- #6 press freedom ranking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Press_Freedom_Index
- #9 freedom house https://freedomhouse.org/countries/freedom-world/scores
- #11 freedom of speech https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries...
And so on. Now: this isn't saying that NL is perfect, not by a long shot. We have seen some absolutely terrible behavior by politicians, most notably on the right extreme part of the spectrum. Emboldened by Trump's election populism is on the rise here as well and we see just the same idiotic behavior as in the USA. Including word-for-word translations of talking points (which are utterly ridiculous in a Dutch context, but never mind that sort of detail), attempts (and some success) at polarization and so on. For that reasons alone the next elections are pretty exciting in that we can either further derail or - hopefully - that there will be some pushback against this.
But it is usually the people arguing the loudest that there is no democracy, freedom of press and separation of powers here that are the ones that are trying to destabilize things further.
OPs complaint about the police being able to gather private information of their citizens without a judge having to agree to it first might be seen as violating separation of powers, but as long as a judge still decides what the punishment is after seeing the evidence, I merely see this as a state not respecting individual's privacy, which is probably not a common thing to require for a democracy.
Sadly those erosions are to be seen in many EU countries currently...
Surely invasion of privacy is a violation of the CHARTER OF FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION.
" Article 7
Respect for private and family life
Everyone has the right to respect for his or her private and family life, home and communications.
Article 8
Protection of personal data
1. Everyone has the right to the protection of personal data concerning him or her.
2. Such data must be processed fairly for specified purposes and on the basis of the consent of the person concerned or some other legitimate basis laid down by law. Everyone has the right of access to data which has been collected concerning him or her, and the right to have it rectified.
3. Compliance with these rules shall be subject to control by an independent authority."
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...
Who owns ANP nieuws has nothing to do with whether or not the press is free.