German court nixes law allowing foreign telecom monitoring
BERLIN — Regulations allowing Germany's foreign intelligence
service to monitor the communications of reporters working abroad and others
violate the country's constitution and must be changed, Germany's highest court
ruled Tuesday, deciding in favor of journalists' rights group Reporters Without
Borders and others.
The complaint against the foreign intelligence service, the
BND, came after a law was changed allowing the agency, starting in 2017, to
collect and evaluate communications from foreigners abroad without having to
provide legal justification.
In the complaint, Reporters Without Borders, Germany's GFF
civil rights association, as well as several journalists and others argued that
blanket telecommunications surveillance meant that German reporters, and
others, working with colleagues in other countries could also be spied upon, in
violation of the constitution.
The Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe agreed, ruling
that the law must be redrawn by the end of 2021 at the latest, saying it was a
violation both of Germany's telecommunication privacy regulations and its
protections of the freedom of the press.
"The protection of fundamental rights against German
state authority is not limited to German territory," the court said in a
press release after the ruling.
The regulations were initially passed after Germany's
involvement in surveillance abroad was revealed in leaks from former U.S.
intelligence contractor Edward Snowdon.
But Christian Mihr, the director of Germany's chapter of
Reporters Without Borders, said "instead of setting clear barriers to
international intelligence, the federal government simply wanted to legalize
the general overseas surveillance."
He called the court ruling a "great success."
"The Federal Constitutional Court has, once again,
underlined the importance of the freedom of the press," he said in a
statement.
Snowden, who remains in exile in Russia, called the German
court's ruling "an important step into the right direction."
In a statement issued via the Berlin-based European Center
for Constitutional and Human Rights, Snowden said he hoped the decision would
set an example to other states and lead to the development of international
standards banning systems of mass surveillance.
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