State Trojans: In law and order

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Internal security from the perspective of the SPD - Otto Schily 20 years ago

Photo: SVEN KAESTNER / AP

Shortly before the end of the legislative period, the grand coalition once again documented how much it lacks an internal corrective based on civil rights.

How congruent are the views on the subject of internal security within the Federal Government and the government factions in the Bundestag.

The already long list of jointly agreed surveillance laws was extended again on Thursday: The GroKo allows the federal police and the 19 intelligence services to use so-called state Trojans, even before the Federal Constitutional Court has decided whether and under what conditions this state hacking with the Basic Law is compatible.

But that argument didn't count, and neither did the many other concerns of experts, the tech industry, and civil society. The danger to general IT security, because weak points are aggressively exploited instead of reported and closed; the loss of trust in the digital communication service providers who, if only in part, are being turned into deputies; the endangerment of source protection for journalists: All of this is actually a majority in the parliamentary groups of the Union and the SPD.

At the last second, the Jusos tried to make another appeal to persuade the SPD MPs to reject the amendments to the law.

Their first key message was: Don't do the Union this favor if you don't get anything in return.

And the second: Please consider that with your approval you would finally make it impossible for us to win young and left-wing voters for the SPD.

Both messages may have their real core.

At the same time, however, the Juso initiative, which was ultimately also futile, reveals that even the progressive sections of the SPD no longer have any hope of using arguments to dissuade the parliamentary group from the "law and order" step with the Union.

Right, two, three, four - this is how the SPD marches in the federal election campaign.