Politics · 18 November 2008 ·
Hope
Not only Obama promises hope, but also the Social Democrats in Saxony. They decided to veto Mr Schäubles recent reform of the federal police, the BKA. With the resulting abstention vote of Saxony in the Bundesrat, the law seems to be blocked—at least temporarily.
Good news from Germany! Recently, the introduction of more and more surveillance laws and initiatives to limit civil rights left me in a state of despair. But there is hope, at least temporarily: The Social Democrats in Saxony decided to veto the infamous BKA) -bill. The law included secret video surveillance in flats, installation of a so called `Bundestrojaner’, a spyware programme which would inspect the hard drive of suspects without their knowledge; as well as giving the federal police powers that are normally found only in secret services. Additionally doctors and other secret carriers can be subjected surveillance, and that under certain circumstances police can carry out surveillance without consulting a judge.
The bill has already passed the Bundestag, (German parliament) and will be put forward in the upper chamber, the Bundesrat, on November 28. However, it is very likely that it will veto the law. Up to very recently, it seemed that the bill would pass the Bundesrat with, with 35 votes pro and 34 contra1. But on Sunday, Saxony’s Social Democrats announced that they will not support the law, whereas the coalition government of Social Democrats and Christian Democrats gov will cast an abstent vote, which leads to 31 pro/38 contra the law.
The battle is far from over though. Once the law is rejected it will be forwarded to a arbitration commission that will redraft the law in order to resolve the conflict. I doubt the law will be completely rejected. Instead, I fear, there will be minor amendments leading to a compromise. But on the other hand—I hope that the Social Democrats will overcome their subordination to the Christian Democrats and will develop an independent and more sensible approach to inner security, that acknowledges civil rights.
But on the other hand, many similar laws were passed on Länder as well as federal level, such as the telecommunications act which will put EU-law into practice to retain all telephone connections for three months. With regard to this, my only hope is the federal court. But Britain on the other hand does not have such an institution, and its government is trying to do its best to prove George Orwell right.
This craze about giving up our liberties to gain marginal amounts of security has to come to an end. If you want to prevent deaths, then wasting resources and freedoms in the fight against low-probability threats such as international terrorism is not effective.
If you really want to do something, it’s probably much more sensible to avoid car accidents, but then—who gives a damn about that anyways:
“A total of 27,800 people were killed or seriously injured on Great Britain’s roads on weekdays during 2002, or an average of 107 people each day.”
1 Most of the votes against the bill are in fact abstentions due to coalition governments in the Länder where either Greens or Liberals would oppose the law. If a coalition government on Länder level cannot agree on an issue, the vote will be counted as abstention. However, to pass a bill in the upper chamber the bill has to receive a majority of the total votes in its favour.
Add a comment
Previous comments