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I really don't get it. It's against the German constitution and yet there are still politicians pushing for that, again and again. We should make it mandatory t

I really don't get it. It's against the German constitution and yet there are still politicians pushing for that, again and again. We should make it mandatory that when something is clearly against the constitution you loose your job as a politician. It won't work anyway. It's the same spiel wasting so much money and time. Do we know which lobby group/party is pushing for that yet again?

betaby 1y ago
> It's against the German constitution No one cares. Like anywhere in the world.
- IncreasePosts 1y ago
  Just saying "It's unconstitutional" doesn't really cut it. It's a question for the courts to decide (based on the constitution).
  - bee_rider 1y ago
    A constitution is the basic big-picture law of the country. The court’s interpretation should be easy to guess. Otherwise, the people won’t feel like it is their document. Rule of law is aided by laws that people know how to follow.
    - IncreasePosts 1y ago
      At least in America, a classic go to for Republican and democrats alike for opposing legislation is "that's unconstitutional!"
      - bee_rider 1y ago
        Sure, I’m from the US as well. In our case, I think this stems from multiple problems—the popular understanding of the constitution and the letter of the thing have diverged, and also the Supreme Court has gone in a third totally unrelated direction. So it becomes a convenient rhetorical meme. (IMO, we should the thing once a generation and have the populace re-ratify it with a high consensus, so we’re all on the same page). I’m not sure if that’s the case in Germany though.
        RamblingCTO 1y ago
        as the constitution doesn't have that high of a place in our identity it's more something for constitutional lawyers and higher courts. I think there's more tension between our constitutional law and that of the EU's law. for most people that's background noise I guess.
        yxhuvud 1y ago
        In this particular question there are also fundamental human rights that are part of the EU legislation where it is fully plausible that ECJ would render any law implementing the EU law. Like Ipred, where our politicians tried to pass laws following it but it got struck down again and again. No idea if they have given up yet.
  - RamblingCTO 1y ago
    They did already, multiple times now. Hence my original comment.
- RamblingCTO 1y ago
  I think your comment was taken as "no one cares about Germany"/being snarky. But it can also be read as "those who should do not respect the constitution, like anywhere in the world". I assume the latter, am I correct?
  - betaby 1y ago
    'Constitution' arguments are used by ones in power only to server their agenda. Constitution argument won't save us from the surveillance. Most of the time western countries play 'national security' and 'think of the children' to circumvent the constitution and have ~100% success rate.
    - RamblingCTO 1y ago
      I don't feel like that's true in Germany. The constitutional court would like a word I guess. They have a pretty big history regarding surveilance and such.
      - betaby 1y ago
        So shouldn't be a concern then for Germans? Somehow I don't buy that. See for example https://forum.torproject.org/t/tor-relays-artikel-5-e-v-another-police-raid-in-germany-general-assembly-on-sep-21st-2024/14533 https://forum.torproject.org/t/tor-relays-artikel-5-e-v-anot... and that's not an isolated event. Before that were jabber chat nodes.
        RamblingCTO 1y ago
        So did they go to court? I think that would be crucial to rectify that. If not, they let the rogue agents have a free hand.
        betaby 1y ago
        Be involved in the legal battle (especially with the government) is a punishment already. The state has unlimited power to haras and do that frequently.
graemep 1y ago
Is it clearly against the constitution? What happens when the constitution clashes with EU law? Can the constitution be amended and is it likely if there is a clash with EU law on this issue? Enormous pressure can be brought to bear in politicians over something like this. The most prominent British politician to oppose the Online Safety Act in the UK is being labelled as "helping people like Jimmy Saville" by the government (Saville was a TV presenter and notorious child abuser) .
- dmesg 1y ago
  It is against it and the law was revoked twice already by liberal politician SLS: 2nd March 2010 - 1 BvR 256/08 I don't like this rhetorical style were easy to prove facts are denounced with questions to evoke uncertainty. If you now say this is not applicable as this is about storing connection data you don't understand the issue in full: This is a deeper incision than just storing connection logs. This violates a more fundamental right. We are talking about chats here. Not what IPs you connected to at what time (and that law was canned as violating the entire constitution, which i cited with the state's decision above). There is no middleground here.
  - graemep 1y ago
    No, I am not arguing anything, I was just asking.
    - dmesg 1y ago
      Right sorry the topic is very exhausting and I extrapolated my frustration, assuming you are interested, it came back in 2015 and was canned again in 2019: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorratsdatenspeicherung_in_Deutschland https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorratsdatenspeicherung_in_Deu... I am tired of Germany needing constant chemos because unconstitutional laws grow back. They pass faster into action, than you can excise them in Karlsruhe. The mechanism for Germany to self-heal is very very slow. This is an imbalance that makes it hard to fight such laws. They change a miniscule detail and it can pass a 3rd and 4th time.
derelicta 1y ago
A constitution is just a piece of paper. The ruling class can discard it as they wish.
- bee_rider 1y ago
  The current ruling class consists of people who did well in (somewhat, at least) transparent rule-of-law conditions. They can discard the laws if they want I guess, but they should take a lesson from Putin’s Russia—they are rich now, but without laws some intelligence officer can chuck them out of windows until someone in their family tree is willing to pay up. (Not that they need to look to Russia for an example, it is just a recent one, their own history books are full of these guys). Actually, I think they are aware of that, which is why they keep trying to do the paperwork properly.
nickslaughter02 1y ago
> Do we know which lobby group/party is pushing for that yet again? tldr: A US based surveillance company called Thorn has been lobbying for this for years. ‘Who Benefits?’ Inside the EU’s Fight over Scanning for Child Sex Content https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the-eus-fight-over-scanning-for-child-sex-content/ https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the... Chat control & Kutcher: Ombudsman criticizes secrecy https://www.heise.de/en/news/Chat-control-Kutcher-Ombudsman-criticizes-secrecy-9805435.html https://www.heise.de/en/news/Chat-control-Kutcher-Ombudsman-...

betaby 1y ago

> It's against the German constitution No one cares. Like anywhere in the world.

IncreasePosts 1y ago
Just saying "It's unconstitutional" doesn't really cut it. It's a question for the courts to decide (based on the constitution).
- bee_rider 1y ago
  A constitution is the basic big-picture law of the country. The court’s interpretation should be easy to guess. Otherwise, the people won’t feel like it is their document. Rule of law is aided by laws that people know how to follow.
  - IncreasePosts 1y ago
    At least in America, a classic go to for Republican and democrats alike for opposing legislation is "that's unconstitutional!"
    - bee_rider 1y ago
      Sure, I’m from the US as well. In our case, I think this stems from multiple problems—the popular understanding of the constitution and the letter of the thing have diverged, and also the Supreme Court has gone in a third totally unrelated direction. So it becomes a convenient rhetorical meme. (IMO, we should the thing once a generation and have the populace re-ratify it with a high consensus, so we’re all on the same page). I’m not sure if that’s the case in Germany though.
      - RamblingCTO 1y ago
        as the constitution doesn't have that high of a place in our identity it's more something for constitutional lawyers and higher courts. I think there's more tension between our constitutional law and that of the EU's law. for most people that's background noise I guess.
        yxhuvud 1y ago
        In this particular question there are also fundamental human rights that are part of the EU legislation where it is fully plausible that ECJ would render any law implementing the EU law. Like Ipred, where our politicians tried to pass laws following it but it got struck down again and again. No idea if they have given up yet.
- RamblingCTO 1y ago
  They did already, multiple times now. Hence my original comment.
RamblingCTO 1y ago
I think your comment was taken as "no one cares about Germany"/being snarky. But it can also be read as "those who should do not respect the constitution, like anywhere in the world". I assume the latter, am I correct?
- betaby 1y ago
  'Constitution' arguments are used by ones in power only to server their agenda. Constitution argument won't save us from the surveillance. Most of the time western countries play 'national security' and 'think of the children' to circumvent the constitution and have ~100% success rate.
  - RamblingCTO 1y ago
    I don't feel like that's true in Germany. The constitutional court would like a word I guess. They have a pretty big history regarding surveilance and such.
    - betaby 1y ago
      So shouldn't be a concern then for Germans? Somehow I don't buy that. See for example https://forum.torproject.org/t/tor-relays-artikel-5-e-v-another-police-raid-in-germany-general-assembly-on-sep-21st-2024/14533 https://forum.torproject.org/t/tor-relays-artikel-5-e-v-anot... and that's not an isolated event. Before that were jabber chat nodes.
      - RamblingCTO 1y ago
        So did they go to court? I think that would be crucial to rectify that. If not, they let the rogue agents have a free hand.
        betaby 1y ago
        Be involved in the legal battle (especially with the government) is a punishment already. The state has unlimited power to haras and do that frequently.

graemep 1y ago

Is it clearly against the constitution? What happens when the constitution clashes with EU law? Can the constitution be amended and is it likely if there is a clash with EU law on this issue? Enormous pressure can be brought to bear in politicians over something like this. The most prominent British politician to oppose the Online Safety Act in the UK is being labelled as "helping people like Jimmy Saville" by the government (Saville was a TV presenter and notorious child abuser) .

dmesg 1y ago
It is against it and the law was revoked twice already by liberal politician SLS: 2nd March 2010 - 1 BvR 256/08 I don't like this rhetorical style were easy to prove facts are denounced with questions to evoke uncertainty. If you now say this is not applicable as this is about storing connection data you don't understand the issue in full: This is a deeper incision than just storing connection logs. This violates a more fundamental right. We are talking about chats here. Not what IPs you connected to at what time (and that law was canned as violating the entire constitution, which i cited with the state's decision above). There is no middleground here.
- graemep 1y ago
  No, I am not arguing anything, I was just asking.
  - dmesg 1y ago
    Right sorry the topic is very exhausting and I extrapolated my frustration, assuming you are interested, it came back in 2015 and was canned again in 2019: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorratsdatenspeicherung_in_Deutschland https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorratsdatenspeicherung_in_Deu... I am tired of Germany needing constant chemos because unconstitutional laws grow back. They pass faster into action, than you can excise them in Karlsruhe. The mechanism for Germany to self-heal is very very slow. This is an imbalance that makes it hard to fight such laws. They change a miniscule detail and it can pass a 3rd and 4th time.

derelicta 1y ago

A constitution is just a piece of paper. The ruling class can discard it as they wish.

bee_rider 1y ago
The current ruling class consists of people who did well in (somewhat, at least) transparent rule-of-law conditions. They can discard the laws if they want I guess, but they should take a lesson from Putin’s Russia—they are rich now, but without laws some intelligence officer can chuck them out of windows until someone in their family tree is willing to pay up. (Not that they need to look to Russia for an example, it is just a recent one, their own history books are full of these guys). Actually, I think they are aware of that, which is why they keep trying to do the paperwork properly.

nickslaughter02 1y ago

> Do we know which lobby group/party is pushing for that yet again? tldr: A US based surveillance company called Thorn has been lobbying for this for years. ‘Who Benefits?’ Inside the EU’s Fight over Scanning for Child Sex Content https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the-eus-fight-over-scanning-for-child-sex-content/ https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the... Chat control & Kutcher: Ombudsman criticizes secrecy https://www.heise.de/en/news/Chat-control-Kutcher-Ombudsman-criticizes-secrecy-9805435.html https://www.heise.de/en/news/Chat-control-Kutcher-Ombudsman-...