Bayern verdict with great effect?

Buschmann announces “quickly” less surveillance

Created: 04/27/2022, 11:13 am

By: Linus Prien

The Federal Constitutional Court has found parts of the Bavarian Constitutional Protection Act to be unconstitutional.

However, the court sees potential for improvement.

Berlin - The Bavarian law for the protection of the constitution was declared partially unconstitutional.

Several regulations must be improved, the Federal Constitutional Court decided on Tuesday in Karlsruhe.

However, they can continue to apply to a limited extent until the end of July next year.

The legislature has the opportunity to design the legal basis for the work of the Bavarian secret service in accordance with the constitution, said Court President Stephan Harbarth.

Bavaria would like to implement stronger monitoring competencies

The 2016 amendment to the law gives the Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution far-reaching powers, such as covert online searches of computers with so-called state trojans, locating cell phones, using informants for surveillance and – under certain conditions – acoustic and visual surveillance of private homes.

It also regulates the transmission and processing of information.

These regulations are incompatible with the constitution in their current form, said judge Gabriele Britz, who acted as rapporteur in the case.

But the legislature can make improvements.

Access to data from data retention has been nullified

On the other hand, the regulation on access to data obtained from data retention was declared void.

Data retention in Germany is currently on hold anyway, pending a decision by the European Court of Justice.

The traffic light government wants to limit them.

The Bavarian law was already controversial when it was introduced and was passed with only the votes of the CSU in the Munich state parliament.

Bavaria went further than other countries.

The Bavarian Minister of the Interior, Joachim Herrmann, defended the amendment at the December 2021 negotiation, citing, among other things, the need for better data exchange between the security authorities, which should prevent attacks like the one on the Christmas market on Berlin's Breitscheidplatz in 2016.

Traffic light coalition wants to raise hurdles for online surveillance

After the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court on state spying in Bavaria, Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann is pushing for a speedy restriction of the powers of the federal security authorities as well.

"The decision gives us a clear tailwind for the program of our coalition agreement to strengthen civil rights," said the FDP politician on Tuesday.

The SPD, FDP and Greens had agreed, among other things, to increase the hurdles for monitoring encrypted communication - the so-called source TKÜ - to the level that, according to the specifications of the Federal Constitutional Court, already applies to online searches, i.e. secret access to the hard drive of a computer, apply.

The coalition will also legally regulate the requirements for the use of informants by the security authorities and, while maintaining the necessary anonymity, will also create an opportunity for parliamentary verification.

"I am emphatically committed to implementing the goals of the coalition agreement quickly in order to bring freedom and security into a new balance based on fundamental rights," stressed Buschmann.