Under a law enacted last year, the Dutch police has the power to conduct massive searches. The way it works is that an area of town is cordoned off, and everybody within that area is subjected to a search in order to confiscate weapons and drugs. And they're not just on the streets, as police officers also go into bars and cafes and search the people there. After a slow start these searches are becoming common. Last Friday there was a big search around the Rembrandtplein, a popular nightlife hotspot in Amsterdam. About 1,000 people were subjected to a search. As a result 25 knives were confiscated, an imitation gun, some pepperspray and cocaine. This kind of police activity now happens almost every weekend. It does not make the newspapers anymore (the link above goes to a local TV station's news).

The goal of these raids is to reduce crime by making the possession of weapons riskier. You're not allowed to carry any kind of weapon here, be it a knife, gun or pepperspray, and the statistics from Friday night's raid indicate that about 3% of those searched had proscribed weaponry on them. In removing these from circulation, you could call the raid a success. It would be interesting to see more details on the kinds of people who were caught; were these hardened criminals, or just ordinary people who happened to have a swiss army knife on them? I suspect hardened criminals will find a way to escape the raid. Ultimately, it's the actual recorded crime numbers that will show whether these raids are having any effect on reducing crime.

Irrespective of that, the infringement of civil liberties that these searches represent is very serious indeed. Going out for dinner and a drink in Amsterdam (or anywhere in the Netherlands) now puts you at risk of being searched by the police. Not because they have probable cause or a reasonable suspicion, but simply by the fact that you're there. It puts an excessive amount of power in the hands of the authorities, and history shows that such power is likely to be abused. The state has no business prying into an individual's affairs as long as there is no reasonable suspicion of criminal behavior.

Crossing that line and casting the net as wide as the Dutch authorities have done will also have more pernicious effects in the longer term. It will inure the population to intrusive government control, which makes the next step on the way to eviscerating civil liberties that much easier. The most distressing thing is that these raids enjoy massive public support.

if the current level of oversight and intrusion fails to curb crime, the temptation will be great to ratchet it up a notch. It will be possible to reduce crime by ever greater amounts of oversight and intrusion, but with every step you take down that road you end up closer to an authoritarian police state. It's better not to get on that road on the first place.