Such a security clearance is needed to be allowed to handle documents containing sensitive information. The government officials are working at NATO headquarters as well as embassies in the Middle-East, Eastern Europe and South America.
Fully in line with local Dutch customs and traditions, the whistleblower – who has been employed by the Dutch government for 24 years – is now feeling the wrath of the Dutch Ministry of Defense which has revoked his security clearance, preventing him and his Serbian partner from moving from The Netherlands to Brazil where he would go and work at a local Dutch embassy himself this month.
In April 2012 the Dutch Ministry of Defense argued that they weren’t able to check the background of the Serbian partner of the Dutch whistleblower and therefore he wouldn’t be able to go to Brazil in June 2012. The whistleblower however, had already notified the Dutch Ministry of Defense and the Dutch Military Intelligence Service MIVD about his relationship with his Serbian partner back in 2009.
The Dutch Ministry of Defense has now stated that it doesn’t feel that there is a security issue regarding the 40 invalid, incorrect and expired security clearances. They also argue that what has happened to their employee is a separate issue and does not relate to him revealing this information.
The whistleblower notified his superiors and the Ministry in The Hague about this issue in 2010, but has come forward now since he feels that he’s being mistreated for doing his job.
Dutch language news article:
http://nos.nl/artikel/387725-klokkenluider-defensie-op-zijspoor.html
See also:
What else is new in a country where judges appear to be corrupt, members of parliament are being arrested for joining a protest march, asylum seekers are being mistreated and child abuse and human trafficking networks can roam free. The abundance of such practices makes it quite logical to arrest reporters if one aims to keep up appearances.
The Netherlands is a small and delicate society with low levels of corruption, but high levels of collusion, due to which any whistleblower will quite easily be facing very difficult times. One famous example being whistleblower Ad Bos, who exposed the largest construction fraud case in The Netherlands (video with English subtitles) in 2001 and who was told this week that he will still be prosecuted after 11 years.
Another one being Fred Spijkers who was facing the Dutch Ministry of Defense after being told to lie about an accident involving faulty land mines. It took 26 years to have his name cleared. Having been called a ‘political criminal’, it became known that the Ministry of Defense had put together a document which contained a strategy to target Spijkers.
