Germany and privacy

Germany should lead on disarming our global surveillance system | Comment is free | theguardian.com: "But among the blind, the one-eyed man is king. In the last decade, Germany too has started using totalitarian methods. Many laws have been passed to ease surveillance – most of them while Angela Merkel was chancellor. Nearly one in every four of them were then scrapped by our highest court for being unconstitutional. Even the lax barriers of spy-friendly laws are regularly being ignored by public agencies. And still, we feel like a nation with the highest standards of privacy rights although, in fact, we have ceased to be one.

But the feeling and the high estimation of privacy is still vivid and this can now be used to reset the course, back to democracy, where we, the people, define checks and balances and the degree of transparency we want. It is no accident that the Pirate party has seats in four German state parliaments and realistic prospects to enter the national parliament in September. This young political force represents the digital society, fighting for transparent governments and citizen empowerment as well as for freedom rights and privacy."

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