[governance] Germany: New Basic Right to Privacy of Computer

[Suresh Ramasubramanian]

Ralf Bendrath [29/02/08 16:02 +0100]:
> I am afraid this is a natural conflict that is pretty well known in many 
> countries. Since 2001, the law enforcement people have gained more and more 
> intrusive competences. I think it is just fair that this time, the privacy 

Actually, Germany is about the one place where I have seen the conflict
this pronounced, with parties almost actively hostile, and even invoking
memories of the old Nazi days.

Covert searches have their place - but never, ever warrantless. I hope we
agree on that. With sufficient oversight mechanism, and a warrant and
proper procedures followed, yes, wiretaps are sometimes essential in police
work. 

> AFAIK there are a lot of ISPs here who do pretty well without logging
> personal data.

You think?  Most german ISPs are shying away from basic best practices such
as port 25 management + walled gardens to isolate malware / abusive traffic
emitting users (please see http://www.maawg.org -> published documents for
the managing port 25 and walled garden papers, and the ISP best practices)
because their impression is that this is illegal.

And I've had autoreplies such as those I described in my previous email
from various German ISPs before. In situations that are very frustrating as
it means that actual abusers go scot free.

> This is a perfect legal procedure that protects the rights of individuals. 
> Sorry for the inconvenience, but I guess you can at least partially blame 
> it on the content industry which really got on the ISP's nerves with 
> gazillions of requests for logfile data.

DMCA requests? We have a short way with those here. Charge enough
compliance costs and let only genuine requests in due form filter through.

Sorry if I was not perfectly clear but my comments were in the context of
requests from civil or criminal enforcement agencies, not from recording /
software industry law firms. And in requests for assistance between ISPs to
mitigate actual network security and abuse issues.

That's an entirely different ball game and needs to be handled without the
current highly adversarial and hostile attitude that I have seen (more than
one civil society representative - not you personally - has even invoked
nazi imagery there, which would probably count as a Godwin was it a
discussion on usenet, but serves to pour petrol on an already overheated
discussion)

	srs
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