Erstellt am: 13. 5. 2015 - 10:37 Uhr

Today's Webtip: Neues Staatsschutzgesetz

New spy agency or just better protection against foreign spies and terrorists? Read the assessments online.

Have you read anything about the Polizeiliches Staatsschutzgesetz; Sicherheitspolizeigesetz, Änderung (110/ME)?

It started showing up in my news feed about a month ago when some net activists were concerned it is basically a way to bring back the Vorratsdatenspeicherung. Politicians are saying it is all about the terrorists.

I haven't seen much mainstream coverage of the proposed changes yet, other than a copypaste APA story, and an article in diepresse.com that claims it is meant to protect us form foreign spies.

That doesn't really mean anything, since my Google-fu with Austrian laws is pretty weak.

Thomas Lohninger of the Initiative für Netzfreiheit has been very critical of the proposed law and despite claims made in the APA story that the law doesn't create a new Geheimdienst, Netzpolitik.org recently posted 10 points about the law that leads off with that very claim.

The proposal has been in assessment for the last month, and yesterday a whole bunch of reactions from various organisations were made available online. I have to admit that I struggle with legal German, so I am only slowly working my way through the assessments, but I would suggest anyone interested in things like privacy, surveillance, and legal oversight take the time to do it themselves.

Polizeiliches Staatsschutzgesetz; Sicherheitspolizeigesetz, Änderung 110/ME