The Bundesverfassungsgericht [Federal Constitutional Court] is a federal court for jurisdiction about matters that concern the German constitution. (We call our constitution “Grundgesetz” or basic law). It should be comparable to the US supreme court.

In one of those historical coincidences, just a few days after I had written the post about our government trying to reduce personal rights, the Bundesverfassungsgericht judged a state law unconstitutional. This said state law (of North-rhine Westphalia) allowed the police to spy on personal computers of literally everybody via internet.

According to the Bundesverfassungsgericht, the human rights of article 10 (Brief- Post- und Fernmeldegeheimnis [letters, mail and telephone are protected]) 13 (Unverletzlichkeit der Wohnung [integrity of one's home is granted]) and the “Recht auf informationelle Selbstbestimmung” [right to decide about what personal information one wants to share] are, due to the widespread use of PCs and internet, not sufficient anymore and so the court created the new human right of “Gewährleistung der Vertraulichkeit und Integrität informationstechnischer Systeme” [the secrecy and integrity of IT systems is granted]. Furthermore, the court decided that only a judge could grant the police the right to violate this human right, and this only if “überragende Rechtsgüter” [supreme objects of legal protection], as life and liberty of a person or the integrity of the country, are threatened.

So, basically, the state and the police can try to obtain data from PCs, but only, if a judge allows them to on the grounds that one of the exceptions to the human right as defined by the Bundesverfassungsgericht applies. Very likely, in the planning of terroristic attacks the exceptions apply.

I think it was a good day for the human rights in Germany the day before yesterday. And I had a hell lot of trouble translating these terms of jurisdiction. Again, credits for these go to leo.org. Initially I wanted to provide the translations as footnotes but that would have been even worse, I found, than giving them directly in the text.

Well, thank you for reading. May be I’ll update you sometime about the things that I’m doing recently.