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German court censors Böhmermanns Erdogan poem

By on May 17, 2016 in affairs, Censorship, Civil liberties, Democracy, Freedom of Speech, Germany

A German court, Landgericht Hamburg, has decided that tv presenter Jan Böhmermann can not repeat parts of his infamous poem about Turkish President Erdogan.

The court finds passages in the text abusive and defamatory. Frankfurter Allgemeine reports that refusal to follow this ruling can lead to an administrative fine of up to 250,000 euros or administrative detention of up to six months.

Böhmermann now has the possibility to appeal against the verdict.

However, this is not the main trial. The Section 103 case will be tried by the Mainz Criminal Court at a later point.

Turkish President Erdogan has also applied for an injunction against Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner. This following Springers support for Böhmermann. The injunction is to be tried by the Cologne Landgericht. But this court has already indicated that it will not recognize the case. This can, in turn, be appealed against by Erdogan’s lawyers.

This is a can of worms.

The entire case is troublesome from a freedom of speech perspective. Especially as it also concerns freedom of the press and artistic expressions. And it gets outright awkward and absurd when German courts are deconstructing Böhmermann’s poem to decide what parts should be considered as acceptable humor and what parts should not.

There were, at one point, hopes that the German legal system would simply throw out President Erdogan’s complaints and make a firm stand for free speech. But now it seems as if the case will take a different turn.

What makes the case even worse is the fact that the German government allowed President Erdogan’s complaints on political grounds. Germany simply needs Turkey to stem the flow of refugees from Syria (and other countries). So much so that the government is prepared to put free speech on the line.

This will be a defining moment for German democracy.

/ HAX

• Gericht verbietet Teile von Böhmermanns „Schmähgedicht“ »
• Erdogan geht auch gegen Springer-Chef Döpfner vor »

Update:
• BBC: German court rules against comic Boehmermann over Erdogan poem »

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Internets imprisoned and fallen

By on January 3, 2016 in affairs, Assange, Barret Brown, Democracy, Intelligence, Manning, NSA & Snowden, Rule of law, Wikileaks

I feel that I ought to pay tribute to Ian Murdock, father of Linux Debian, former Sun VP and Linux Foundation CTO. And I do, by linking to this piece at ArsTechnica, painting a much better picture than I ever could:

Ian Murdock, father of Debian, dead at 42 — Former Sun VP and Linux Foundation CTO died under suspicious circumstances »

As this, according to Murdock’s tweets appears to be a suicide and me not knowing anything much about the circumstances, my first thought was to leave it there. But the Internet led me on. Apparently there had been some confrontation with the police. (Murdock’s tweets ») And that is a red flag.

Back to Ars Technica:

On Monday at 2:13pm Eastern Time, Murdock apparently posted that he was going to kill himself:

» I’m committing suicide tonight…do not intervene as I have many stories to tell and do not want them to die with me #debian #runnerkrysty67 «

Also on Monday, Murdock wrote a string of posts that indicate he had a confrontation with police. Inquiries to the San Francisco Police Department by Ars went unanswered. Update: Public records indicate Murdock was arrested in San Francisco on December 27 and released on bail, but no details were available on the charges.

Of course, I know nothing about the circumstances. And I shouldn’t speculate. But the story of Aaron Swartz falls into one’s mind. He was a champion for a free and open internet, who actually managed to accomplish things and who stopped harmful political bills. He was prosecuted in a very strange federal case of possible copyright infringements and faced $1 million in fines and 35 years in prison. He declined a plea bargain and shortly after that he killed himself. (Also see the documentary: The Internet’s Own Boy The Story of Aaron Swartz ») There are some disturbing similarities with the Murdock case.

But it might just be similarities. And people do fall over the edge sometimes. But standing eye to eye with the judicial system and the police definitely can push someone over that edge. Trust me on that one.

Do you remember Michael Hastings, the successful investigative reporter? His car mysteriously ran into a palm tree and exploded in LA, shortly after he had told his associates that he was on to something big, once again. And his targets were usually the darker side of government and its functionaries.

Journalist and internet activist Barrett Brown clearly was pushed into a corner by the authorities, resulting in him currently spending 63 months in federal prison. It all happened when he was working on ProjectPM, investigating outsourcing of government intelligence operations to private contractors — and the inner workings of the cyber-military-industrial complex.

Chelsea Manning is spending 35 years in prison, basically for having exposed the truth about the government’s politics and actions to the public. This imprisonment is right out offensive.

Wikileaks editor in chief Julian Assange is confined to the Embassy of Ecuador in London, where his freedom of action is quite limited. This following a European Arrest Warrant after some rather vague accusations about sexual misconduct in Sweden. And NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is stuck in Russia, after the US retracted his passport. In both these cases it’s about people who have made information public — that the people in a democracy ought to have the right to know about anyhow.

There is a disturbing pattern emerging. If you push the envelope too far, bad things happen to you.

No, I am not a conspiracy theorist. Clearly Brown, Manning, Assange and Snowden had it coming. Murdock and Swartz obviously were under harrowing pressure. And there is no hard evidence of foul play in the Hastings case, just strange circumstances. But still, it’s all very troublesome and sad.

Are journalists, internet activists and whistleblowers the imprisoned and fallen political dissidents of our time? Is the truth and a free flow of information really that dangerous to the Establishment? If so, what kind of a society is this?

Our thoughts are with Ian Murdock’s family and friends.

/ HAX

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Framing Julian Assange

By on August 10, 2015 in affairs, Assange, Sweden, UK, US, Wikileaks

Wikileaks editor in chief Julian Assange is still a refugee at the Ecuadorean embassy in London.

Assange is suspected of sexual misconduct in Sweden. He has yet not been charged with anything. His case has already been dismissed by one Swedish prosecutor — but reopened by another, issuing an European Arrest Warrant to have him interrogated in Sweden. British courts allowed extradition to Sweden, despite Assange fearing that the Swedes might hand him over to the US. (Where a grand jury apparently is preparing a case against him.) Then, Assange jumped bail and was granted political asylum at the Ecuadorean embassy.

I will leave the substance of the Swedish case aside in this blog post. But I can tell you, it’s very thin.

Now the statutory time period for charging Assange with the lesser of the alleged crimes in Sweden is running out. (Other parts of the investigation will remain open for another five years.)

For years Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny has refused to conduct an interview with Assange i London. (Even before his escape to the Ecuadorean embassy.) She claimed that it cannot be done, that Swedish prosecutors cannot do that. That was a plain lie. (Hell, even I have been interviewed by a Swedish prosecutor abroad.) Swedish courts and even the British government have urged Ms Ny to have this done and over with.

Finally, Friday June 12:th this summer, Swedish authorities sent a letter to the Ecuadorean embassy in Sweden — asking for an interview with Assange in London only five days later (including the weekend). To no surprise the embassy in Stockholm, the Ecuadorean government and their embassy in London did not manage to coordinate this in just a few days. So there was no interview.

Now the investigation of the suspected crimes of a lesser degree will be closed. Julian Assange will still be suspected of wrongdoing, in the public view. But not able to clear his name (in these parts) anymore. At the same time the investigations of the remaining suspected crimes will stay open, the European Arrest Warrant will still be in force and Assange will still be stuck at the embassy in London.

A perfect way for various governments to keep an inconvenient journalist in limbo, if you ask me.

/ HAX

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Is the German government on Germanys side?

By on July 4, 2015 in affairs, BND, Democracy, Germany, Intelligence, NSA & Snowden, Rule of law, US

The news that the American spy organisation NSA has targeted the major German magazine Der Spiegel are serious and disturbing. But it is just the tip of the iceberg.

As it turns out the German government knew. But it did nothing to stop it. It didn’t report the issue to relevant democratic oversight bodies. And even worse — it lied about the matter to the German parliament.

To make things even worse it’s still unclear if the NSA obtained it’s information by spying on the newspaper, the Chancellors Office or the entire German political apparatus.

Der Spiegel writes…

“It remains unclear just who US intelligence originally had in its scopes. The question is also unlikely to be answered by the parliamentary investigative committee, because the US appears to have withheld this information from the Chancellery. Theoretically, at least, there are three possibilities: The Chancellery — at least in the person of Hans Josef Vorbeck. SPIEGEL journalists. Or blanket surveillance of Berlin’s entire government quarter. The NSA is capable of any of the three options. And it is important to note that each of these acts would represent a violation of German law.”

In Germany the constitution and the freedom of the press is taken seriously. What has been going on is in direct conflict with principles clearly laid out by the German Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe.

“If it is true that a foreign intelligence agency spied on journalists as they conducted their reporting in Germany and then informed the Chancellery about it, then these actions would place a huge question mark over the notion of a free press in this country. Germany’s highest court ruled in 2007 that press freedom is a “constituent part of a free and democratic order.” The court held that reporting can no longer be considered free if it entails a risk that journalists will be spied on during their reporting and that the federal government will be informed of the people they speak to.”

This affair is now snowballing, putting the Chancellors Office under serious pressure. In a special editors note, Der Spiegel notes…

“The fact that the press no longer has a special protected status and can be spied upon in the same way as corporations, associations or government ministries, lends a new quality to the spying scandal. That the press appears to have been betrayed by its own government is outrageous. For this reason, SPIEGEL decided this week to file a complaint with the Federal Prosecutor’s Office on suspicion of intelligence agency activity.”

It seems that the German intelligence services and the Chancellors Office have neglected both democratic and judicial requirements to keep good working relations with the Americans.

This leading up to a situation where leading German officials appears to have sided with US intelligence services — rather than with the German constitution, German law, the German parliament and the German people.

Read more: An Attack on Press Freedom: SPIEGEL Targeted by US Intelligence »

/ HAX

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Wikileaks exposes: Bundestag Inquiry into BND and NSA

By on May 15, 2015 in affairs, BND, Germany, NSA & Snowden, US

From Wikileaks…

“Today, Tuesday 12 May, WikiLeaks releases ten months of transcripts from the ongoing German Parliamentary inquiry into NSA activities in Germany. Despite many sessions being technically public, in practice public understanding has been compromised as transcripts have been withheld, recording devices banned and reporters intrusively watched by police.”

“WikiLeaks is releasing 1,380 pages of transcripts from the unclassified sessions, covering 34 witnesses – including 13 concealed witnesses from Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND). The transcripts cover from the start of the inquiry in May 2014 through to February 2015.” (…)

“One of the biggest scandals to emerge from the inquiry so far is the recent “selector” spy target list scandal where a BND official revealed that the agency was expected to spy on thousands of targets at the instruction of the NSA. These targets included members of the French government and European industry. This put into question Germany’s suitability in taking a leadership role in the European Union. It also showed that international co-operation on mass surveillance, which has been marketed in public as a counter-terrorism measure, is in practice also used by the United States for the purposes of industrial espionage and geopolitical advantage vis-a-vis members of the European Union.”

Wikileaks »

Glyn Moody at TechDirt: Wikileaks Releases Transcript Of German Inquiry Into Growing NSA Spy Scandal »

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German BND-NSA scandal: Government only admits to what it can no longer deny

By on May 4, 2015 in affairs, BND, Germany, NSA & Snowden, US

The German BND-NSA scandal seems to snowball. Focus is now shifting towards Chancellor Angela Merkel.

German Intelligence, BND — acting directly under the Chancellor Office — is accused for spying on European political and economical targets on behalf of the American surveillance authority NSA. Now the question is: What did Merkel know?

Chancellor Merkel is known for taking moral high ground when it turned out that she had been under NSA surveillance, stating that “you do not spy on your friends”. And now it turns out Germany did. (If we assume that e.g. France and the EU are Germanys “friends”.)

On top of all this, there are the (allegedly 12,000) cases where Germany did not assist the NSA. All documentation about these cases seems to have been deleted.

It seems that the German government and/or the Chancellor Office might have been missleasing the Reichstag (parliament). If so, the question is if the Reichstag can trust the highest political leaders of the country. This is a very serious question of confidence.

From another perspective, the BND/NSA affair underpins the notion that whatever politicians tell the people — the transatlantic intelligence cooperation continues unmoved.

The Local: Pressure on Merkel rises over BND affair »

/ HAX

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