I never thought I would write about German politics on this blog but recent developments regarding inner security are alarming and I think it might be interesting to you as well.
Data Retention
Data retention, or Vorratsdatenspeicherung as it is called in German, is one of the top issues here. So what is it about? Basically telecom companies, mobile phone providers, email providers, and internet service providers have to store call detail records for six months. Those records include:
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phone numbers of caller and callee
- date, beginning, ending, and timezone of the call (this applies to email providers and internet service providers, too
- location if using mobile phones
- this applies to text messages (SMS) and other forms of communication as well
- using VoIP? the IP is also recorded
- Email? IP address of sender and email accounts of both sender and receiver
- ISP’s have to record the IP addresses of their customers
- anon services have to record the original IP address and the new one; also date, time, and timezone, of course
I think those are the basic records; I have probably forgot some. While the EU initiated the data retention directive it is interesting to note that the Deutsche Bundestag - German parliament - declined those plans in 2005, however agreed to adopt them with the votes of members of the Social Democrats and the conservative CDU/CSU in 2006; that’s been after the elections.
If you can read German have a look at the website of the Arbeitskreis Vorratsdatenspeicherung; there’s some more information and details.
Federal Trojan
Though there are some more plans to spy on citizens. One measure is to secretly hack citizens’ computers by a trojan horse. People call it the Bundestrojaner, federal trojan. While there is no law to allow this yet it was revealed that police already used it to hack computers. The Federal High Court stopped this as being unlawful.
On Wednesday politicians proposed a change of the constitution which should constitute freedom on the internet as a basic right. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Well, they just want to constitute a basic right in order to legally confine it immediatedly. The federal trojan could have a lawful basis then.
More Plans
From June 6-8 the G8 Summit will take place in Heiligendamm, northern Germany. In the run-up to the summit police have tapped phones of allegedly militant protesters of the summit and have opened letters. As if this was not enough police also collect scent traces.
Short notices:
- new passports will contain biometric data
- fingerprints should be stored in a central database
- hijacked planes should be shot if suicide attackers are suspected
- presumption of innocence should not be applied in the fight against terrorism
Protest
More and more people realise that this country is heading to more surveillance and that civil liberties are getting restricted. Especially journalists, but also bloggers speak out. Some people even accuse the Federal Minister of the Interior, Wolfgang Schäuble, of proposing methods of the former East German secret police, the Staatssicherheit or better known as the Stasi. There are even t-shirts with an image of Mr Schäuble and the words Stasi 2.0.
All those surveillance plans are making people suspicious of everything dealing with security and it will be even more difficult to win them over for OpenID, I think.
