(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)
The German government has approved the draft legislation that implements the data retention directive, but the political opposition and the growing anti-surveillance movement shows an important resistance to the new plans of the federal Minister for the interior, Wolfgang Schäuble, who wants an ever increased surveillance.
The draft bill adopted by the German Government on 18 April 2007, was called by the Minister of Justice, Brigitte Zypries, "reasonable and constitutional." But the adopted draft expands what was initially proposed by Zypres, making traffic data accessible not only for criminal prosecution purposes, but also in order to "prevent considerable dangers" and "fulfil the legal duties" of all security police. Zypries also stated "the data retained could be used to prevent crime... if the police laws of the German states allow for this."
The e-mail can be used anonymously, but the anonymization services will also be obliged to retain data. Providers of e-mail services will basically have to keep records of the following: the user's IP address for each e-mail sent and for each access to the inbox as well as the sender's network ID for every e-mail received.
At the same time, the Federal Interior Minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, has presented a new "list of horror" that includes doing "preventive" dragnet investigations (i.e. data mining in private databases without suspicion), storing fingerprints and other biometric data of all Germans who have passport data in a networked database, secretly hacking into citizens' computers or performing "preventive" phone interception.
But more voices rise against the new plans. The journalists' and publishers' organizations saw the secrecy of their sources under attack by the data retention bill, and most mass media have more or less openly positioned themselves against the plans.
Leading Social Democrats are openly moving away from Schäuble, and some have even compared his attitude to that of Guantanamo. Even a few prominent conservatives have tried to slow him down and the police union has openly questioned the necessity of these measures.
Also the recent demonstration "Freiheit statt Angst" (Freedom instead of Fear) against growing surveillance, organized by the Working Group against Data Retention and supported by EDRi-members CCC, FIFF, FITUG, FOEBUD, NNM, and others, has gathered more than 2000 people in Frankfurt on 14 April 2007 in the biggest demonstration for privacy since the 1980s. Supporters have been very wide-ranging, from radical anti-fascist groups to the opposition parties and the federation of women emergency call centres. The ISP associations did not officially support this, but a lot of them helped with logistics behind the scenes. Many of the ISP workers from Frankfurt also took part in the demonstration.
The working group against data retention has also gathered more than 12 000 supporters for a constitutional court challenge against data retention since November 2006. It will be submitted on the day the bill is enacted. This will be the largest constitutional court case in Germany ever.
The adoption of the data retention bill a few days after the demonstration, as well as Schäuble's plans, combined with an unclear statement by him on the presumption of innocence, have led to an outcry in the last few days. The said-to-be-non-political German blogosphere discussed these developments at a large gathering in Berlin two weeks ago and, as a follow-up, has issued a call for creative resistance. Above all, blog posts that contain "Stasi 2.0" (a reference to East German secret police) with a picture of minister Schäuble are spreading quickly at the moment.
German government approves retention of data (19.04.2007)
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/88499
Surveillance plans and the growing privacy movement in Germany (20.04.2007)
http://bendrath.blogspot.com/2007/04/surveillance-plans-and-growing-pr...
Demonstration "Freiheit statt Angst" (Freedom instead of Fear) (only in
German, 14.04.2007)
http://www.freiheitstattangst.de/
Stasi 2.0 - Germany moving towards surveillance state
http://www.technorati.com/search/%22stasi+2.0%22
(Thanks to Ralf Bendrath - EDRI member Netzwerk Neue Medien)