
Chaos Computer Club files criminal complaint against the German Government - bachback
http://www.ccc.de/en/updates/2014/complaint
======
sentenza
Yes! _IF_ this isn't immediately shot down, things will become interesting.

The German officials can always hide behind police/antiterror investigations
for data they requested, HOWEVER: The collecting and storing of user data and
metadata "verdachtsunabhängig", that is, without there being a investigation
against the people whose data is being slurped specifically, is highly
problematic under German law.

That is the vulnerable spot the CCC is trying to hit and I hope it works.

~~~
chopin
I don't think they can hide behind antiterror investigations. Main allegation
here is that foreign espionage has been facilitated (which is illegal) and
that knowingly is nothing done against it (that's also illegal under the term
"Strafvereitelung"). This is definitely somewhat different from surveillance
allegations which indeed are more politically inclined and can be argued under
antiterror investigations. If state authorities would knowingly support
industrial espionage they can get a hard time if it is possible to collect
hard evidence for it (I doubt that).

~~~
eru
Another somewhat interesting twist of the German legal system that might play
a minor role here is the Legalitätsprinzip
([https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalitätsprinzip](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalitätsprinzip)).

------
weinzierl
The problem that this criminal complaint will face is the "Alliiertes
Vorbehaltsrecht".

"erstens der Überwachungsvorbehalt, das Recht, den in- und ausländischen Post-
und Fernmeldeverkehr in der Bundesrepublik auch weiterhin zu überwachen;
zweitens den Geheimdienstvorbehalt, das Recht, die alliierten Geheimdienste
mit Unterstützung des Bundesamtes für Verfassungsschutz außerhalb des
deutschen Recht zu stellen, wenn es geheimdienstliche Interessen erforderte."

"firstly, the surveillance exception, the right to continue to monitor the
domestic and international postal and telecommunications traffic in the
Federal Republic, and secondly the intelligence exception, the right to the
Allied intelligence with the support of the German Federal Office for
Protection of the Constitution to act outside the German law if intelligence
interests requires so."

While the "Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany" is
considered to have made Germany become fully sovereign, the "Alliiertes
Vorbehaltsrecht" is still in effect according to [1] and [2] (both links in
German only, sorry, there seems to be no online source in English).

[1]
[http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliiertes_Vorbehaltsrecht](http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliiertes_Vorbehaltsrecht)
[2] [http://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2013-10/nsa-
uerberwac...](http://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2013-10/nsa-
uerberwachung-merkel-interview-foschepoth/seite-1)

~~~
DangerousPie
Is there any proper source for this?

The wiki page states that the Alliiertes Vorbehaltsrecht ended when Germany
was reunited in 1990. The only sentence indicating anything else seems to be a
reference to some "secret contracts seen by Josef Foschepoth", but with no
further details.

This is the same author that is being interviewed in your second link, so it
sounds a bit like this is just one guy trying to sell books...

~~~
weinzierl
The Wikipedia article I linked explicitly says it didn't end when Germany was
reunited in 1990 ("Sie gelten weiterhin.", last sentence). But you are right
in that all sources originate from the historian Josef Foschepoth. If it is
one guy trying to sell books or one guy speaking an inconvenient truth, I
don't know. If someone can point to an independent source I would be grateful.

~~~
Xylakant
There's a big debate whether those secret treaties exist and if they do,
whether they say what Foschepoth says they do - i.e. if they allow spying on
all german citizens by allies secret services - and if they allow it, whether
the german government can sign (secret) treaties that violate principles of
the german Grundgesetz (constitution). See for example this blog post
[http://www.internet-law.de/2013/10/darf-die-nsa-in-
deutschla...](http://www.internet-law.de/2013/10/darf-die-nsa-in-deutschland-
die-telekommunikation-ueberwachen.html) and the following discussion.

So if the lawsuit ever makes it to court, these questions need to be debated -
and I'm very interested in seeing the result.

Edit: Just for clarity: The situation may be quite well that currently the
german governments allows allies surveillance based on contracts that are
illegal in itself.

------
Trufa
This is great news, we should be on the offensive.

The system of getting our rights taken away away, and the have to fight for
get them back makes no sense.

Disclaimer: I do very little for my own rights.

------
rjzzleep
the germans have a saying:

"was nicht passt, wird passend gemacht"

in my opinion the same will happen here. if the laws don't fit, the laws will
be adjusted, or the terminology will change. it happened with the now no
longer unconstitutional wars. and obama said the same:

"we're not really spying on you guys, we're just helping our allies"

you have to applaud the germans for their efforts though. after all they were
able to temporarily halt the data retention efforts. i say temporary, because
i'm convinced that even if the european court of justice really bans it(which
i'm not convinced of), it will be even more crucial for them to have someone
from the outside spying.

and besides that there is this rather worrisome notion in politics and
lobbyism that a no in court only stays no until you turn it into a yes.

~~~
aluhut
Sure the law will be adjusted but having the CCC directly involved in the
trial we'll see some interesting details and backgrounds explained.

I'm curious how the german media will handle it. It's Top-News atm on the main
public broadcasters (also on their homepages
[http://www.tagesschau.de/](http://www.tagesschau.de/)
[http://www.heute.de/](http://www.heute.de/) 2nd one is ZDF. Close to the
ruling CDU party). So I guess it will survive till the 8pm news. The trial
coverage will be a different topic though.

~~~
chopin
First, it must be brought to trial. The first step is investigation by the
state attorney and I would be very surprised if it wouldn't be struck down at
that stage. State attorneys in Germany are not independent (unlike judges) but
bound to supervisory advice, in this case the department of justice (afaik).

~~~
aluhut
Sure but since they have been working as expert witnesses for the government
and similar and they know what they are talking about, it will be hard for the
state attorney to make it disappear.

Media will play a major role here too and if you consider the juristical
failures in Bavaria and the media coverage there, it would be pretty stupid
for the state attorney to try something questionable here.

------
bachback
"We accuse US, British and German secret agents, their supervisors, the German
Minister of the Interior as well as the German Chancelor of illegal and
prohibited covert intelligence activities, of aiding and abetting of those
activities, of violation of the right to privacy and obstruction of justice in
office by bearing and cooperating with the electronic surveillance of German
citizens by NSA and GCHQ."

------
higherpurpose
This reminds of Wyden and Udall's recent inquiry into whether CIA is hacking
into American citizens' computers and violating CFAA. While I'm sure CFAA has
exceptions for the federal government to do those "crimes" themselves
(although not sure if the CIA is allowed to, since they are supposed to act
only on foreign territory), I think Wyden and Udall are trying to use this
inquiry to let the American people know that they _are_ doing this, without
actually saying it outright.

[http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140130/10052526049/wyden-...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140130/10052526049/wyden-
udall-hint-strongly-cia-hacking-into-americans-computers.shtml)

------
sneak
> It is unfortunate that those responsible and the circumstances of their
> crimes have not been investigated," says Dr. Julius Mittenzwei, attorney and
> long time member of the CCC.

This is great news. I'm sure they thought they were going to get away with it.

Dr. Mittenzwei, on the other hand, has better plans for them.

------
puppetmaster3
The complaint is directed against the German federal government, the
presidents of the German secret services.

Can we in USA sue the president and Feinstein for crimes like they can?

~~~
ghayes
Yes and no, I'd suggest reading about sovereign immunity in the US:
[http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/sovereign_immunity](http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/sovereign_immunity)

~~~
rayiner
Sovereign immunity protects the state, as a sovereign entity, from suit. It
doesn't protect individual agents of the government. Public officials
generally enjoy immunity from civil suits for monetary damages to the extent
that they are acting in their public capacity and not violating clearly
established law. They are not immune from criminal liability.

The "clearly established law" part is usually the catch. I'll use Obamacare as
an example. Say Obamacare had been found unconstitutional. Could businesses
have sued Kathleen Sebelius for the money they spent in preparation for
implementing this unconstitutional law? There are probably a number of reasons
why not, but one of them is that she is protected by immunity because the
question of whether Obamacare was a valid exercise of Congressional power was
not "clearly established." Sovereign immunity would not protect her, because
she is an agent of the government, not the government itself. In the context
of NSA spying, there's quite a bit of debate on the legality of various
programs, so that would not be considered "clearly established" either.

------
iSnow
This is great news, unfortunately neither the German government nor the
Federal Prosecutor General (Generalbundesanwalt) will have the balls to bring
this to court.

Furthermore the Generalbundesanwalt is nominally independent of the
government, but is traditionally very close to official politics.

------
terranstyler
A good thing by itself but I doubt it will have a real effect other than
showing that "Separation of Powers" in theory works much better than in
practice... (read "not")

Besides, for some reason complaints against the state via the state take
years, just see the ongoing complaints whether EFSF, ESM and whatnot market
stabilization mechanisms violate the no-bailout clause in the EU treaty.

Game theory is a bitch :(

~~~
terranstyler
And don't even get me started on the legal immunity of the (not democratically
elected) governors of the ESM that have the power to demand more money (for
ESM and themselves) no matter what...

------
c7b0rg
Remember to watch the video footage from the latest CC congress if you haven't
done so already:
[http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2013/](http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2013/)
They cover really interesting topics.

------
atmosx
The CCC is a club Germans should be proud of.

------
ChristianMarks
At least this story didn't devolve into dismissive conversation about
irrelevancies, like the Snowden interview story. In that thread, discussants
invented a new notion of "journalistic equivalence" under which mass media
news coverage of remarks by Snowden that officials were calling for his demise
was supposed to be somehow equivalent to substantive coverage of the main
points of the interview. The "proof" of this was the so-called "Reddit
takedown."

------
mrottenkolber
Great effort! I wish them good luck, and hope this will go anywhere.

------
scottydelta
Hope this will finally make a difference after seeing nothing happen even
after the drastic revelation by Edward Snowden.

------
NSAID
The local news station talked about this today. They described it as a group
of "lawyers and computer hackers" suing the government. I get what the CCC is,
but I'm thinking the average member of the public is rolling their eyes at a
bunch of criminals suing the government of surveillance.

~~~
raphman
my local news station (Bavarian public radio) almost exclusively used the term
"civil rights activists".

------
mangeletti
I couldn't help but read the "ILMR" typo in the first sentence of this article
as, "International League for Machine Rights".

~~~
bluegrid
Internationale Liga für Menschenrechte.

------
sergj
I really hope this will back the politians in a corner and shine some light on
what Germany is gathering and sharing with its so called allies.

------
CryptcWriter
This is awesome.

