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German Police Allowed To Use Its Own "Federal Trojan" (helpnetsecurity.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The German Interior Ministry has approved for investigative use a spying Trojan developed by the German Federal Criminal Police (a so-called "federal Trojan"). In fact, it could end up being used as early as this week. The police will have to get a court order to use the spyware, and prove that the suspect is involved in a crime threatening citizens' "life, limb or liberty". The malware has been developed in-house, and has been available since autumn 2015. It is supposed to be used only for so-called telecommunication surveillance at the source, i.e. to read emails, chats and wiretap phone calls made by the target via his or her computer or smartphone, and not to access files, steal passwords, or set up video or audio surveillance via the device.
And given the fact that lots of governments are spying on you already, your liberty is threatened anyway.
Can most people really complain about liberties? I just recently turned 30, I can see the liberties and right my parents had. I can see things were much better for them at my age. Now I look at what we currently have, and fear that they are infringing just a little to close. However at the same time I feel that we as a culture are starting to accept some of these abuses of power due to fear of "terrorism". So my real fear is for the future generations, what little rights will they have in 30 years from now? Will they even have any, will they just be completely desensitized to the situation and not even care about civil liberties anymore?
The enlightened European citizens would never allow this to happen in the EU, unlike the silly Americans. Oh wait, you mean it is already in place and no one asked the citizens their opinion? Carry on then.