(Germany) Computer Spying Unconstitutional

[flashl]

Source: Chicago Tribune (AP)

BERLIN - Germany's highest court says that security services cannot use virus-like software or similar tactics to spy on the computer hard drives of suspected criminals and terrorists.

The Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe ruled Wednesday that using such software to spy violates the country's constitutional protections and freedoms.

Germany's Interior Ministry had hoped to use the tactic as part of its arsenal to investigate suspected terrorist and mafia activity.

AP

Read more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-germany-trojan-horses,1,3818872.story

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While in the U.S. surveillance, wiretapping, and monitoring is the norm.

[marmar]

1. Democracy lives.....somewhere in the world.

:cry:

[sarge43]

2. I'm getting too old for this crap.

Old fart mode: I remember a time when this nation was the gold standard for a democratic government.

:cry:

[pattmarty]

3. Did Germany steal our Constitution?????

[bean fidhleir]

4. No, they've got a better one

Prof. Robert Dahl, generally regarded as the most significant scholar of democracy in the world, notes that *no* other country has chosen a constitutional structure like ours.

[pattmarty]

5. Tell me more about this Dahl.........................

.........are there any books that you know of or the book by Dahl that would describe various countries democratic governments? You & I both know that you don't get any global/world news anymore in this country from the media either print or TV or you really have to dig to find something. This country DOES practice censorship (call it anything else you want, but it's still censorship)call it censorship "lite" or probably a more accurate phrase "censorship by omission".

[bean fidhleir]

10. I don't know of any where he walks through them all, but I haven't yet

read everything he's written, either (he's 93 this year and has a publications list that goes out the door and down the street).

It's just that he's remarked in several books, e.g. How Democratic is the American Constitution?, that not a single other country has ever chosen to follow our constitutional model, and that's in part because ours is painted to look democratic, but isn't democratic.

We're taught in school that we have a "representative democracy" and nearly everyone (including most White DUers) go through life parroting that claim as though they had personally evaluated it and found it true. Generally only Black, Brown, and Red Americans ever chip that paint...quite often by having their heads bounced off it by the cops.


(Your comment on censorship is right on, and the politico-economic fairytales told in school are part of that.)

[pattmarty]

11. I can't find him in my library (which really doesn't surprise me)......

..... and I thank you for the reply. I'm 61 years and have had doubts about a lot of things in this country for a long time. Oh, and I describe myself just to the right of Karl Marx. Thx again.


Marty

[The Backlash Cometh]

6. Well, well.

[Angela Shelley]

7. Thanks flashl, for the good news!

[flashl]

9. anytime. nt

:evilgrin:

[LynnTheDem]

8. Germany; more democratic than America.

Through the looking glass completely.