
“Suspicion of treason”: German attorney general investigates journalists - _stephan
https://netzpolitik.org/2015/suspicion-of-treason-federal-attorney-general-announces-investigation-against-us-in-addition-to-our-sources
======
maze-le
I want to give you a little context here, because I assume most non-german
readers will be unfamiliar with netzpolitik.org. netzpolitik.org is a
professional blog about politics in the information age, financed mainly by
donations. They report and comment on political and legal issues concerning
computers, the internet and technology in general.

netzpolitik.org has covered the 'Geheimdienstausschuss' (a parliamentary
working group, formed after the Snowden leaks) extensiveley, like no other
german-speaking media. They also played a critical role in the public debate
around data-retention, voting-computers and many other issues in germany in
recent years.

I think, chances are high, that they will never be convicted. Still, this will
send chilling effects on critical media, blogs and journalists.

The german journalist associaation called it an attack on freedom of the
press.

[http://www.djv.de/startseite/profil/der-djv/pressebereich-
do...](http://www.djv.de/startseite/profil/der-djv/pressebereich-
download/pressemitteilungen/detail/article/justizposse-gegen-
journalisten.html)

~~~
dvdkhlng
Some more context: The attorney general Harald Range repeatedly refused to
perform in-depth investigations against US spying on german politicians and
institutions (e.g. [1]), but instead he is now targeting those journalists
that were critical of those US actions.

[1]
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/12/germany_drops_invest...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/12/germany_drops_investigation_into_nsa_hacking_merkels_phone/)

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_stephan
Currently netzpolitik.org doesn't seem to be able to cope with the traffic.
The text of the page can also be read here:
[http://pastebin.com/kwUyafqi](http://pastebin.com/kwUyafqi)

~~~
doener
See:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20150329154655/https://netzpoliti...](http://web.archive.org/web/20150329154655/https://netzpolitik.org/2015/geheimer-
geldregen-verfassungsschutz-arbeitet-an-massendatenauswertung-von-
internetinhalten/)

and

[https://web.archive.org/web/20150415155552/https://netzpolit...](https://web.archive.org/web/20150415155552/https://netzpolitik.org/2015/geheime-
referatsgruppe-wir-praesentieren-die-neue-verfassungsschutz-einheit-zum-
ausbau-der-internet-ueberwachung/)

------
_jomo
Netzpolitik.org are doing great work. They are live blogging from every public
session of the NSAUA (NSA Investigation Committee), where video and audio
recordings are prohibited, they keep track of all sorts of political event and
changes regarding net politics (hence the name) such as data retention, net
neutrality, the recent hack of the German parliament etc. They also send FOIA
requests about these topics, report about nuisances and double standards and
they publish information that was kept secret (or 'non-public' as politicians
prefer to call it).

A few weeks ago it was rumored that there was an ongoing investigation against
the whistleblowers who leaked some of the documents. The government did not
want to confirm any of this and it was not clear until today that the
journalists were also part of the investigation.

It's a shame to see this happening in Germany.

------
allendoerfer
So the first substantial action of the German government to the NSA scandal is
to persecute journalists. Learned, never forgotten.

It is summer break without any upcoming news, so I hope this backfires really
bad at them.

------
chipgap98
I find it interesting that they are investigating them for treason, rather
than something like espionage. I know nothing of German law, but it feels like
it would be difficult to prove that they betrayed the country

~~~
Tomte
"Landesverrat" is the core paragraph around the espionage complex. It
criminalizes (among other things) passing secret information to foreign
powers.

As usual when comparing different legal systems it gets muddy. I guess what
you're having in mind is more like "Hochverrat" (high treason).

An aside: what are the connotations of "treason" and "treachery" in English?
Is treason the criminal act against your country and "treachery" more
personal, betraying a friend?

~~~
chc
"Treachery" just means a deep betrayal of trust. Treason, very bad personal
betrayals and things like industrial espionage could all be called treachery
without much argument.

~~~
escape_goat
To expand on that, "treachery" emphasizes a connotation of moral judgement
that is less explicit in "treason", namely because "treason" is always against
the legitimate state (outside of hyperbole), and both the legitimacy of the
state and the morality of betraying it are recognized as matters on which
opinions may differ. One could be treasonous without being treacherous, or
treacherous without being treasonous.

An opinion regarding usage from a native speaker, here: it might for instance
be considered treacherous to lure the King into a forest where he may be
murdered, in return for a rich reward from a pretender to the throne; but
merely supporting the pretender in hopes of a reward, even to the point of
secretly betraying the King, might in other circumstances be plainly and
distastefully treasonous without evoking the same connotations as treachery.

------
powertower
I've been exploring the state of world geopolitics for the last couple of
years, and the ironic thing about all this is that the German media seems to
be predominantly composed of news outlets and journalists who more or less
peddle stories that are created by a foreign government - with the purpose of
serving that foreign government / while betraying its own...

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGqi-k213eE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGqi-k213eE)

~~~
pekk
Everyone who reads the news has an opinion. Germany is not lacking its own
voice and reach into the affairs of other countries. In particular, this kind
of discourse about evil Yankees is certainly a characteristic of German
politics at least since WWII, if not longer. If you want to prove that the
entire German media is run by the CIA, bring data - not more empty claims -
and remember to address the many, many instances of anti-Americanism.

~~~
binarray2000
[http://homment.com/atlantikbruecke](http://homment.com/atlantikbruecke)

OK, it's not the CIA... And this is not about "evil Yankees" (because, a
"Yankee" is not evil). It's about journalists who actually should put all
organizations they are member of, just as F1 drivers do with their sponsors,
on their suits so that the news consumer can know who's interests they
represent: US, Russian, Chinese...

------
neulandbreach
German news site investigated for treason, website of Attorney General hacked:
[http://pastebin.com/PT8yQgky](http://pastebin.com/PT8yQgky)

------
doener
Article in English: [http://www.dw.com/en/german-prosecutors-investigate-
internet...](http://www.dw.com/en/german-prosecutors-investigate-internet-
journalists-for-treason/a-18619254)

------
arca_vorago
"Whosoever […] allows a state secret to come to the attention of an
unauthorised person or to become known to the public in order to prejudice the
Federal Republic of Germany or benefit a foreign power and thereby creates a
danger of serious prejudice to the external security of the Federal Republic
of Germany, shall be liable to imprisonment of not less than one year."

Seems to me like they would have a hard time proving that the journalists let
either a person or the public know about a state secret _in order to...
"prejudice the Federal Republic of Germany" or to "benefit a foreign power"_.
That would mean they would have to show intent, and while I'm not familiar
with these particular journalists, I think it's highly unlikely they are
trying to destroy their own country, and are rather trying to perform their
function as journalists in that they are informing citizens, aka the public,
about potentially relevant information even if it may be considered
confidential or secret in nature.

The problem is that the governments of the world want to pretend like that
have final say in what constitutes _egregiously dangerous information_ and
often conflate it with information that is obviously not.

Germany has quite a few more restrictions on free speech as well, but I'm
curious what section of law the accusations would fall under.

Look, the bottom line is that across the world, freedom of speech is dangerous
to the powers that be, and it is communication that enables freedom of speech.
Communication in the form of technology has largely leveled the playing field
faster than nation states could catch up, and the internet has for a short
time become a bastion of free speech in a world were the state and
corporations have taken over almost all other forms (first it was the printing
press, then the telegraph, then radio, and TV).

Now TPTB have awoken to the danger that is the internet as a medium of
unrestricted anarchistic freedom of though, and that, my friends, is the real
reason the internet will be, and is being, taken over, legislated, regulated,
censored, tracked and tagged. Not because of "national security", but because
of "globalized aristocratic oligarchical security posing as national
security".

Make no mistake, they will pass the laws they want if they don't exist, and if
we fight them (like we did with SOPA/CISPA, etc) they will simply try again
after learning the lessons of their defeat. That doesn't mean we shouldn't
keep fighting them, but the attacker, especially a well geared and learned
attacker always has the advantage.

A good example of this kind of legislative subterfuge, at least in the US, is
the Aldrich plan and the Federal Reserve Act.

According to G. Edward Griffin, Paul Warburg and his co-conspirators “added
several very sound provisions to the Federal Reserve Bill. By that I mean they
added some provisions which seriously restricted the ability of the Federal
Reserve to create money out of nothing. Warburg's associates said, ‘Paul, what
are you doing? We don't want those in there, this is our bill.’ And his
response was, "Relax fellas, don't you get it? Our object is to get the bill
passed. We can fix it up later." Those were his exact words. ‘We can fix it up
later.’ …

------
gohrt
This story is an exception to Godwin's Law.

