Bürgerrechte & Polizei/CILIP 71 (1/2002)

Summaries

Cybercrime - the future of electronic surveillance

by Albrecht Funk

The much-recited mantra that cybercrime is an abuse of the internet is misleading. Behind the moralising crusades against child pornography and "Islamic terrorism" are interest coalitions of private and public actors, who are trying to create the future order of public rights and public wrongs in their image and at any cost.

Surveillance of telecommunications - who is allowed to do what and when?

by Norbert Pütter

In Germany, the police, customs and the three security services have legal powers to intercept telecommunications. An increasing role is now being played by law enforcement powers to collect and analyse traffic data.

Surveillance of mobile phone communication

by Björn Gehrke

Compared with the traditional mainline telephones, the mobile telephone allows for a whole new plethora of surveillance possibilities - from the collection of traffic data over the direction bearing and position finding via GPS to the use of the IMSI-Catcher. Legislation and court decisions have legitimised these new instruments of surveillance.

"Internet-patrols" of police and security services

by Martina Kant

In 1995, the Bavarian police force began searching the internet for criminal content, without any concrete grounds for suspicion. By now, the Federal Crime Police Authority and the security services surf the internet for illegal and unconstitutional contents as well. This article describes the investigation methods and raises questions about the legal basis for internet surveillance.

"Vorsprung durch Technik"

by Erich Moechel and Nick Lüthi

Since 1992, EU Law Enforcement Agencies as well as the FBI have formulated and presented their International User Requirements. Parallel to this, a working group of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute has developed interfaces, which basically allow for the automatic surveillance of all telecommunication networks.

What will happen with the traffic data?

by Tony Bunyan

According to an EU Directive from 1997, traffic data resulting from any telecommunication has to be deleted as soon as it is not needed for billing purposes anymore. In revising this Directive, the EU Council want to abolish this principle. Providers are now supposed to retain this data and grant law enforcement agencies access to it. So far, the European Parliament is resisting this move.

Echelon and the failure of the European Parliament

by Heiner Busch

The report by the EP Echelon Committee has confirmed the existence of the surveillance apparatus. But its conclusions are disastrously unpolitical. They hold that security services' signals intelligence activities (SIGINT activities) are covered by the European Convention of Human Rights, if they have a legal basis and are controlled by Parliament. The EP Echelon Committee supports the closer co-operation between security services of EU Member States.

The Cybercrime Convention

by Sönke Hilbrans

On 23 November 2001, the Council of Europe member states as well as Canada, the US, Japan and South Africa, signed the Cybercrime Convention in Budapest. Amongst other things, the Convention aims at creating international minimum standards for the collection of traffic data. At the normative level, the Convention further erodes the protection of basic rights and human rights.

About torture

by Fredrik Roggan

On 9 December 2001, a 19-year-old Cameroonian died as a consequence of the forceful use of emetic by the police. The Hamburg police force is not the only one that regularly enforces the use of such highly dangerous substances, with the justification of the suspicion of drug smuggling in the body or of a person having swallowed them when police arrives.

Terrorism Act in force

by Norbert Pütter

The Parliament only needed six weeks to put the "Law on the Fight against International Terrorism" into force. Those who profit from the law are particularly the security services, but also the Federal Crime Police Authority. The rights of refugees and migrants are, yet again, curtailed.

Computerised profile searches

by Heiner Busch

The computerised profile searches for possible members of the "al Q'aida terror network", which started at the end of September last year, in particular targeted the foreign population. Courts in two different Länder have now declared the police operation illegal. Although masses of personal data of non-suspects have been collected during these computerised profile searches, it was clear from the start that the operation could not be expected to produce "successes".

The poor constitution

by Wolf-Dieter Narr

In January, the press reported that five NPD members, who were supposed to give evidence in front of the Federal Constitutional Court for the NPD trial, which considers the Government's application for a ban of the right-wing party, were informants of Germany's internal security service, the Verfassungsschutz. The court however, had not been informed about this fact. The only sensible conclusion to this case would be the abolition of the internal security service.