Defender of wiretapping activists: "violation of freedom of " BR24
At the end of May, the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Munich had rooms belonging to the “Last Generation” group searched. The charge was “suspected formation of a criminal organization”.
As the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” now reports, citing internal documents, the telephone connections of the “last generation” would have been tapped at the instigation of the Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office, including the landline number of the press office. They were also allowed to collect cell phone locations, listen to activists’ mailboxes and read their emails “in real time”.
According to SZ, the instructions for the spying came from the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Munich. A BR request has so far gone unanswered. There are major legal hurdles to overhearing conversations with journalists.
Journalists are bound by professional secrecy
Whether lawyers, deputies, journalists or clergy – they all have one thing in common: according to the Code of Criminal Procedure, they are among the so-called subjects of professional secrecy. This means that journalists are fundamentally protected when acquiring confidential information. However, measures of wiretapping are possible, but only if it concerns a – quote – “crime of considerable importance”. Article 160-A of the Code of Criminal Procedure is not worded more specifically, so the expression “significant importance” is flexible.
When bugging press offices, journalists are also bugged
The special protection formulated in the Code of Criminal Procedure concerns measures against media representatives – such as tapping their phones. But an organization’s press office must also enjoy this protection under the press law.
Because the Criminal Procedure Code speaks of investigative measures that would affect people with professional secrets, such as journalists. As press offices are normally called by representatives of the media, they would also be affected by wiretapping measures – the “Last Generation”, for example, would often inform journalists of the respective location shortly before actions. Since in many cases journalists have had telephone conversations with the press office, it should form part of the judge’s assessment whether or not wiretapping is allowed.
Media lawyer doubts legality
In the case of the “Last Generation”, Renate Schmid, a press office lawyer, has doubts about the legality of the wiretapping operation. “Maybe they didn’t weigh anything, and they weighed themselves, so, in my opinion, the wrong weighing was done here”, she said in an interview with BR. After all, freedom of the press is anchored in the Basic Law as a valuable asset. Journalists also have the right, enshrined in the Code of Criminal Procedure, to refuse to testify in court. That is why she did not imagine that freedom of the press would have to be given up in the current case: “For me it is a clear interference with freedom of the press”, says Schmid.
BJV president sees invasion of press freedom
The state president of the Bavarian Association of Journalists (BJV), Harald Stocker, also expressed doubts about the legality of the wiretapping operation in an interview with Bayerischer Rundfunk. To his knowledge, there have been two Superior Regional Court decisions to wiretap the phone number, Stocker said. The first was to consider whether the protection of the public and the state was so important that journalists could be bugged. “From our point of view, that was not the case,” Stocker judges. The second time, however, this consideration did not occur.
Furthermore, the report of the first wiretapping had already shown that this phone number was not productive. “It really proves that the consideration can never shift towards listening to journalists”, sums up Stocker. “In this case, it was a very clear violation of freedom of the press. We have doubts about the legality of the first tapping operation – as I said, it can always happen that journalists’ conversations are also recorded, which then simply have to be erased and they don’t are not allowed in anyone. Document the case and include it in the records. In this context, Stocker also highlighted the fact that professional secrecy was required and that journalism was under special protection under the Basic Law.
According to Stocker, there is a clear attack on freedom of the press when journalists directly tap their own phone numbers. Listening to other phone numbers is a question of weighing the situation, but if a number that was placed on the Internet as a contact for journalists is heard, as was the case here, this is also an attack on freedom of the press: “We have to ask ourselves to what extent is freedom of the press protected, because who wants to care about it, other than journalists?” Interviews with journalists must not be recorded and under no circumstances must they be documented.
According to Stocker, the consequences for journalism are enormous. “Journalism is an important infrastructure in a democracy. It should be clear to everyone: if the state taps our phone calls with the idea that people can be more open to journalists, we will no longer be able to do our job.” Because many whistleblowers and whistleblowers would withhold their information from journalists if they feared being monitored, explains Stocker.
Last gen: “disturbing” action
According to the SZ report, the “Last Generation” was buggy unnoticed for months from October 2022. The public prosecutor was aware that it was mainly journalists who called the press office.
“Last Generation” spokeswoman Carla Hinrichs, whose private cell phone was allegedly tapped, described the tapping operation as “disturbing”. Activist Imke Bludszuweit, who may also have been affected, called it “absurd and frightening that artillery is being used here to suppress peaceful protests”.
The last generation went on to say that it was unclear whether surveillance was still ongoing. Regardless of the action taken against the movement, the group “will take its protest to the streets across Germany next week”.
Spokesperson for Bundestag Greens: “Serious incident”
The Greens’ Bundestag spokesman for media policy, Erhard Grundl, spoke of a “serious incident” if there was an undisputed suspicion that the police and judiciary had ordered wiretapping campaigns against journalists. That would go against freedom of the press. The Bavarian Minister of Justice and the Bavarian Minister of the Interior would therefore have to explain themselves, Grundl said.
Police unions: ‘Flawless’ activist wiretapping
The German Police Union (DPolG), on the other hand, called the latest generation of telephone surveillance “legally impeccable”. “No one is above the law, not even the last generation,” said the federal president of the German police union, Rainer Wendt. “Criminal procedural measures are based on suspicion and the seriousness of the crimes suspects are accused of. Sympathy for supposedly good targets should not play a role.” The wiretapping measures were “approved by independent judges” and could “be checked at any time, also retrospectively and for usability”.
With information from AFP
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