Germany
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Germany: Will 30 June be the day populism killed free speech?
On 30 June 2017, the German Parliament will vote on the bill on “Enforcement on Social Networks”, also known as the “NetzDG”. This draft law, if adopted, could seriously impair human rights online, including freedom of expression and opinion. That is why we tirelessly explored different ways to make sure the European Union (EU) would […]
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EU action needed: German NetzDG draft threatens freedom of expression
On 22 May 2017 six civil society and industry associations sent an open letter to eight EU Commissioners asking to take action against the German bill on “Enforcement on Social Networks”, the “NetzDG”.
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BBA Germany 2017: Espionage, threats, tracking, provoking cyber wars
The annual German Big Brother Awards were bestowed by EDRi member Digitalcourage on 5 May 2017 in Bielefeld, Germany. The event drew much media attention, as one of the awardees threatened the organiser with legal action. The awardees are informed of their awards a few days in advance and invited to respond or appear at the […]
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German Social Media law – sharp criticism from leading legal expert
Professor Wolfgang Schulz, one of Europe’s preeminent legal experts, has prepared a short critique of Germany’s so-called “Act improving Law Enforcement on Social Networks”, also known under the abbreviation NetzDG.
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Reckless social media law threatens freedom of expression in Germany
At the end of March 2017, with Federal elections on the horizon, the German Justice Minister Heiko Maas proposed a law on ill-defined “social networks”. Minister Maas has proposed the law which places a variety of obligations on the companies, in the apparent hope that this will lead profit-motivated companies to take over private censorship […]
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German intelligence agency violates freedom of the press
EDRi observer Reporters Without Borders Germany is appalled by the apparently targeted surveillance of foreign journalists by the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany’s foreign intelligence agency. As reported by the Spiegel, the BND spied on at least 50 telephone numbers, fax numbers and email addresses belonging to journalists or newsrooms around the world in the years following 1999. […]
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Germany: Fighting the anti-whistleblower provision
EDRi observer Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte’s (GFF) most recent Constitutional Court case in Germany concerns an anti-whistleblowing provision threatening the freedom of the press. Part-time journalists and bloggers, as well as the legal or IT experts on which journalists rely, now risk a prison sentence of up to three years for handling “leaked” data.
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GFF launches its strategic litigation for civil rights
EDRi observer Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte (GFF, Society for Civil Rights) has launched its first case and published its website. GFF is a Berlin-based non-profit NGO founded in 2015. Its mission is to establish a sustainable structure for successful strategic litigation in the area of human and civil rights in Germany and Europe. GFF’s initial cases […]
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ENDitorial: “When crypto is outlawed, only outlaws will have crypto”
Fortunately, all terrorists are law-abiding citizens. That must have been what the interior ministers of France and Germany were thinking when they asked on 23 August the European Commission to draft a new law that would require services such as Telegram to cooperate with the decryption of encrypted communications. In their joint press statement, the […]
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Secret Report: German intelligence service BND breaks the law
The German intelligence service BND illegally collected and stored mass surveillance data and has to delete those data immediately. This is one of the conclusions of a classified report of the German Federal Data Protection Commissioner that German digital rights blog Netzpolitik.org published. In her report, the Commissioner criticises serious legal violations and a massive […]
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German surveillance laws: placebos, poison, and also bad sport
The German parliament, the Bundestag, voted in favour of two contentious surveillance laws in July 2016. These are not only disappointing with regard to their content but also as cases of dubious parliamentary procedure. Those observing international politics may be familiar with the phrase “burying bad news”. The phrase gained notoriety through leaked emails from […]
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Big Brother Awards Germany 2016
The annual gala for the German Big Brother Awards (BBA), organised by EDRi member Digitalcourage, was held on 22 April 2016 in Bielefeld, Germany. English-language coverage of the event was stepped up this year. While English translations of most of the laudations have been available on the website in previous years, this year Digitalcourage’s interpreter […]
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