Germany's top court limits use of police spy software
Germany
's highest court found in a ruling published Thursday that police and other security services could use telecommunications
spy software
only to investigate very serious crimes.
Investigators have long used secretly installed surveillance software on phones and computers to monitor suspects' encrypted messaging services and other communications.
The Constitutional Court has now found that this is allowed only in cases where a conviction would lead to jail sentences of more than three years.
The judges said such surveillance represents a serious privacy intrusion and must therefore be limited to particularly serious crimes.
However, current rules will continue until the law is changed, the ruling said.
The court pointed to the "extraordinary reach" of telecoms surveillance in an age where all kinds of individual actions and interpersonal communications can be tracked digitally.
The data privacy group Digitalcourage had launched the case, supported by journalists and lawyers.
The group had urged more sweeping restrictions but nonetheless welcomed the ruling and vowed that "anyone who attacks our freedom must expect resistance".
The German Journalists' Association voiced disappointment, saying the court had "clearly prioritised criminal prosecution over informant protection".
"This makes it more difficult for us journalists to protect our sources," it said.
The German police union welcomed the decision to allow the continued use of the software in major cases.
"In times of terrorist threats, investigative authorities need effective tools for threat prevention and prosecution," said its chairman Rainer Wendt.
"With its ruling, the Federal Constitutional Court ensures that the rule of law can protect the population from the dangers of terrorism while simultaneously safeguarding their fundamental rights."
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Mint
13 minutes ago
- Mint
Germany is building a big scary army
THIS TIME they were invited. On May 22nd locals cheered as German tanks rolled through the streets of Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital once occupied by the Nazis. City buses flashed tributes to the fraternal bonds linking the nato allies. Even so, when the Bundeswehr's brass band struck up a rendition of 'Prussia's Glory", some of the German dignitaries assembled for the inauguration of their army's 45th Panzer brigade felt a twinge of unease. It wasn't until they saw the beaming faces of their Lithuanian counterparts that they were able to enjoy the show. The armoured brigade, which will number 5,000 by 2027, is Germany's first permanent deployment abroad since the second world war. It is also the starkest sign of the extraordinary turn taken by a country that took full receipt of the peace dividend after 1990, sheltering under American protection as its own army withered and its commercial ties with Russia strengthened (see chart 1). The Lithuania decision was taken in 2023 as part of the Zeitenwende, or 'turning-point", in security policy instigated by Olaf Scholz, the then chancellor, after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The €100bn ($114bn) spending spree he unleashed has already given Germany the world's fourth-biggest defence budget, reckons the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. More is to come. Bolstered by a recent decision to loosen Germany's debt brake, a fiscal straitjacket, the new government plans to ramp up defence spending further. Indeed, rearmament is set to become its animating mission. Friedrich Merz, the chancellor, says he intends to make the Bundeswehr the 'strongest conventional army in Europe". He has also signalled that Germany will sign up to a new long-term nato defence-spending target of 3.5% of gdp, plus 1.5% for related infrastructure, at a summit this month—a total that would translate into €215bn a year at today's level of output. (A budget will follow the nato summit.) 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'If we face delays or delivery challenges at home," says General Mais, 'it's better to take a broader approach and look at who can deliver." Some worry that Germany is failing to learn from Ukraine, with its drone swarms and 'transparent" battlefields. 'Tech in Germany is amazing," says Nico Lange, a former defence-ministry official. 'But the political side does not know how to use it." No one wants to fight the last war by building up stockpiles of drones that quickly become obsolete. But planners also need to ensure Germany is not left over-reliant on legacy systems. 'We need a market-driven industry that innovates, fails in one place and succeeds elsewhere, using private capital," says Gundbert Scherf, the co-ceo of Helsing, a startup with a focus on ai-enabled land, air and maritime systems. Upgrading the Bundeswehr also means tackling a sluggish planning and procurement bureaucracy. 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Paranoid about reopening the social rifts of the covid-19 years in a country that retains a scepticism about military force, Mr Scholz was cautious in his rhetoric and halting in his help for Ukraine; Mr Merz strikes a sharper tone. Vestiges of the old attitude remain, such as the self-imposed bans at dozens of universities on accepting government money for military research. Ms Major worries that if Ukraine is forced into a 'dirty ceasefire", the momentum of recent years may be squandered as calls for diplomacy and détente with Russia gather steam. So far, perhaps because skirting the debt brake has allowed Germany to avoid guns-or-butter trade-offs, voters have by and large backed the changes (see chart 2). Attitudes towards the army are changing, too. Soldiers marvel at the esteem they now encounter in daily life. 'Sometimes when I'm on the street people stop me to say, 'Thank you for your service'—like in America!" exclaims one cadet officer. A trickier test will come when Germany begins a serious debate over restoring conscription, which was suspended under Angela Merkel in 2011. The Bundeswehr is struggling to get troop numbers over 180,000, well short of the current target of 203,000, itself likely to be lifted after the nato summit. Given Germany's nato commitments, General Breuer thinks Germany will need 100,000 extra troops, including reservists, by 2029. For now, Mr Merz's government hopes to get there with compulsory questionnaires for 18-year-old men (an extension to women would need a constitutional change). That will at least buy time to rebuild Germany's crumbling barracks and hire the military trainers a bigger army needs. But hardly anyone thinks an element of compulsion can be avoided. 'I'm absolutely convinced we will have this debate," says General Mais. Polls find a majority of Germans in favour of restoring conscription; support is predictably lowest among the young. A long march ahead Germany's various agonies found expression at a recent 'Zeitenwende on Tour" event in Görlitz, an east German town on the Polish border where nearly half of voters support the hard-right, pro-Russia Alternative for Germany party. Mr Lange, the former defence official, led a discussion on rearmament in front of a disputatious audience. Some angrily blamed nato enlargement for the Ukraine war, or issued jeremiads against profiteering arms companies. Others pushed back. Andre, a hospital worker who had driven from Dresden to support the case for rearmament, says the issue splits his colleagues 50-50. 'The government should have been doing this from the start," says Mr Lange, who has been taking his message to Germans for over three years. It is grinding work, especially since Germans are now being asked to make sacrifices on behalf of foreign lands. In Vilnius, Mr Merz said: 'Lithuania's security is also our security," a plain statement of his country's nato commitments that also implies tough demands of ordinary Germans. Only now, perhaps, is that message beginning to get through. To stay on top of the biggest European stories, sign up to Café Europa, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter.
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First Post
13 minutes ago
- First Post
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Hindustan Times
43 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
Trump to host Zelensky, European leaders ahead of summit with Putin
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