German Court Orders Stored Telecoms Data Deletion [Archive]

Serra

03-02-2010, 11:46 AM

The constitutional court overturned a 2008 law requiring communications data to be kept for six months.

The law - designed to combat terrorism and serious crime - required telecoms companies to keep logs of calls, faxes, SMS messages, e-mails and internet use.

But nearly 35,000 Germans lodged complaints against it, arguing that the law violated their right to privacy.

Link (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8545772.stm)

I wonder if it will have any impact on the future of the similar EU directive. Time will tell.

Katanai

03-02-2010, 11:53 AM

Yes!!!

:clap:

msull

03-02-2010, 01:39 PM

Hooray privacy!

MirageSys

03-02-2010, 01:41 PM

Meh, I'm an American and I don't care too much for this type of freedom. I feel this impinges upon law enforcements ability to correctly administer justice and will eliminate evidence.

Behemot

03-02-2010, 01:45 PM

Lets hope politicians payed by movie and gaming industry will think about the laws twice next time...or how many lawsuits like this they need to finally discover people don't let everybody to piss on their heads?

FischOderAal

03-02-2010, 01:47 PM

They did not question the storage of this data in general, just the current implementation. It's a very small success, but better than nothing. Our constitutional court is maybe the last fortress of freedom. Too bad it won't always be on guard and our politicians will try everything possible to silence these "troublemakers".

Our constitution means nothing to our stupid politicians. They will keep on passing laws that are against our constitution...

Meh, I'm an American and I don't care too much for this type of freedom. I feel this impinges upon law enforcements ability to correctly administer justice and will eliminate evidence.

Go read 1984 and get some common sense, kthxbai.

Lets hope politicians payed by movie and gaming industry will think about the laws twice next time...or how many lawsuits like this they need to finally discover people don't let everybody to piss on their heads?

This has nothing to do with copyright infringement. The ISPs still store who had which IP at what time for a few weeks for the bills and that's the data that is used to fight copyright infringement, not the data of the "Vorratsdatenspeicherung".

zalbard

03-02-2010, 02:01 PM

Germany is pretty liberal, they are lucky. Look at UK and France... :(
Hope more will follow the suit.

Manicdan

03-02-2010, 02:04 PM

id be worried about personal info being saved, not so much that im just being spied on. its kinda weird that people dont like someone watching them, as if they are such a horrible person. but if one disgruntled worker gets fired and gives away all the security info and everyone in the world basically has a 6 month keylog for everyone, its a bit of an issue.

Sadasius

03-02-2010, 02:06 PM

Whoa....You mean democracy actually exists?!? :shocked: I thought that was the BS that was spoon fed to us while we are children eating government drugged bread and drinking government poisoned water.

FischOderAal

03-02-2010, 02:12 PM

Germany is pretty liberal, they are lucky. Look at UK and France... :(
Hope more will follow the suit.

Comparably maybe. The UK is definitely the worst in the EU and la grande nation (France) has fallen deep from Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité...

But Germany is on its way, especially with the conservative CDU being in the government... We're lucky that they are currently in the boat with the FDP which considers itself liberal (I don't call them liberal actually...).

Also keep in mind that many EU-laws are based on the wish of German politicians...

Behemot

03-02-2010, 02:13 PM

This has nothing to do with copyright infringement. The ISPs still store who had which IP at what time for a few weeks for the bills and that's the data that is used to fight copyright infringement, not the data of the "Vorratsdatenspeicherung".

You're closer to it, I have info only from this article, but there stands "calls, faxes, SMS", so I think ISP's stores info like "something was send from here to there". Definitely more than just end user IP's...

FischOderAal

03-02-2010, 02:22 PM

You're closer to it, I have info only from this article, but there stands "calls, faxes, SMS", so I think ISP's stores info like "something was send from here to there". Definitely more than just end user IP's...

Indeed. The Vorratsdatenspeicherung collects (or collected :woot: ) who gave someone a call, who send someone a SMS, Email and so on. It didn't save what was written but saved traffic data. But this data can be used for quite much as well.

Note that our beloved BKA has still the right to read your mails, SMS etc when a judge allows it.

Fun fact: the red army faction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rote_armee_fraktion) fought against what they thought to be a fascist government, but all what their actions caused was the foundation of the BKA and their surveillance instruments. They reached the opposite of what they tried to achieve.

Manicdan

03-02-2010, 02:26 PM

great job turning this into political debates. i think were very close to a closed thread.

mrcape

03-02-2010, 02:31 PM

Hornet331

03-02-2010, 05:01 PM

Wonder if the germans get sued by the European Court of Justice, cause to suspend that law, is a breach of the EU directive 2006/24/EG.

EU law outweigh national laws, even if its against the nations constitution... (yeah sucks to be in the EU...)

But i guess nothing will happen, as always when some of the bigger countries in the Eu decide NOT to follow there own decisions... :p:

[XC] gomeler

03-02-2010, 05:05 PM

Meh, I'm an American and I don't care too much for this type of freedom. I feel this impinges upon law enforcements ability to correctly administer justice and will eliminate evidence.

I am an American and I care very much about this type of freedom. I feel it keeps the law enforcement from breathing down our necks and unlawfully logging all our communication.

bill_d

03-02-2010, 05:14 PM

yes but
35,000 Germans lodged complaints out of 82 mil

thats probably mostly just the terrorists

zanzabar

03-02-2010, 05:22 PM

gomeler;4267933']I am an American and I care very much about this type of freedom. I feel it keeps the law enforcement from breathing down our necks and unlawfully logging all our communication.

i agree, and terrorism is a crutch to take people rights away, there isnt all that much of it that could be prevented by monitoring traffic or phone calls. there are plenty of encryption or code methods that any1 could use and if some1 is smart enough to infiltrate and blow something up or get a nuke they wont get caught with anything isp/telacom related (not that any1 could use the amount of data that gets collected in the name of terrorism.) even the CIA and FBI say that they get the best intelligence from spys and people on the ground.

it would be nice if they included google in this as they have kgb grade documentation of any1 who used their services and they sell data to individuals and governments

Hornet331

03-02-2010, 05:42 PM

i agree, and terrorism is a crutch to take people rights away, there isnt all that much of it that could be prevented by monitoring traffic or phone calls. there are plenty of encryption or code methods that any1 could use and if some1 is smart enough to infiltrate and blow something up or get a nuke they wont get caught with anything isp/telacom related (not that any1 could use the amount of data that gets collected in the name of terrorism.) even the CIA and FBI say that they get the best intelligence from spys and people on the ground.

it would be nice if they included google in this as they have kgb grade documentation of any1 who used their services and they sell data to individuals and governments

Yes "anti terror" law are so easy to abuse, here in austria there is a case where an association that fights for the rights of divorced men is labled as terrorist and anti goverment movment... :shakes:

And don't get me started about all those "hate speech" laws.... good intentions, but sometimes so abused you just can shake your head....

Speederlander

03-02-2010, 07:15 PM

Well, since so much of life now happens across the internet, consider this. If your identity gets stolen and someone ruins your credit and possibly your finances, there may be zero way to trace anything without a 6 month retention. This doesn't have to be "terrorism OMG" as a justification. So much crime out there and so much electronic crime now especially. It will go up exponentially as time marches on.

I see the argument against retaining the data as well. Anyone who thinks this is clear cut in one direction or the other is naive.

There are positives and negatives. I suspect that anyone here who would get whacked by some craptastic ID thief would soon come to feel differently as most such thieves are idiots who leave a pretty long trail...if data is retained. But who knows.

iddqd

03-02-2010, 07:20 PM

MirageSys

03-02-2010, 07:40 PM

is this sarcasm?

And thank you my friend :P.

Agent11

03-02-2010, 08:03 PM

Meh, I'm an American and I don't care too much for this type of freedom. I feel this impinges upon law enforcements ability to correctly administer justice and will eliminate evidence.

The constitution gives us a right to privacy in our papers, paper itself is just a technological medium for the transcription of information.

Without getting too political I don't think your viewpoint could be an more wrong.

Ah you're being sarcastic.. lol. You wouldn't believe how many people have said exactly what you typed with 100% seriousness.

MirageSys

03-02-2010, 08:07 PM

The constitution gives us a right to privacy in our papers, paper itself is just a technological medium for the transcription of information.

Without getting too political I don't think your viewpoint could be an more wrong.

I was just being sarcastic. In any event, peoples rights to privacy are trampled on a daily basis. This is just a small victory when looking at the big picture.

If you are a conspiracy theorist (perhaps a conspiracy realist?), Europe has long been complacent with the Echelon project, which is basically a worldwide wiretap. Nato regularly picks information from people using Iridium satellite phones and is pretty blatantly careless about disclosing it.

Serpentarius

03-02-2010, 08:26 PM

Speederlander

03-02-2010, 08:37 PM

those who would trade liberty for security deserve neither. and will get exactly what they deserve.

Canned phrases are funny but you trade liberty for security just living in society. Unless you live in the ideal anarchy state (unlikely) or you live alone in the wilderness, you have already compromised over and over and over again, and just about anyone asked on the street would say some level of liberty must be given up for basic societal function. Again, it's easy to be idealistic and eliminate all the shades of gray from the debate when you are posting on an online forum. It's a different matter in the real world.

MirageSys

03-02-2010, 08:51 PM

Canned phrases are funny but you trade liberty for security just living in society. Unless you live in the ideal anarchy state (unlikely) or you live alone in the wilderness, you have already compromised over and over and over again, and just about anyone asked on the street would say some level of liberty must be given up for basic societal function. Again, it's easy to be idealistic and eliminate all the shades of gray from the debate when you are posting on an online forum. It's a different matter in the real world.

Excellent point.

Realistically speaking, this law created a lot of risk associated with the possible leaking of user information. Of how much utility is this program compared with the risk of massive identity theft? Many private companies have proved incapable of harboring user information and have lost thousands of simple entries like credit card numbers. Imagine if one of these companies skimped on security and these detailed logs were compromised. That would be one hell of an ugly day.

I applaud common sense winning out this time.

PaganII

03-02-2010, 09:15 PM

Hope this isn't too off topic but on the subject of Internet Privacy, recently in the US a school passed out laptops for student use which the webcams were used to spy on student activities off campus. 1 student was accused by the school of drug use (which turned out to be candy). I think this case was more abuse by an overzealous Principal than school policy but 1 student and her parents complained they could have been watching her shower or dressing.

Agent11

03-03-2010, 06:11 PM

sounds bull:banana::banana::banana::banana: to me ... we all know all law enforcement uses links to trace the criminal regardless they're terrorist or not

depriving them to such links is like asking officers to catch armed criminals blindfolded

what if there's a psycho terrorist with a nuke, calls the Prez for nego and the enforcers could not trace the call due to privacy of the terrorist?
how bout minor scenarios like kidnapping and blackmailing which happens everyday?

sounds like a big coverup to me

Isn't that why countries have intelligence agencies? I would hate to think all the CIA or any of the big spook agencies have to save us from certain annihilation is mass telecom dumps. Even in practical use the bomb or whatnot would most likely be detonated before they even started to work their way to relevant data.

REAL law enforcement work is the answer, not data mining.

FischOderAal

03-03-2010, 07:34 PM

Serpentarius

03-03-2010, 07:50 PM

Isn't that why countries have intelligence agencies? I would hate to think all the CIA or any of the big spook agencies have to save us from certain annihilation is mass telecom dumps. Even in practical use the bomb or whatnot would most likely be detonated before they even started to work their way to relevant data.

REAL law enforcement work is the answer, not data mining.

well .. frm my knowledge, most countries in this era privatize their telecom companies (and a lot of other basic infrastructure), so part of the agreement to establish a telecom company is to provide full access for the law enforcement any time, any where

but due to the maintenance cost reason, most government prefers the telecom company to absorb the cost of data storage (all gov are stingy), of coz there are some which data mined and stored in the gov archives

but on this case, junking out all the data seems illogical we all know how important certain information are. either the data is directly feed to the gov archive or they're still kept by telecoms in a different law approach

either way, announcing deletion of data is sounds like news to appease the crowd. which why i mention is sounds like a coverup

FischOderAal

03-03-2010, 08:05 PM

either way, announcing deletion of data is sounds like news to appease the crowd. which why i mention is sounds like a coverup

The constitutional court has no reason to do a coverup. Spitting in the soup of the legislature is their only basis of existence.

I don't know why they want the data to be deleted either. But they were "only" stored for six months anyway and it might take some time before a new law is passed.

Speederlander

03-04-2010, 05:49 AM

REAL law enforcement work is the answer, not data mining.

That comment makes no sense. With so many people spending so much time on line and so much commerce now happening on-line, data-mining is a perfectly valid approach to a host of law-enforcement issues. Again, there need to be carefully monitored limits and controls to prevent abuse, but saying "REAL law enforcement work" doesn't include data mining is ridiculous. Without data mining that would mean vast numbers of crimes would have zero chance of ever getting solved because the trail exists only electronically.

FischOderAal

03-04-2010, 06:00 AM

I think he means that all this data is worth nothing without the policemen being able to take action. In Germany the government keeps spending money on data mining and things like the so called Bundestrojaner, but the policemen have to work with old and slow computers, old and prone to defect radios etc. I don't feel safer when they collect everything down to the DNA and plaster the streets with video cameras, I feel safe when I know that there are good equipped and well trained (that's another point...) policemen in the streets.

Agent11

03-04-2010, 07:41 PM

Good point.

There is no replacement for human resources using old fashioned 'investigation' planting 'informants' and 'spies' in organizations known or suspected of committing terrorist acts or those with close ties to such groups..

You can only do so much with a computer in a room somewhere going over a pile of data. They have spy planes that can listen in on cell phone and other communications. Between people on the ground and advanced targeted electronic surveillance the need for mass dumps looks even less important.

In short, giving up liberty isn't the answer.. And should never be imho.

saaya

03-05-2010, 05:37 AM

great ruling!!!! i <3 the german constitutional court! :D
they are 100% unbiased and dont give 2 cents about what big companies and polititians want... :)

Good point.

There is no replacement for human resources using old fashioned 'investigation' planting 'informants' and 'spies' in organizations known or suspected of committing terrorist acts or those with close ties to such groups..

You can only do so much with a computer in a room somewhere going over a pile of data. They have spy planes that can listen in on cell phone and other communications. Between people on the ground and advanced targeted electronic surveillance the need for mass dumps looks even less important.

In short, giving up liberty isn't the answer.. And should never be imho.
exactly, theres a reason its called INTELLIGENCE...
what exactly is so intelligent about senselessly dumping insane amounts of data of average joes and janes that you dont give a damn about?

Agent11

03-05-2010, 09:06 PM

That comment makes no sense. With so many people spending so much time on line and so much commerce now happening on-line, data-mining is a perfectly valid approach to a host of law-enforcement issues. Again, there need to be carefully monitored limits and controls to prevent abuse, but saying "REAL law enforcement work" doesn't include data mining is ridiculous. Without data mining that would mean vast numbers of crimes would have zero chance of ever getting solved because the trail exists only electronically.

I don't buy that. Banks should keep track of and secure information of their e-commerce and interactions as should other independent entities... If an illegal activity is perpetrated those records can be gone over. Same as with paper, without any of the scary implications of data mining.

The only thing that data logging of this scale is good for in my opinion would be assisting the RIAA etc. going after piracy. However there is a much more fundamentally complex issue there.

saaya

03-05-2010, 11:13 PM

I don't buy that. Banks should keep track of and secure information of their e-commerce and interactions as should other independent entities... If an illegal activity is perpetrated those records can be gone over. Same as with paper, without any of the scary implications of data mining.

The only thing that data logging of this scale is good for in my opinion would be assisting the RIAA etc. going after piracy. However there is a much more fundamentally complex issue there.yes, but the banks should do it, not the gov... the gov should only get access to it bit by bit as they need it, and not be able to constantly monitor every and all transactions.

thats what the us feds did with europes cashflow until very recently where the eu decided, wait a minute, this doesnt help at all to catch terrorists... if the us feds monitor all banking traffic in europe, you can bet your 4ss they are doing the same in the states as well... and what for? to catch terrorists... oh please... whats next? installing webcams in every apartment that gets wired to the fb-oi cause it will help them rule out locations that are NOT housing terrorists so it will help them catch the bad guys? hello 1984...