Every now and then some nuggets on German "all things digital" website netzpolitik.org lead us down a rabbit hole.
If you have not heard of netzpolitik.org, they are the folks who found themselves under investigation for treason a few months ago for publishing several documents classified as "state secrets" by the German federal domestic intelligence service. A K-Landnews person who once held a job that flat out prohibited travel to certain countries within 5 years of leaving said job called the allegations against the journos egregious and pathetic. Lo and behold, the case was eventually dropped.
After a very long summer vacation, netzpolitik has settled into their routine and, among other things, reported on yet another German state's police "force protection" database.
All German law enforcement agencies as well as the state an federal domestic spies have databases on citizens for the stated purpose of "protecting officers" when they deal with an individual. For example, when they plan to execute a search warrant, they run the person against the database and learn if the individual is in the database and flagged as "armed".
Wouldn't you want your friendly officer to know in advance if an individual might be armed?
Other categories in force protection databases are, for instance, "infectious disease", "drug use", "prostitution", "hobo", or "alcohol dependent", and "hate preacher".
Since the police agencies don't divulge the exact purpose and content of these categories, we put one of our best minds on the job of analyzing their usefulness.
The K-Landnews analyst confessed to not quite understanding the categories "infectious disease" and "drug use". "Infectious disease" would need to be pretty specific to be of any practical use, because the specific protective measures depend very much on the mode of transmission. Come to think of it, maybe this is one of the main reasons for German doctors specifying the names of HIV test patients as Lucky Luke*?
"Prostitution" makes sense, of course. You want officers forewarned so they can politely decline a surprise freebie offer with "No, thank you, ma 'm" instead of emotional outbursts like "Who do you think I am! I'm happily married!". Or at least give them time to put on rubber gloves. Or whatever.
The category "Hobo" may seem odd, but it could have to do with the fact that homeless folks are on their feet so much and out in the fresh air most of the time. They might be fitter than a cruiser bound officer and make it over the eight foot parking lot fence unless the public servant is warned.
"Alcohol dependent" is a no brainer, literally. It probably helps officers to have the option of bringing a flask to a search warrant party - you don't want to wake up an alcoholic at 6am without some booze to offer. It does not appear medically correct to separate drug user and alcoholic, but hey, everybody likes beer once in a while, no?
"Hate preacher" does look a bit like a police equivalent to keeping up with the latest clothing fashion, but it may simply serve as a reminder to bring some garlic and a bible along.
What makes a German citizen "eligible" for inclusion into such a database? There is no administrative overhead in the form of a court order, a prior or anything like that. All that's needed is the assumption that a formal investigation of a citizen might occur in the future.
The size of the force protection databases varies by state and by the effect of public shaming of the police force. For example, netzpolitik reports that the Federal Criminal Bureau BKA recently deleted the category "prostitution" some time after a scathing report by Netzpolitik.org.
An example from the latest article for the state of Lower Saxony says that their database has at least 347 000 individuals under "drug use". That's a large number for a state with a population of just under 8 million people.
* So, they use another very popular comic figure's name. We decided to use the pseudonym "Lucky Luke" because the copyright owner of the "real" figure is known for dragging copyright infringers into court.
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