EU Angry At Germany For Refusing To Spy On Its Citizens

In 2006 the European Union decided it had enough of the US being the only country out to destroy privacy completely and passed a resolution requiring all its member countries to pass laws requiring that their ISPs retain every email, phone conversation, and related piece of data — in other words anything people might use to communicate — for all eternity. Because that’s awesome and not a human rights violation waiting to happen.

And Germany passed a law that complied, only for it to be summarily rejected by German courts, not surprising considering that after the one-two punch of the Gestapo and the Stasi, Germans are understandably less than excited about granting the government unlimited authority to spy on them.

In an e-mail, Malte Spitz, a member of the German Green Party executive committee, [wrote]:

“Instead of bringing Germany to court, the EU Commission would do better, to start withdrawing the data retention directive and not postpone again and again the evaluation of the directive.”

Considering that even the EU’s data protection department thinks the retention law is garbage, maybe some civil rights are in order, hmmm?

(Image via Cristiano Betta on Flickr)

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