German Data Retention Law Ruled Unconstitutional

mseeger writes "The German Federal Constitutional Court has ruled the country's current data retention law unconstitutional. All stored telephone and email communication data, previously kept for six months in case it was needed by law enforcement, now must be deleted as soon as possible. The court criticized the lack of data security and insufficient restrictions for access to the data. The president of the court said continuing to retain the data would 'cause a diffusely threatening feeling of being under observation that can diminish an unprejudiced perception of one's basic rights in many areas.' While it doesn't disallow data retention in general, the imposed restriction demands a complete reworking of the law." An anonymous reader contributes the Court's press release and more information on the ruling, both in German.

Comments

Re:Pyrrhic victory?

[Aqualung812]

It would be better to enact your proposed restrictions when a politician was accused of not handling in the voter's best interest by any citizen three times.

Sounds great! We'll need to ask all of the citizens if their interests have been taken care of well or not. Since what I consider taking care of me might be the opposite of what taken care of is for you, we'll need to go by majority. Also, since we can't spend the time and money to ask every day, how about ever 2-4 years we get together and vote on how well our politicians are doing? I wish there was a political system that did that!