Krauts Weaken Constitutional Privacy

[Eric Cordian <emc@wire.insync.net>]

BONN, Germany (AP) -- Germany reduced constitutional guarantees of privacy
Friday to fight organized crime, ceding historical concerns over past
dictatorships to present-day realities. 
 
By a one-vote margin, parliament's upper house approved changes to the
constitution necessary for eventual passage of a law allowing electronic
surveillance in private households. 
 
Before approving the measure, however, the opposition Social Democrats won
a promise that a parliamentary committee would re-examine the proposed law
to include protection for some groups -- including journalists, doctors
and some lawyers. 
 
The proposed law has raised warnings about reviving the police state
tactics of the Nazi regime and former communist East Germany. Mostly,
though, critics are worried about breaching confidentiality essential to
some professions, such as doctors. 
 
Outside of government, journalists and doctors have been the most vocal
critics of the draft law, which currently shields conversations between
suspects and clergy, parliamentarians, and defense lawyers. 
 
Journalists view the proposed law as an attack on press freedom. 
 
``It's not about privilege for journalists,'' the chairman of the German
Journalist Association, Hermann Meyn, wrote in an open letter to
parliament. ``It's about protection of news room secrets, essential press
freedoms.''
 
The vote Friday weakened the constitutional guarantee of the sanctity of
ones home by defining situations when police could bug homes:  during
investigation of serious crimes -- such as murder, kidnapping, extortion,
arms and drug trafficking -- with the approval of three judges. 
 
The changes necessary for the law also would allow electronic
eavesdropping on suspects after a crime has been committed -- not just to
prevent crime -- and for the first time allows information from bugging
devices to be entered as evidence. 
 
Organized crime has risen sharply in Europe since the collapse of
communist regimes in Russia and Eastern Europe, which loosened previously
closed borders. Drug trafficking, car theft and smuggling of cigarettes,
illegal immigrants and even nuclear material has increased. 
 
The law must be passed by both houses of parliament. 

-- 
Eric Michael Cordian 0+
O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division
"Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"