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> France has won support for the carve out, which is justified as “essential to strike a fair balance between the need to protect the confidentiality of journal

> France has won support for the carve out, which is justified as “essential to strike a fair balance between the need to protect the confidentiality of journalists’ sources and the need to protect citizens and the state against serious threats, whoever the perpetrators may be”. So you mean this would only be applicable in cases of e.g. imminent terrorist attacks? Or ... > pirating music or video

jkaplowitz 3y ago
The examples in the article also include such serious threats as bicycle theft and ... any crime with a maximum punishment of 5 years in prison, which blows the door wide open to far more crimes than one can count. Several other countries supported France on this - including Germany, which would probably have trouble getting its own Federal Constitutional Court to permit this broad of a rule, since its Basic Law does include the secrecy of communications as a fundamental right. (Presumably subject to some exceptions like most fundamental rights, but this would be a huge exception.) I wonder if Germany's courts will refuse to apply this new EU legislation to the extent of any conflict with Germany's Basic Law. No rights guaranteed by a fundamental constitutional document of a nation are truly solid if they can just be overridden at the EU level. Hopefully the ECJ will not uphold this EU legislation so we don't have to consider the question of an override.