Does anybody remember those heady days of freedom?
That was 2013, when Germany and Brazil proposed a UN resolution against mass surveillance.
Barely three years later, Germany is going to expand surveillance by its 'foreign' intelligence agency BND and to legalize the practices criticized by legal experts and technologists as problematic or illegal.
Federal parliament will pass the "reforms" on 21 October, tomorrow, despite numerous warning by national and international organizations.
The two critics of the new law most familiar with actual intelligence operations of it are the current deputy of the parliamentary standing group on oversight of intelligence gathering on German citizens (the G10 commission, named after the legal provision that governs this oversight), and the recently dismissed chief of the BND itself.
The parliamentary research service, i.e. the scientists and legal experts who prepare reports for members of parliament, has concluded that parts of the new law are unconstitutional - which does not bother the government one bit.
Internationally, Reporters without Borders has writeup on criticism of the bill by three UN special rapporteurs, stating "UN Special Rapporteurs David Kaye (Freedom of Opinion and Expression), Michel Forst (Situation of Human Rights Defenders) and Mónica Pinto (Independence of Judges and Lawyers) expressed “concern that the draft law would pose a threat to the exercise of the right to freedom of expression” in a letter to Germany’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva. The issues raised by the three specialists include the creation of “overbroad conditions for the collection and processing of data” and “insufficient safeguards for the rights of foreign journalists and lawyers.”
Sadly, once the vastly expanded powers go into effect, our blog post In space, no one can hear you laugh - German physics becomes a curiosity item.
The surveillance bureaucracy and its contractors can celebrate with a cake decorated with "he, who laughs last..."
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