Germany: New basic right to privacy of computer systems

The German Constitutional Court published on 27 February 2008 a landmark ruling about the constitutionality of secret online searches of computers by government agencies. The decision constitutes a new "basic right to the confidentiality and integrity of information-technological systems" as derived from the German Constitution.

The journalist and privacy activist Bettina Winsemann, the politician Fabian Brettel (Left Party), the lawyer and former federal minister for the interior Gerhart Baum (Liberal Party), and the lawyers Julius Reiter and Peter Schantz had challenged the constitutionality of a December 2006 amendmend to the law about the domestic intelligence service of the federal state of North-Rhine Westphalia. The amendmend had introduced a right for the intelligence service to "covertly observe and otherwise reconnoitre the Internet, especially the covert participation in its communication devices and the search for these, as well as the clandestine access to information-technological systems among others by technical means" (paragraph 5, number 11). Parts of the challenges also addressed other amendmends which are not covered here.

The decision of today is widely considered a landmark ruling, because it constitutes a new "basic right to the confidentiality and integrity of information-technological systems" as part of the general personality rights in the German constitution. The reasoning goes: "From the relevance of the use of information-technological systems for the expression of personality (Persönlichkeitsentfaltung) and from the dangers for personality that are connected to this use follows a need for protection that is significant for basic rights. The individual is depending upon the state respecting the justifiable expectations for the integrity and confidentiality of such systems with a view to the unrestricted expression of personality." (margin number 181). The decision complements earlier landmark privacy rulings by the Constitutional Court that had introduced the "right to informational self-determination" (1983) and the right to the "absolute protection of the core area of the private conduct of life" (2004).

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Greek blog aggregator admin arrested

From: European Digital Rights:

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

Antonis Tsipropoulos, the administrator of a Greek blog aggregation website, blogme.gr, had his house raided, his hard drive seized and was himself arrested by the Greek cybercrime division, after having been served with a libel lawsuit without prior notice, because a public figure was offended by a satirical blog that was linked to by his site. The outraged response by Greek bloggers was immediate and unprecedented, reaching in the hundreds of posts within two days of the raid.

It was later revealed that the arrest and seizure had taken place 5 months prior to the revelation, but Mr. Tsipropoulos had chosen to withhold the incident. The story however received wide coverage in local media, as well as international attention, since it's disclosure coincided with the First Internet Governance Forum being hosted in Athens last week, that was attended by Internet luminaries, entrepreneurs and activists like Vint Cerf, Bob Kahn and Joi Ito and featuring panels on Openness and Freedom of Expression.

The IGF Openness session in particular dealt at length with the implications of the arrest, with whether blogs should be regulated and the larger question of free speech on the Internet. Chairing the session was Greek Minister of State and government spokesman Theodoros Roussopoulos, who, when asked about the case, denied any knowledge of the incident. The Minister then went on to declaim against "bloggers who spread lies through television", giving rise to yet another hue and cry among greek bloggers.

Despite the successful campaign to break out the story to the media ahead of the IGF, Greek bloggers have largely been intimidated from the combined effect of the aggregator's arrest and the Minister's statements, and many fear that political blogging might lead to persecution as their status under Greek law is non-existent.

Prior successes of the Greek cybercrime division include the arrest of Swedish programmer Rick Downes on charges of spreading spam via handshake. Greece also made international headlines four years ago because of the shortsighted and highly controversial electronic games ban, that ended with the government being forced by public outcry, both at home and abroad - as well as the intervention of the European Commission - to amend the law and later suspend and deprecate it as unconstitutional.

On a related note, Amnesty International recently put out a "Call to Bloggers", to stand up for Internet freedom ahead of the IGF, while its representatives to the Forum presented special advisor to UN Secretary-General on internet governance, Nitin Desai, with a petition calling on governments to stop the unwarranted restriction of freedom of expression on the internet, and on companies to stop helping them do it", backed by 50,000 online signatures.

A representative of Reporters without Frontiers (RSF) also attended the meeting to accuse leading IT companies of assisting the Chinese government's efforts to curtail free speech in the country. RSF recently published its 5th Annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index, which ranks Greece 32nd among 168 places, leading other EU15 members such as France and Italy, as well as the US, but lagging behind such countries as Namibia, Bolivia and Bosnia - Herzegovina.

Greek Blog Agregator
http://www.blogme.gr

Greek blogger arrest infuriates world (30.10.2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/30/greek_blogger_arrested/

U.N. blasts Cisco, others on China cooperation (31.10.2006)
http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6131010.html

Blogging in the free speech world (31.10.2006)
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/archives/2006/10/31/blogging_in_the_f...

"Call to Bloggers" to stand up for freedom ahead of world meeting on future of Internet (27.10.2006)
http://news.amnesty.org/index/ENGPOL300552006

North Korea, Turkmenistan, Eritrea the worst violators of press freedom - Press Freedom Index 2006
http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=639

Greek Blogs on the blogme.gr case (only in Greek)
http://monitor.vrypan.net/search?q=blogme.gr

(Contribution by Asteris Masouras - oneiros.gr/blog )

Also see: Free Bloggers in Greece initiative

Presumably, the FARC leader’s last words were, "Listen, my password is ...."

Do you believe this?

This past weekend, Colombia invaded Ecuador, killed a guerrilla chief in the jungle, opened his laptop – and what did the Colombians find?

A message to Hugo Chavez that he sent the FARC guerrillas $300 million – which they're using to obtain uranium to make a dirty bomb!
That's what George Bush tells us. And he got that from his buddy, the strange right-wing President of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe.

So: After the fact, Colombia justifies its attempt to provoke a border war as a way to stop the threat of WMDs! Uh, where have we heard that before?

The US press snorted up this line about Chavez' $300 million to “terrorists” quicker than the young Bush inhaling Colombia's powdered export.

What the US press did not do is look at the evidence, the email in the magic laptop. (Presumably, the FARC leader's last words were, “Listen, my password is ….”)

I read them. (You can read them here) While you can read it all in español, here is, in translation, the one and only mention of the alleged $300 million from Chavez:

“… With relation to the 300, which from now on we will call “dossier,” efforts are now going forward at the instructions of the boss to the cojo [slang term for 'cripple'], which I will explain in a separate note. Let's call the boss Ángel, and the cripple Ernesto.”

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Cholesterol Con

From Alternet:

The war against cholesterol has become a profitable cottage industry. But the science behind it has more than a few gaps. (Part two in a series)

Republicans discover: Irregularities in our financial audit process."

On February 1st of this year, National Republican Campaign Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-OK) abruptly released a statement about recently discovered "irregularities in our financial audit process." That was it: no details about whether money might have been stolen, just word that they'd seen fit to bring in the federal authorities.

The details, as they've come, have been embarrassing for the committee, which works to get Republicans elected to the House (which was already hurting in comparison to its Democratic counterpart before all this began).

According to The New York Times this morning, it all began to unravel when Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX), a CPA, asked to meet with the audit firm that was supposedly checking the NRCC's books, an idea that apparently no one had had for several years. Christopher Ward, then the NRCC's treasurer, finally relented, but then chickened out 30 minutes before and fessed up that there actually hadn't been any audits.

It was ultimately discovered that Ward had been faking the audits since 2003. The Politico, which laid out this general outline of events early last month, reported that Ward had forged everything, including the letterhead. So when it came time to actually talk to the people who'd supposedly written those fake reports, it all unraveled.

The FBI is currently investigating, and it's not clear yet why Ward was so keen to hide the real numbers. But as the Times reports this morning, the signs are not good. NRCC internal audits since Ward's discovery show that "hundreds of thousands of dollars are missing and presumed stolen." And it gets worse: there are apparently indications that "the financial irregularities might extend beyond the national committee to the campaign funds of individual Republican lawmakers who also worked with Mr. Ward, a longtime party operative."

Ward had been with the NRCC since 1993 and worked for dozens of Republican campaign committees, political action committees, and other organizations. It'll be interesting to see what the FBI turns up.

~ Today's Must Read ~