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| Science & Technology |
| German Supreme Court Rules Against Telephone And Internet Data Retention |
| 2010-03-02 |
| (translated from German) The Constitutional Court has decided: The controversial law on data retention in its current form is contrary to the Basic Law. The previously stored data must be deleted immediately. (At this point the Google translator lost its marbles, so if there are any more pertinent details you German speakers can pick up, thanks.) |
| Posted by: Anonymoose |
| #2 More from the Wall Street Journal here. I just poked my head in for a moment, will copy critical bits from the article later. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2010-03-02 16:59 |
| #1 The gist of the decision is not that data storage is unconstitutional per se but that its purpose needs to be strictly defined. Also indiscriminate "profiling" and dragnet investigation is unconstitutional. If law enforcement wants access to the data of a specific person, they need a court order. Sounds quite reasonable to me. The current law would have allowed sweeping datamining of people not suspected of anything, without any oversight. An extremely poorly designed law. That the state should be able to have indiscriminate access to a giant data pool delivered to him that tells them who has been where when and communicated with whom (for the last six months) is not constitutional. |
| Posted by: European Conservative 2010-03-02 16:55 |