Surveillance of Germany: Federal Prosecutor's office gets involved in the NSA data scandal<p>By Jörg Schindler<p>Central NSA offices in Fort Meade: spy programs are a case for German jurisprudence<p>According to SPIEGEL's sources, surveillance by the the American spy service NSA has now also come to the attention of the Federal Prosecutor's office. Information is being gathered in Karlsruhe about the American and British spy programs – a suit against unknown parties has already been filed.<p>Berlin – the spy affair involving the American spy service NSA has now reached the Federal Prosecutor's office. Located in Karlsruhe and responsible for criminal acts against domestic security, according to SPIEGEL sources the agency is investigating whether the systematic data surveillance of German citizens is a crime involving national security.<p>A spokeswoman for the Federal Prosecutor's office confirmed that all available and relevant information about the Prism, Tempora, and Boundless Informant is currently being evaluated. An attempt is being made to construct a "reliable basis in fact". Whether and when the Federal Prosecutor may issue a formal finding is a question that remains open.<p>However, she stated that even now "criminal prosecutation can be expected in this context." According to SPIEGEL sources, one such suit has already been filed: A resident of Hessen filed suit against unknown parties this week with the State Attorney in Giessen. That makes the NSA scandal an official matter for the German judiciary for the first time.<p>According to SPIEGEL sources, the surveillance of Germany by the US spy service NSA is more extensive than heretofore assumed. Secret NSA documents reveal that the agency systematically inspects and store a large part of telephone and Internet connection data. According to internal statistics at the spy agency, about 500 million communications connections are monitored in the Federal Republic of Germany each month. The NSA has categorized Germany as a target.<p>SPIEGEL also reports that the NSA has bugged EU representatives and infiltrated computer systems. The disclosures about the NSA Prism program and the British Tempora program originated from material gathered by whistleblower Edward Snowden.<p>Videoconference with London on Tempora<p>The British government, whose spy service Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) hosts the data vacuum cleaner Tempora that is aimed at Germany, has in the meantime deviated from their strict policy of silence. In the past week, London responded to a request for information from the German government with the sparse note that communications service operations are never the subject of open discussion. Anyone who wants to know something should contact the British spy service directly – at the appropriate level.<p>In particular Minister of Justice Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger seemed rather taken aback. "Three measly lines", said the FDP party member, are not enough to patch up a scandal of these dimensions.<p>Now the Foreign Office of the federal government has received an invitation from the Brits to a video conference to be held tomorrow at 4 PM in the British Embassy in Berlin. According to SPIEGEL sources, the Germans will be represented by experts from the Ministries of the Interior and Justice, the Foreign Office, and the Federal Communications Service, among others. In light of the latest revelations, it's said internally, hard questions can be anticipated.<p>534 words. My invoice will be in the mail. After all the discussion, I went with "target" for "Angriffsziel". In context it really is the best translation.
It's so funny to see all this railing up against NSA and PRISM, while tomorrow, the first of July 2013, the "Bestandsdatenauskunft" will be implemented as law in Germany. A commentator from <i>Die Zeit</i> newspaper tersely summed up the intentionally abstruse wording of the new rules. The law means, “that police and intelligence services will in the future be allowed to obtain extremely personal information about mobile phone users, and do so with the press of a button and without having to face any major legal hurdles”.<p>Crudely translated it would mean something similar to "Inventory Data Information Act". Parts of the new law are the following:<p>> With respect to the obligations of the access providers, ISPs with more than 100,000 customers are now required to maintain a “secure electronic interface” in order to minimise the time needed for certain agencies to retrieve information.<p>The innocuous sounding term, “inventory data”, should not detract from the fact that the issue involves direct access to people’s private lives. “Not only names, addresses and bank account details will be sent to the police. But also the PINs of the mobile phones, and passwords blocking e-mail inboxes and accessing services like Dropbox and dynamic IP addresses”, warned Die Zeit .<p>Proper english article (I don't know about this source in general, but this one is accurate): <a href="https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/04/11/germ-a11.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/04/11/germ-a11.html</a><p>Google translated german articles:<p><i>Die Zeit</i>: <a href="http://translate.google.de/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zeit.de%2Fdigital%2Fdatenschutz%2F2013-03%2Fbestandsdaten-breyer-bundestag" rel="nofollow">http://translate.google.de/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=n&prev=_...</a><p><i>Der Spiegel</i>: <a href="http://translate.google.de/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Fnetzwelt%2Fnetzpolitik%2Fnrw-beschwor-horrorszenarien-fuer-bestandsdatenauskunft-a-899421.html" rel="nofollow">http://translate.google.de/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=htt...</a><p><i>Netzpolitik.org</i>: <a href="http://translate.google.de/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fnetzpolitik.org%2F2013%2Fwie-fur-die-bestandsdatenauskunft-getrickst-wurde%2F" rel="nofollow">http://translate.google.de/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=htt...</a><p>The debate about this is astonishing mute on its own, but compared to the NSA, PRISM and TEMPORA public outcry, the debate about the Bestandsdatenauskunft is basically non-existent at the moment.
I'm surprised, and also quite disappointed, that only Germany (that I know of) takes the spying on its citizens so seriously. I wish more governments would inquire the legality of the NSA programs, and would dare to take action in case it is ruled illegal.
An English article on these issues. Today from Spiegel Online:<p><a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/eu-officials-furious-at-nsa-spying-in-brussels-and-germany-a-908614.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/eu-officials-furi...</a>
Now my (naive?) hopes are a tiny bit higher that the American espionage suspects will get extradited from USA to Germany to face charges and possible punishments.<p>Edit: has such action EVER taken place?
Its nice that at least something happens, but the German Supreme Prosecution Service is not independent from the government as the supreme court is. So if the German government is involved somehow its only eyewash for the crowd and nothing will happen.<p>At least more media coverage, that is good for mobilizing more people to protest against it.
der Spiegel is one of the major German news publications and it has an English site:<p><a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/search/index.html?suchbegriff=NSA&pageNumber=1&suchbereich=dokumenttext&suchzeitraum=&fromDate=&toDate=" rel="nofollow">http://www.spiegel.de/international/search/index.html?suchbe...</a><p>but it might be a couple days behind.
Is there any hope that something tangible is going to come out of that? Given its history it seems more than unlikely that Germany has any abilities of severe actions. Oh well, I am sure they are going to send a detailed list of issues that need to be addressed through "diplomatic channels"...