Law enforcement officers should be allowed to test their expanded powers for telecommunications surveillance (TKU), including the use of state Trojans for a longer period of time when investigating residential burglaries. On Thursday, the Bundestag extended the clause, which was initially limited to December 12, by five years to January 1, 2030. The legal committee had included the amendment to the law in another, completely unrelated federal government bill to modernize criminal proceedings at the request of the former Coalition factions. It is about reforming agricultural regulations, which would set new prices for farms in the four federal states.
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The Bundestag has thus passed the first legislative resolution since last week’s traffic light failure and announced new elections for February 23, 2025. For drilled draft In addition to the SPD, the Greens and the FDP, the CDU/CSU parliamentary group and the BSW group also voted. AFD and leftist groups were against it. Representatives of the CDU and CSU had previously stressed that they did not want to be defenders of broken traffic lights and only wanted to support certain issues that were important to them based on a list of priorities.
The evaluation has hardly been meaningful so far
In 2019, the Bundestag for the first time introduced a provision in the Code of Criminal Procedure (STPO), according to which a TKU can be ordered in the case of a burglary in a permanently used private apartment. MPs have already enriched it Detailed list of offenses under Section 100A STPO About this fact. Based on this list, the police have been able to carry out TKÜ, a source in many other cases including everyday crime since 2017. Its purpose is to use a state trojan to directly access ongoing communications on a suspect’s device before it is encrypted or after it is decrypted.
Since such a measure is a violation of fundamental rights, the legislature initially limited the right to search for thieves to five years. In early October, the federal government suggested that the traffic light group expand the authority with “formulation assistance”. Reason: Due to the Corona pandemic, the previous assessment of skills was limited to 2022, when many people would have worked from home. Only a review under “normal circumstances”, which may also be based on a longer assessment and evaluation period, allows a comprehensive assessment of the efficiency and effectiveness of the measure in practice. Only after this should a decision be taken about abolishing or expanding the standard.
SPD is open to permanent authority
During the debate, Carsten Müller (CDU) recalled that “it was the Union” that had submitted a motion a year earlier. At that time there was no consensus on traffic lights. In less than five percent of residential burglary cases, TKÜ is ordered and this results in extremely high investigation rates. At the same time, the Christian Democrats announced that their parliamentary group would “impose permanent tenure as one of the first measures” in a possible change of government because they wanted to give legal certainty to the security authorities.
The CDU/CSU parliamentary group recently brought another request Which was not discussed in the plenary session on Thursday. Thus the conservatives are pushing for expanded investigative powers to be provided to the Source TKÜ for crimes in general and serious crimes in particular. Conservatives are also calling for the introduction of data retention for IP addresses. The federal government has actually agreed to an alternative quick-freeze approach to freezing user traces. But Federal Interior Minister Nancy Feser (SPD) also continues to advocate saving IP addresses in reserve.
Sebastian Fiedler (SPD) emphasized that, given the available data, his group could even envisage abandoning the assessment and the deadline. TKÜ is a promising means of enlightenment. The low number of cases is not a surprise because staff “are not present to conduct extensive telephone monitoring.” The legal complexity of police measures has also increased significantly. Criminal proceedings should be made more efficient and effective in the future, “so that there should be no restrictions on thinking.” Fiedler stressed: “We will continue to advocate for IP address storage.”
Deep encroachment on fundamental rights
Philipp Hartwig (FDP) spoke of the deep intrusion into telecommunications privacy at TKU: Given the increasing professionalism of criminals, the extension is the right decision. The evaluation so far has hardly been meaningful or useful. This agreement recognizes the rule of law and the problems of victims of relevant crimes.
Considering the big announcements after the traffic lights were closed, she hoped that “eventually something will come that will really help the citizens,” explained Clara Bunger (left). Instead, “agricultural regulations have been established and contain hidden encroachments on fundamental rights,” which bring state trojans onto citizens’ devices. That doesn’t work at all. Bernd Schettner (AfD) also complained that almost all applications had been removed from the agenda.
(mho)
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