Freedom Not Fear: Demonstration in Berlin
Between 10000 (police) and 25000 (organiser) people have demonstrated against increasing surveillance in Berlin today. They fight for more civil rights stating that both state and companies are observing people too much. The demonstration called "Freiheit statt Angst" (Freedom not Fear) already took place earlier and still was a major success. In the past few years politicians have passed many laws to control citizens, e.g. by storing data about all internet and telephone communcation (users, time and as for mobile phones also location). Critics say that this could be used to analyse the social network and movements of everybody.
Source: AK Vorrat
Many organisations have participated in the demonstration. To name only a few examples: The Greens, Pirate Party, ver.di (big German labour union), attac (global NGO) and the famous German Chaos Computer Club. Moreover, Thilo Weichert (a data protection official of the government) was there to hold a speech.
Source: AK Vorrat
Multiple laws are criticized
There have been several laws in the past few years that shorten civil rights and lead to surveillance of all citizens. Some laws have been introduced to fight terrorism, but later were stretched for other purposes.
One of these laws is the ability of officials to check owners of bank accounts. In the past this was only allowed if there was suspicion of terrorism, but now nearly everybody can use this method for each person.
In 2007, a law for data retention was passed, which means that Internet service providers (ISPs) have to store information on every communication that takes place in Germany for 6 months. This shall be used to fight terrorism, but critics say that it is only a matter of time until state can also use this information for other purposes.
This year politicians have passed a law that starts internet censorship in Germany. The Federal Criminal Police Office will created tables that contain illegal websites (currently child pornography) which should then be blocked by all ISPs in Germany. There has been huge criticism leading to a petition with 130000 subscribers, but the law was still passed. The supporters of this petition claim that the law creates an infrastructure for censorship (which could be used for other content later) and that other countries - where this method has already been tested - even admit that it was not helpful. And they could be right, because many groups have already proposed which other contents should be blocked: violence, copyright infringement or anorexia websites.
Luckily, the law cannot be signed by the German president yet, because some mistakes have been made.
We also have an electronic passport which can be read from distance due to an RFID chip, and there will be electronic identity cards in the future. On passport and identity card, there will be - in addition to the current data - also a digital passport picture and a digital fingerprint.
Unconstitutional Representatives?
Some people say that the Members of Bundestag do not care about violating the constitution. Several laws were passed in the past that were declared as unconstitutional later, e.g. a law about shooting kidnapped airplanes. Some laws have also been passed by representatives knowing that they would be restricted by the Federal Constitutional Court later.
Since people did not want to take these circumstances any longer, they have decided to demonstrate against the current politics.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
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