
Expanded state hacking powers make a stealthy return to German agenda - waibelp
http://www.zdnet.com/article/expanded-state-hacking-powers-make-a-stealthy-return-to-german-agenda/
======
waibelp
German politics & media at its best: Creating (again) new laws to monitor its
own citizens without them even knowing about it. The "free journalism" simply
does not report about that kind of actions plus the decisions made by the
government mostly happens at night so most of the public does not recognize
it... The interesting part is that the executives are able to monitor your
devices if you ever had anything to do with law no matter what kind of.

Is it normal that "progressive countries" nowadays give a sh*t about their
citizens and their rights? What about innocence presumption?

~~~
germanier
There is no decision made yet and no passed law. Let's wait until the
government actually proposes a law to parliament before getting out the
pitchforks? The law has been in the works for years and there were a few
reports in the press from the beginning. It's part of the coalition agreement.
It feels like the interior minister mentions the idea in every second speech.
Even this Zdnet article says "It has long been known". Almost no law gets much
attention at that stage and many ideas never get proposed to parliament at
all.

The federal government plans to propose an amendment to a law parliament
currently works on. This is well known and the members of parliament already
used that in their debate. Whoever claims this is a "secret proposal through
the back door" either:

\- knows nothing about usual parliamentary procedure and hasn't followed that
topic before at all, or

\- tries to use dishonest arguments directed at people in the former group.
Netzpolitik.org (that leaked the current draft) falls into this category.
Their editor-in-chief debated this "oh so secret law without public debate" on
public stage with the interior minister just last week

> The interesting part is that the executives are able to monitor your devices
> if you ever had anything to do with law no matter what kind of.

This is not true. The (leaked but still unofficial) proposal allows judges to
authorize hacking devices to monitor communication in the cases where they
currently could authorize tapping your analogue phone.

If that law is passed judges can also authorize to hack devices to access
stored content in cases where they currently can authorize installing a
bugging device in your home.

Both only apply for a specific list of crimes. While I still personally think
that this proposal goes to far, it's nowhere near applying "if you ever had
anything to do with law no matter what kind of".

