Access to documents and internal security<\/strong> Accessing personal data? A fundamental right in practice<\/strong> An odyssey through the databases of the political police<\/strong> A short tutorial on access right and domestic intelligence<\/strong> The parliament\u2019s right to question<\/strong> Personal information in police databases<\/strong> Real extent of deadly right-wing violence officially denied<\/strong> The story of the Thuringian informant Kai-Uwe Trinkaus<\/strong> Lower Saxony aims to revise the state police act<\/strong> German intelligence agencies seek to master the internet<\/strong> Focus: Access to Information Access to documents and internal security by Norbert P\u00fctter Access of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112,149],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cilip-107","category-summaries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-dev.daten.cool\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-dev.daten.cool\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-dev.daten.cool\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-dev.daten.cool\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-dev.daten.cool\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp-dev.daten.cool\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-dev.daten.cool\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-dev.daten.cool\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-dev.daten.cool\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nby Norbert P\u00fctter<\/strong>
\nAccess of citizens to information about the state and to data, which the state collects, is an old demand of the civil liberties movement. Today, freedom of information acts exist in eleven German L\u00e4nder, and at the federal level since 2006. However, security authorities are well shielded by exemption clauses, secret services do not fall under the scope of the acts and they are almost immune against access rights and parliamentary oversight. Hence, the fortification of the security apparatus against information requests is rather unaffected despite of few success stories.<\/p>\n
\nby the Data Protection Group of the Red Aid Heidelberg<\/strong>
\nFor many years the Data Protection Group of the Red Aid Heidelberg is supporting people who exercise their right to access towards security authorities. Thus, the group has an extensive experience with the manifold problems of practical and legal nature faced by persons who seek access to their data: These are among others obligations to justify requests, administrative demands for certified copied of ID cards and the deletion of data before the legality of their processing can be checked.<\/p>\n
\nby Harun Spies<\/strong>
\nIt took 26 months of persistent struggle until the data of an activist, who was registered by the political police in the context of protests against surveillance and EU migration policy, were deleted from the databases of the Federal Criminal Police Office. However, the activist\u2019s data are still elusive in the Kafkaesque labyrinth of new security cooperation after being transferred to the German intelligence agencies and 15 other European countries via \u201ccounter-terrorism\u201d networks.<\/p>\n
\nInterview with Angela Furmaniak and Udo Kau\u00df<\/strong>
\nIf someone is targeted as \u201cextremist\u201d by the domestic intelligence is hard to know. This is because of the difficulties to exercise the right to access. Even if persons are successful they often only scratch at the surface as many information is blackened or blocked. Despite these challenges, data access requests make the domestic intelligence accountable to courts, data protection authorities and data subjects \u2013 at least a bit.<\/p>\n
\nby Albrecht Maurer and Matthias Monroy<\/strong>
\nThe parliament\u2019s right to information and question is based on article 38 of the Basic Law and the democratic principle enshrined in article 20. Details are regulated by the rules of procedure of the German Bundestag. Legislative oversight of the executive branch of government by requests of the parliamentary parties and questions by individual MPs is limited when the federal government is worried about \u201cstate welfare\u201d or the \u201ccore of executive responsibility\u201d. The limits of the government\u2019s obligation to answer questions are therefore contested in court time after time.<\/p>\n
\nby Matthias Monroy and Christian Schr\u00f6der<\/strong>
\nA series of parliamentary questions in the Bundestag and state parliaments find out a lot about the use of doubtful categories of personal information in police databases. Now the Conference of the Ministers of the Interior is discussion about modifications.<\/p>\nBeyond the focus<\/h4>\n
\nby Heike Kleffner<\/strong>
\nThe federal government still does only recognise on third of the more than 150 casualties, counted by civil society organisations, as victims of deadly racist violence. No improvement is to be expected by the examination of 745 \u201cold cases\u201d which was ordered by the Conference of the Interior Ministers in 2012. Interim results show that the real extent of right-wing attacks will be denied also in the future.<\/p>\n
\nby Paul Wellsow<\/strong>
\nFrom 2012 to 2014 an inquiry committee investigated the activities of Kai-Uwe Trinkaus, a former Neo-Nazi functionary and informant of the domestic intelligence in Thuringia. The committee shed light on the complicity of the intelligence agency while Trinkaus defamed and infiltrated other organisations, established Neo-Nazi structures and knew about planned right-wing violence. It became clear that a red line was crossed by contracting Trinkaus as informant, internal rules were severely violated by his liaison officer and oversight of the agency failed.<\/p>\n
\nby Michael Sch\u00fctte<\/strong>
\nIn September 2014 a proposal for a revised state police act was presented in Lower Saxony. The police shall not protect \u201cpublic order\u201d any longer, judicial oversight of covert police actions shall be improved and stop and search powers limited. But the bill fails to fulfil the vision of a \u201ccitizens\u2019 police\u201d in other areas: New standards aim to regulate registration obligations and warning messages to \u201ctroublemakers\u201d, and the police shall be empowered to issue fines against disobedient citizens.<\/p>\n
\nby Albrecht Maurer<\/strong>
\nThe Federal Intelligence Service and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution aim to expand their internet surveillance capacities by investing massively in new technologies. Unimpressed by the Snowden revelations on mass surveillance by the \u201cFive Eyes\u201d and the complicity of German authorities the Trust Panel of the German Bundestag hastily passed the expensive programmes in autumn 2014.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"