also claims that calls to attack ICE personnel, including at their homes, were distributed through their servers (Rose City Antifa / Rose City Counter-Info).
- Some reports also claim that the 2022 firebombing in Madison, Wisconsin, was organized through their servers.
Again, these are allegations, and I have not been able to independently verify them. Does anybody have credible sources who was using their servers? And who is behind this organization?
> We will soon send instructions on how to back up the content of your blogs, mailboxes and websites, along with more technical recommendations. But keep in mind that, just as the autistici.org domain was made unreachable without previous notice, in the next few days we might suffer similar issues that we may not be able to predict.
So it's human/political distribution rather than infrastructure now
I think they're surprised by the attention such a small, relatively insignificant group is getting from the US.
Getting fucked over by a nation state, and the US no less, probably wasn't on their risk radar.
The fact they didn't have some kind of fallback was precisely because they're a fairly small, insignificant group, most definitely not worth the time and attention given to them by the glass-jawed and petty Trump regime.
That's the kowtowing we know. Tough talk about protecting the ICC but when push comes to shove, kneeling and kissing the ring of authoritarian regimes.
It is still wild to me than no European laws were broken, yet the US can just declare a group of EU citizens a terrorist organization and the EU is compelled to do whatever the US says. Does the EU have sovereignty? Where did they sign that away?
The EU does it themselves. Why would they want to restrain their own hand?
No we don't have sovereignty, we lost it about the time we started the first WW.
Many people belive the second one ended.
What I really believe is that Europe doesn't really exist in a political / economic sense since the end of Franco-Prussian war.
Why bring the EU and "European laws" into this when talking about sovereignty? This was a decision by the Netherlands. We should be talking about Dutch laws.
This has nothing to do with EU.
This is the Netherlands bending over to the US willingly.
Related: https://nltimes.nl/2025/09/19/dutch-parliament-wants-follow-...
Having (us) foreign military bases on eu soil not enough to answer your question?
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Curious, how do I apply German law to US citizens living in the United States? Last time I checked that wasn't possible, even though they have coorporations it's still different jurisdictions.
Read about dual criminality. Terrorism is illegal in all countries of the EU. Also this isn’t about Germany. Once again ask your LLM of choice.
That's like saying crime is illegal in the United States and all countries of the EU, therefore I should be able to get US citizens prosecuted for EU laws.
The US-Netherlands Extradition Treaty, Article 2 says it needs to be considered criminal conduct in both jurisdiction, one jurisdiction calling it 'terrorism' is not enough for dual criminality to apply. I asked GPT-6 and it said you're wrong.
No, that’s not what I said. “Crime is illegal” - how about a serious argument?
Ask GPT-6 if aiding terrorists, which is what the US accuses these people of, is illegal in the Netherlands. If it is, then the server can be seized under the collaboration treaties.
The Netherlands doesn't consider A/I terrorists though, does it? Therefore, dual criminality doesn't apply.
Russia considers Facebook/Meta a terrorist organization in their jurisdiction, that doesn't make universally true. Saying "terrorism is illegal" to dismiss due process in a foreign jurisdiction is actually very close to attempting "crime is illegal" as an argument.
No, that’s not how it works. The Netherlands do not determine whether the subjects of evidence-gathering requests are guilty. The request is processed without any kind of judgement.
I've worked with German law enforcement in the past, seizing foreign servers as evidence without going through due process in that foreign country is not a thing. They need a warrant from a court in that country, which requires dealing with their jurisdiction.
Of course, they would've loved if they could just collect US servers for evidence-gathering.
GDPR is a great example of EU authorities pretending that an EU law applies to companies without an EU presence.
Also, if you get the US to sign an agreement saying they will do X if someone in the US violates a German law, that's exactly what would happen. It doesn't happen because the US doesn't typically sign those agreements unless there's a comparable US law.
The downvoted comment is actually right: both Netherlands and the EU have mutual legal assistance treaties with the US. Now whether the Dutch legal basis was respected or not, local investigations (including parliamentary) are ongoing so nobody here on HN can really answer. But yes, the transfer can be legally blocked and actually must (and will) wait for a decision on it.
I don't think any good can come from what this implies about the increasing paranoia of the US government.
It's also interesting that the Dutch seemingly readily complied. I guess it's a relatively small thing in the grand scheme of potential war with Russia.
Recently dealt with a EU company who readily allows hacking from their systems without regard to the victims whatsoever.
There are bad people everywhere and countries uniting against them is a good thing.
I don't think A/I were that level bad people. Conversely, I tend to believe their words, such as:
> In a world where allegations are disconnected from reality, we can only expect repression to be increasingly disproportionate.
much more so than anything Trump or his administration has ever said, or will ever say.
I think uniting against Trump is a good thing. Hopefully November proves that's actually happening.
Can somebody tell me which organizations used their services? I would like to independently verify whether any of these organizations are actually promoting violence as a way to advance their agenda.
Here is what I have gathered so far, but none of this has been independently verified:
- There are reports alleging that the burning of 15 Portland police vehicles in May 2024 was organized, coordinated, or promoted through their servers.
- There are also claims that calls to attack ICE personnel, including at their homes, were distributed through their servers (Rose City Antifa / Rose City Counter-Info).
- Some reports also claim that the 2022 firebombing in Madison, Wisconsin, was organized through their servers.
Again, these are allegations, and I have not been able to independently verify them. Does anybody have credible sources who was using their servers? And who is behind this organization?
Discussion: "Amsterdam police confiscates server left-wing ISP A/I at American request (nrc.nl)" 14.oct.2026 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50090084 171 comments
I'm a but surprised that such group didn't have some kind of fallback or decentralised server. No presence on tor or similar?
They had already shut down when this server was seized I think
https://keepitfree.ai/announcements/a/i-shuts-down-stay-huma...
> We will soon send instructions on how to back up the content of your blogs, mailboxes and websites, along with more technical recommendations. But keep in mind that, just as the autistici.org domain was made unreachable without previous notice, in the next few days we might suffer similar issues that we may not be able to predict.
So it's human/political distribution rather than infrastructure now
I think they're surprised by the attention such a small, relatively insignificant group is getting from the US.
Getting fucked over by a nation state, and the US no less, probably wasn't on their risk radar.
The fact they didn't have some kind of fallback was precisely because they're a fairly small, insignificant group, most definitely not worth the time and attention given to them by the glass-jawed and petty Trump regime.
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50090084
GDPR my ass.
That's the kowtowing we know. Tough talk about protecting the ICC but when push comes to shove, kneeling and kissing the ring of authoritarian regimes.
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