Germany Seeks Expansion of Computer Spying

gooman writes "The LA Times reports on a proposal to secretly scan suspects' hard drives which is causing unease in a nation with a history of official surveillance. Along with several other European countries, Germany is seeking authority to plant secret Trojan viruses into the computers of suspects that could scan files, photos, diagrams and voice recordings, record every keystroke typed and possibly even turn on webcams and microphones in an attempt to gain knowledge of attacks before they happen."

Comments

Re:When will Europe learn?

[NorQue]

My point is, concealing the facts generally implies that there is some fear of the popular reaction.

Remember the reaction on warrantless wiretapping in the USA? Well, me neither, as there was no noteworthy public reaction. At least here in Germany there are public protests against these laws. Latest one got 15000 attendants. And you see the picture of the politician behind the "Bundestrojaner", Wolfgang Schäuble, together with the signature "STASI 2.0" in a lot of places nowadays. http://erklaerung.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/

Re:Schizophrenic Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

This whole idea is mainly pushed by the interior minister Wolfgang Schäuble, who probably has about as much clue about computers as your Ted "series-of-tubes" Stevens.
Linux? Never heard of it.
Don't expect that those proposals even remotely make sense. If somebody where to tell them it won't work, they would answer "then make it work".

Besides, that guy is really paranoid, perhaps because he was shot years ago. He's definitely on the "or the terrorists win" train.

Re:Europe beating USA in the big brother arms race

[zeromorph]

That's why the campaign against this trojan and the telecommunications data retention law is called Stasi 2.0

(The man on the logo is the Minister of the Interior Schäuble.)