German Court rules Internet on line spying by Secret Services "unconstitutional"

Hans-Juergen Papier, the court president of Germany's highest court, Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe (Bundesverfassungsgericht) ruled this week against allowing German security services to use virus-like software or similar tactics to spy on the computer hard drives of suspected criminals.

The court in said on Wednesday that using such software would violate an individual's right to privacy, protected by the country's constitution. Human and civil rights take precedence over the nearly insatiable need for security cultivated by some politicians.


This will please opposition parties and civil liberties groups, as well as by Brigitte Zypries, SPD Germany's justice minister but is expected to block a proposed federal law by Wolfgang Schaeuble, CDU Germany's interior minister. Zypries does however support Großer Lauschangriff, the German name for audio surveillance being used in private homes in the course of state investigations.

In the ruling, Hans-Juergen Papier, the court president, said such software would be unconstitutional - although based on a law in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia that had permitted spying online, Papier said the high court's decision would serve as a precedent across the country.

Schaeuble said the authorities would examine the court's decision and alter the proposed legislation accordingly.

Schaeuble's creed ( as is that of many Western Terrist Ministers) is that the threat of terrorism is omnipresent, invisible , incalculable and endless. The state should take such measures in order to prevent this danger. According to Schaeuble and his Ilk , all surveillance and combat instruments should be able to be used even in totally abstract and notional situations of danger.

The argument used by those who want dentention of suspects for 90 days. The "What if ..." argument.

Not only do we need protection by the state but also from the state.

It is surely interesting that Hans-Juergen Papier, in talking about the new EU treaty last week at Berlin's Humboldt University pointed out that the principle of democracy "is for the first time dignified with its own section in the treaty." Then he went on to point out that the sheer number of laws coming from Brussels - there were 18,167 regulations and 750 directives between 1998 and 2004 could not be handled by the current proposed arrangements in the Treaty / Constitution. More ...

Makes you wish that we had a written Constitution ..but then you see how Bush has trampled all over the US Constitution.

See also BBC "German court limits cyber spying "