On Saturday, 22 September 2007, more than 15,000 took to the streets of Berlin under the slogan "Liberty instead of Fear - stop the Surveillance Mania!". Several Civil Liberty organisations, affiliated in the "Working Group Data Retention" (Arbeitskreis Vorratsdatenspeicherung), organised the march.

55 groups called for participation, among them the "Young Liberals" (Junge Liberale, Youth organisation of the FDP), Buendnis 90 / Die Gruenen, ver.di, journalist associations, ATTAC, the Protestant telephone Counselling (evangelische Telefonseelsorge), medical associations, FoeBuD e.V., and the Chaos Computer Club. German EDRi members CCC, FIfF, FoeBuD and NNM played an active role in organizing the protest. Police initially estimated 8,000 participants, later correcting their count to confirm the working group's numbers.

"This is the largest protest for civil liberties and privacy protection since the census in 1987", Thilo Weichert, data protection commissioner of Schleswig-Holstein said to news portal tagesschau.de

Rena Tangens of FoeBuD e.V.: "The overwhelming success of this protest shows that by now a large proportion of the population are worried about our constitutional state. Citizens do not want our democracy to be turned into a surveillance state. The Bundestag must reject the proposed date retention bill."

The large turnout of 15,000 shows that people consider the continuing tightening of security and surveillance laws to be decidedly too far-reaching. Citizens are concerned, not because of the supposed danger of international terrorism, but because of the impertinence and lack of restraint security politicians show in declaring civil rights and liberties defunct. The large cross-section of society participating in the demonstration makes it evident that these are not the views only a few civil rights experts, but that the issue now unites broad parts of the population. Politics cannot ignore this signal.

The organisers decisively criticised actions by the police, as well as some radical left-wing demonstrators: "A bloc of radical left-wing demonstrators did not abide by police obligations. The police in turn used disproportionate means in reaction to violations such as disguising and use of oversize banners, and did not appear to pursue de-escalation in all situations. The massive use of video cameras by the police, especially at this particular protest march, was a provocation. Overall, however, these were marginal incidents which did not impair the progress of the demonstration."

Rena Tangens remarked, "On balance it was a very positive, creative and colourful demonstration, in which hackers demonstrated peacefully beside doctors, and the 'Young Liberals' beside the 'Left Party' (Linkspartei)." The Giant Data-Octopus ("Datenkrake") of FoeBuD e.V., the "glass patient" on the car of the "Freie Aerzteschaft" (an occupational union of physicians), as well as several trojan horses were among the March's highlights.

Patrick Breyer of the Working Group Data Retention announces further activities: "We will resist data retention by all legal means." According to the working group about 20,000 citizens have already declared their support for the prepared constitutional recourse (Verfassungsbeschwerde) against data retention.

Among other things the demonstration takes a stand against the retention of data about telecommunication behaviour of the entire population, that is on this Autumn's political agenda in Germany, as well as against the covert online-searching of computers. Key demands include a halt to new surveillance laws and a review of existing surveillance laws.

Home page of the demonstration - Working Group Data Retention
http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/

Radio1984 feature live from the demonstration (22.09.2007)
http://wiki.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/images/Demo_berlin_2007_english...

German version
http://wiki.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/images/Demo_berlin_2007_deutsch...

Biggest demonstration for more data protection and privacy since 20 years! (in German only, 22.09.2007)
http://netzpolitik.org/2007/groesste-demonstration-fuer-mehr-datenschu...

Thousands of citizens demonstrate for "Freedom instead of Fear" (in German only, 22.09.2007)
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/96385

Berlin Data Tussles (in German only, 24.09.2007)
http://ftd.de/politik/deutschland/:Berliner%20Datenkämpfe/256868.html

Biggest data protection demonstration within 20 years (in German only, 23.09.2007)
http://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/berlin_aid_133680.html

Other articles about the demonstration (in German only)
http://wiki.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/Pressespiegel

(Contribution by Jan E. Hennig and Bernd Sieker, EDRI-member FoeBuD - Germany)